I. UNITY THE EXPERIENCE AND PRIVILEGES OF SAVING GRACE. (Ver. 37.)

II. UNITY WITH GOD.

III. UNITY IN SPIRIT AND LABOUR WITH ONE ANOTHER. (Ver. 39.)

IV. UNITY OF DESTINY. (Ver. 40.) - M.

1. God was under no necessity of making such a covenant. Man, as fallen, guilty, and depraved, might most justly have been left in the destruction into which his sins had brought him. He could have no claim upon God for a second covenant, merely because he had ruined himself by his breach of the first. God is indeed merciful and gracious, but He is not thereby laid under any necessity to show His goodness in the way of saving sinners of the human race, any more than He was obliged to save the angels who fell. Grace and mercy are, and must be, absolutely free, and spontaneous, and self-moved. God, too, is infinitely independent of all His creatures — self-sufficient, yea, self-satisfied. Though all sinners had been left to perish, His happiness and glory would not have been thereby diminished.

2. God is the party contracting in the covenant for both sides. God the Father engages for the Godhead; and God the Son, as the God-man Mediator, engages for sinners. Moreover, it is an absolute covenant of the richest and the freest promises; for, so far as we sinners are personally concerned, there are no meritorious conditions or prerequisite qualifications.

3. If you consider the character of those persons to whom the covenant is fulfilled, that they are not only all heinous sinners, but that, very often, they are the oldest and the vilest sinners that burden and pollute God's earth, who are brought to enjoy it; you will see another proof, that it must be a covenant of the freest grace, since it embraces such hell-deserving sinners. "It begins at Jerusalem." "The publicans and harlots are brought into the kingdom," while, generally, "the scribes and Pharisees," the decent, moral, respectable men and women, are left out. "Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight."

II. IT IS VERY KIND AND BENEFICENT. It is all about doing us good, especially by making us good, holy, and happy. Coming from God, the infinitely good one, "the author of every good and perfect gift," it is just one great promise of ceaseless and unmixed love to us. It is just a constellation of blessings. Observe, too, their certainty. Nothing will provoke God to turn away from thus doing His people constant good; and even with regard to afflictions and temptations, they shall be enabled to say, "It was good for us that we were afflicted." You will observe that there is no limitation upon the good here promised, and why should we restrict? We must view it in its universal comprehensiveness. It includes all good — good temporal, spiritual, and eternal — good for the body, the mind, and the soul — all true happiness in time, at death, and through eternity — grace and glory — all the good that God can bestow, or that we can receive. It includes good in three distinct periods of time. Good before our conversion — to bring us into being — to preserve us alive notwithstanding all dangers — to prevent our committing the unpardonable sin, or in any other way putting a tombstone upon our souls, and sealing them over under the curse — and to bring about an effectual calling at the appointed time. Good after conversion and union to Christ, comprehending all the blessings of grace. And glory in eternity. In the first period, eternal life is only coming certainly towards them, and as yet they have no personal title to or enjoyment of it; during the second period, they have the title, and a begun but still an imperfect enjoyment; and during the last period they have both the perfect title and the perfect enjoyment, and that for ever, too!

III. IT IS VERY FULL AND COMPREHENSIVE. The three following ideas will illustrate its amplitude and completeness.

1. First, you will observe that it not only provides for all on the part of God, but that it also secures everything on the part of the sinner with relation to his enjoyment of it, which, strictly speaking, is all that he has to do with it. Hence, it is so suitable to our helpless spiritual condition, who, of ourselves, could do nothing but just sin on, and so deserve fresh wrath, and the upbreaking of the covenant, if that were possible.

2. Again, you will notice that God here provides for the making of this covenant with each and all of His people in the way of their being brought to close with it. The application of it is as much God's work and promise as is the decreeing of it or the fulfilling of its conditions. "I will make," and who will or can prevent Him? Neither the devil, nor guilt, nor their own wicked and unbelieving hearts shall.

3. Once more, you will observe that the line of this covenant runs through all time. It is from everlasting to everlasting, like its parties — as endless as the soul of the sinner on which its blessings are to be bestowed. How ample then — how all-comprehensive is God's covenant! There is no redundancy, but there is no deficiency.

IV. IT IS PERSONAL AND PARTICULAR. It is made or fulfilled with each and all of God's people individually and separately, and not merely with the whole Church as s corporate body. The persons with whom it is actually made, are not all men without exception. The countless heathen never so much as hear of its existence or offer. It includes, then, only all God's elect people — all those given to Christ as Mediator by the Father, and accepted by Him as such — all Christ's mystical members — His spiritual seed — God's true spiritual Israel. Their names are all enrolled in the book of life, and engraven on Jesus' breastplate. They are constantly in His eye, and in His breast, and so they are in His prayers, and in His working, and in His dying. "The Lord knoweth them that are His," directly and unerringly. We again can ascertain them only in so far as we can see this covenant fulfilled to them, enjoyed by them, and exemplified (extracted as it were) in their lives. But when we see the Lord thus doing good to any soul, and putting His fear into any heart, then and there we see God's seal and mark, and behold His election realised in their sanctification.

V. IT IS VERY HOLY. God, the maker of it, is holy in all His works, and peculiarly so here in this, the glory of them all. Hence, we find Zecharias calling it (Luke 1:72), "God's holy covenant." Two observations will show its sanctity. First, it preserves unsullied, yea it peculiarly displays the righteousness and holiness of God's character and government in at all saving sinners, only through the infinite and vicarious sufferings, death, and obedience of the God-man Mediator, in their room, and on their behalf. Secondly, it secures the personal holiness of all who are brought into the covenant. God here engages to do them good, and especially in the way of making them really and spiritually good. It gives to each a twofold righteousness, corresponding to the twofold unrighteousness he inherited from Adam — the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification, and the inwrought righteousness of the Spirit for sanctification of heart and life; and it never gives the one without the other.

VI. IT IS EVERLASTING. It would be comparatively valueless, if it could ever end. Oh, how tantalising it would be to be stripped of the enjoyment of its blessings after we had enjoyed them for a period, and so had just come to know their incalculable value l Deprivation of such blessedness would be torture, exquisite just in proportion as we had tasted its sweetness. The reminiscence and the contrast would then make the loss all the more agonising. But it is "everlasting " — "a covenant of salt" — which can never fail, or change or intermit, or end. It must be so; for you will remember that the condition of the covenant has been already performed by Christ, and accepted by the Father. Now, God will not — indeed, He cannot, — alter or reverse what has been already done, for that is an impossibility. Moreover, the condition being the infinitely perfect, unchangeable, and everlasting righteousness of Jesus, the covenant founded thereon must be absolutely unalterable and eternal The very holiness, justice, and truth of God are all pledged to Christ to secure its permanency and everlasting continuance.

VII. FAITH IN CHRIST IS THE ONLY WAY OF OUR BEING BROUGHT INTO THE ENJOYMENT OF IT. Faith is just a receiving and resting upon Christ fist and upon all the promises as in Him yea and amen to the glory of God. Nothing more is requisite in us. The fidelity and omnipotence of the promises ensures their fulfilment to, the soul that believes and rests on them. There is nothing left for us to do but thus just to receive and rely upon these promises, and Christ in them, by the empty hand of faith. And even this faith, and its act of closing with the covenant, is here previously secured. It is included in the "good" to be done to us. Faith is God's gift — one of His promises and one of the operations of His Spirit. Faith and repentance, and new obedience, are all blessings in the covenant, and not conditions of it. At the very most, they are only conditions of connection and of order in the enjoyment of its various and well-regulated blessings.

(F. Gillies.)