down his life in that nature, having such a power over his own life, and to dispose of it at pleasure, as no mere man ever had; and so being God, as well as man, was able to work out the salvation of his people, which he undertook; the Father knew he was able to save them, and therefore laid help on him, and called him to this work; and he knew himself to be equal to it, and therefore engaged in it: and the holy Spirit is a Spirit of power and might, and so able to perform the part he took in this covenant. 5. As in all covenants, however the persons covenanting may be equal in other respects, yet in covenanting there is an inequality and subordination; especially in covenants, in which there is service and work to be done on one side, and a reward to be given in consideration of it on the other; of which nature is the covenant of grace and redemption; and though the contracting parties in it are equal in nature, perfections, and glory, yet in this covenant-relation they voluntarily entered into, there is by agreement and consent a subordination; hence the Father, the first Person and Party contracting, is called by his Son, his Lord and his God, a phrase always expressive of covenant-relation; see Psal. xvi. 2. and xxii. 1. and xl. 8. and xlv. 7. John xx. 17. and the Son, the second Persor and Party contracting is called by the Father his Servant; Thou art my servant, &c. Isai. xlix. 3. hence the Father is said to be greater than he, John xiv. 28. not merely on account of his human nature, about which there could be no difficulty in admitting it; but with respect to his covenant→ relation to him, and the office-capacity he has taken and sustains in it: and the Spirit, the third Person and contracting Party, he is said to be sent both by the Father and the Son, to perform that part which he undertook in it; and this oeconomy and dispensation of the covenant, thus settled in subordination among themselves by agreement and consent, is done with great propriety, beauty, and decency, suitable to their natural relations they bear to each other, as equal divine Persons; for who so proper to be the proposer of terms in the covenant, to direct and prescribe them, and to exercise a kind of authority, as he who is the first Person in order of nature, and that stands in the relation of a Father to the second person; and since here was work and service to be done, the salvation of the elect, and that in an inferior nature, in human nature, who so proper to engage in this service, and to assume this nature, and in it yield obedience to the will of God, than the second person, who stood in the relation of a Son to the first; and with what congruity is the third person, the holy Spirit, sent by both, to make application of the grace of both; who is said to be their Breath, and to proceed from both.-6. As in all covenants some advantages are proposed unto, and expected by all parties concerned, so in this; as God's end in all things, in nature, providence, and grace, it his own glory, so it is in this covenant, even the glory of Father, Son, and Spirit; which must be understood, not of any addition unto, or increase of their essential glory, but of the manifestation of it; otherwise, as Christ is represented saying to his Father, My goodness extendeth not to thee, thou art not the better for my suretyship-en

gagements in covenant, and the performance of them; thou hast no real profit and advantage thereby; no new accession of glory and happiness accrues to thee by it; but the real profit and advantage resulting from hence is, to the saints that are in the carth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight, Psal. xvi. 2, 3. As for the glory promised to Christ, and which he expected and pleaded on his finishing his work, John xvii. 4, 5. this was either the manifestation of the glory of his divine Person, hid in his state of humiliation; or his glory as Mediator, his kingdom and glory, as such appointed to him, and promised him, upon the performance of his engagements, Luke xxii. 29. 1 Pet. i. 21. Heb. ii. 9. of which more hereafter; and yet, even the benefit of this redounds to the advantage of God's elect, John xvii. 22, 24. it is their salvation and happiness that is the grand thing in view in these covenant-transactions; this is all my salvation, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. As the sum of the gospel, which is no other than a transcript of the covenant of grace, is the salvation of lost sinners by Christ; so the covenant, of which that is a copy, chiefly respects that, and that is the result of it: hence Christ, the Covenantee, has the name of Jesus, because he undertook to save, and came to save, and has saved his people from their sins, in consequence of his covenant-engagements.

OF THE PART WHICH THE FATHER TAKES

IN THE COVENANT.

THE several parts which each contracting Party take in this covenant, are next

to be considered.

The Father, the first person in the Trinity, takes the first place, and gives the lead in this covenant. All things are of God, that is, of God the Father; they are of him originally, they begin with him; all things in creation; he has made the world, and created all things by his Son; and so all things in the salvation of men, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ; he set on foot the council of peace, and so the covenant of peace, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself: that is, God the Father; he planned the reconciliation of men in council, and proposed it in covenant, and settled it with the other two persons; and he is not only the proposer, but the prescriber and enjoiner of things in the covenant; he both proposed the work to be done, and took upon him the authority, by agreement, to prescribe and enjoin it: hence we read of the injunctions, and commands laid on Chtist with respect to his discharge of his office, as the mediator of this covenant, John x. 18. and xii. 49. and xiv. 31. it was the Father that called Christ from the womb of eternity to be servant, and directed and enjoined his work and service, as appears from Isai. xlix. 1-6. and promised a reward to him on condition of his performing the service, and to bestow benefits on the elect in him, and for his sake. And let us,

his

I. Consider the work he proposed to Christ, which is the great and only condition of the covenant, and which he prescribed and enjoined him to do; which was, 1. To take the care and charge of the chosen ones; these, as he chose them in him, he put them into his hands, not only as his property but for their safety; and here they are safe, for none can pluck them out of his hands; hence they are called the sheep of his hand, not only because they are guided by his hand as a flock, but because they are under his care and custody; they were not only given him as his portion and inheritance, but to be kept and saved by him; when they were committed to him, he had this charge given to him by his Father, that of all that he had given him he should lose nothing, not any one of them; they were told into his hands, and the full tale of them was expected to be returned: and which respects the whole of them, as their souls which he has redeemed, and does preservé, so their bodies likewise; for the injunction was that he should lose nothing, no part of them, not even their dust in their graves, but should raise it up again at the last day, John vi. 39. as he will. God not only made a reserve of them in Christ for himself, but they were preserved in him, and therefore are called the preserved of Israel, Jude 1. Isai. xlix. 6. and that Christ, in a covenant-way, by his own consent, was laid under such an obligation to keep and preserve the elect safe to glory, appears from his own account, both from what he says in his intercessory prayer; those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, John xvii. 12. and from what he will say at the last day, when they are all brought in; Behold, I, and the children which God hath given me, Heb. ii. 13. all kept safe, and presented faultless; the kingdom of priests, the whole number of the chosen vessels of salvation, will be delivered up complete and perfect, agreeable to the charge committed to him, and his own voluntary undertakings.-2. Whereas these same Persons made his care and charge, would fall in Adam, with the rest of mankind, and that into a state of sin and misery, and under the curse and condemnation of the law, he proposed it to him, and enjoined it as his will, that he should redeem them from all this; and hence agreeing to it, he was sent to do it, and has done it; this work, as proposed and prescribed in the covenant of grace, is expressed by various phrases, in Isai. xlix. 5, 6. as by bringing Jacob again to him; by Jacob is meant the elect of God, especially among the Jews, the remnant according to the election of grace; and bringing them again, sup poses they were gone aside, apostatized from God, and turned their backs on him, and were gone out of the right way, gone astray, and become lost sheep: and the work of Christ as joined him in covenant, and he undertook, was to bring them unto God, and set them before him, to use Judah's words, when he offered to be Surety for Benjamin, Gen. xliii. 9. to bring them nigh to God; which he has done, by his obedience, sufferings, and death, Eph. h. 13. 1 Pet. iii. 18. and also this work of Christ is expressed by raising up the tribes of Jacob; meaning the same persons, sunk into a low estate through the fall into an horrible pi., into the mire and clay, into a pit wherein is no water: out of

this low estate Christ was to raise them, as he did by the blood of the covenant, and made them kings and priests unto God; and likewise by restoring the preserved of Israel, even the same chosen ones, among the people of Israel; who, by the fall, lost their righteousness, and forfeited their happy life in innocence; these Christ was to recover from their fallen sinful estate, and restore them, as he has done, to a better righteousness, and to a life more abundant than what they lost, to an higher state of grace, glory, and happiness; and if this should be thought by Christ to be too light and too low a thing for him to be the Saviour of the elect among the Jews; it is farther proposed, that he should be the light of the Gentiles, and the salvation of God unto the end of the earth, be the Saviour of all Gcd's elect, both among Jews and Gentiles; not only to die for his people among the Jews, but to bring again, raise up, restore, and gather together the children of God, scattered abroad throughout the whole world; and be the propitiation, not for the sins of the chosen among the Jews only, but of those in the whole world of the Gentiles; so that this takes in the whole work of redemption and salvation, the work which Christ's Father gave him to do, and which he undertook and has finished, John xvii. 4. and with respect to the Gentiles, as well as Jews, our Lord says, Other sheep I have to take care of, to lay down his life for, besides those among the Jews, which are not of this fold, of the Jewish church state, but out of it; the Gentiles, them also I must bring, bring them again, raise up, and restore, and set before his Father; bring them into his church, and among his people, into an open state of grace, and to eternal glory; and this he says he must do, because his Father enjoined it, and he agreed to do it.-3. In order to this, the Father proposed to the Son to assume human nature in the fulness of time, which was necessary to the work of redeeming the chosen people; as this was advised to in council, it was fixed in the covenant; A body hast thou prepared me, Heb. x. 5. not only in the purposes and decrees of God, in the book of which all the members of it were written, which, in continuance, were fashioned, when, as yet, there was none of them, before they were in actual being, Psal. cxxxix. 16. nor only in the prophecies of the Oid Testament, in which it was foretold and promised, that the Messiah should become man, be the child born, and born of a virgin, and that the Man, the Branch, should grow up out of his place; but this was provided in covenant, not an human body only nor an human soul only, but the whole human nature; which, though it had not a real and actual, yet had a covenant subsistence, as it may be called: that is to say, the Father proposing it, and the Son assenting, as he did, by the above words; there was an agreement, a compact between them, that he should take into union with himself, a true body, and a reasonable soul; both which were necessary, to suffer the whole curse of the law; a true body, in which he might get his bread by the sweet of his brow, and suffer pains, sorrows, and death; bear the sins of many in it, and be offered up for them; and a reasonable soul, that he might endure the punishment of loss and sense; of loss, in being de

prived for a while of the gracious presence of God, as when on the cross; of sense, in feeling the wrath poured into his soul, which made it exceeding sorrowful, as in the garden. And this nature proposed to be assumed, and was assumed, is of the same kind with that which sinned, and to which death was threatened, as it seems proper it should; the same flesh and blood with the children, and in which he was made like unto his brethren, excepting sin; and to assume such a nature was necessary, that Christ might have somewhat to offer, that would be acceptable to God, and satisfactory to his justice; this was part of the will of God enjoined in covenant, and which Christ agreed to do; that whereas ceremonial sacrifices would be disapproved of by him, as insufficient to take away sin, he would assume the body or human nature, prepared and provided in covenant for him, and offer it up, that sin might be condemned, and the righteousness of the law be fulfilled; for it is by this will, or the doing of it, that we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, Heb. x. 5-10, and this being the will of the Father, what he proposed and prescribed to be done; hence he is always represented as concerned in this affair: he promised to bring forth his Servant the Branch, the Man the Branch, that should grow out of its place; and he sent his Son, in the fulnes$ of time, made of a woman, and in the likeness of sinful flesh, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, Zech, iii. 8. and vi. 12. Rom. viii. 3. Gal. iv. 4.4. Another branch of the work assigned to Christ, in the covenant, by his Father, and to which he agreed, was to obey the law in the room and stead of his people; to which Christ has respect when he says, thy law is within my heart, or I am heartily willing and ready to obey and fulfil it; and which designs not only the law of mediation, or the command enjoined Christ as Mediator, with respect to the performance of his several offices as such: so with respect to his prophetic office Christ says, The Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak whatso ever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak, John xiii. 49, 50. And with respect to his priestly office, his laying down his life for his people; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again; this commandment have I received of my Father, John x. 18. see chap. xiv. 31. And with respect to his Kingly office; I will declare the decree; that is, of his Father, the ordinance, statute, law and rule of governing his people; for this refers not to what follows concerning the generation of Christ, but to what goes before, concerning his Kingly office: but also the moral law, which he agreed to be made under, and was willing to fulfil, and for which he came into the world, and did become the fulfilling end of it, whereby he mag. nified it, and made it honourable; as it became him to do, as the Surety of his people, and which was necessary to their justification; for by the obedience of One, many are made righteous, Rom. v. 19.-5. Another part of the work proposed to him, and enjoined him by his Father, was to suffer the penalty of the law, death; which must be endured, either by the sinner himself, the transgressor of the law, or by his Surety, Gen. ii. 17. wherefore it became the wise, holy