eternal life; and the conditions of the covenant are the same— obedience and faith on our part, and a warranty title of the land (earth) on the Lord's part-" wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath." Heb. vi. 17.

Furthermore, the whole earth is daily spewing out her inhabitants and giving them into captivity to death. Some scattering ones in their dispersion "return unto the Lord and obey his voice." These he promises to restore to their fatherland. His promise cannot fail. Therefore it must be fulfilled in the restitution of all things, according to the spirit of prophecy, even "in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, and every one" faithful to the covenant "shall inherit eternal life." Matt. xix. 28, 29.

HARMONY OF THE COVENANTS.

The harmony in the covenant promises is wonderful, notwithstanding the variety of their forms. They agree, by things present before the eyes, to inculcate and to cherish in each individual person, for himself and his children, the lively hope of an "inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." 1 Pet. i. 4. For the fathers dwelt as strangers and pilgrims in the land (earth) which they are yet to inherit in the regeneration. Moses and Aaron and their generation had the same covenant promise of the earth given to their fathers, renewed with them at Horeb; and they marched their life long as travelers toward it, but without entering it they were cut off by death in the wilderness. Their children crossed the Jordan, and enjoyed the temporal possession of their ancestors—that is, a life estate with a grave-waiting for their eternal inheritance of the land with their fathers in the resurrection from the dead.

Hence the same law of interpretation governs both the cove

nant with the fathers in Canaan and the covenant with their seed in the wilderness at Sinai, and again with their children at the fords of Jordan. Each covenant was made between the Eternal and the individual. The terms of the covenants were the same, the conditions were the same, the inheritance under the covenants was to be the same everlasting possession of the heavenly country, and the parties to the covenant were the same, the Lord God and the individual Abraham, the believer and his seed, "which is Christ in you the hope of glory." The believer promised on his part obedience in faith, and the Lord guaranteed on his part the everlasting possession of the earth flowing with milk and honey. The covenant with the fathers was made in the land wherein they sojourned, and with their children in the desert. It was made in full view of an early possession of their great inheritance. But neither the fathers, nor the children who entered formally into the covenant, entered also into the promised land. They all saw it before them by faith, but not one of them entered into the promised everlasting possession.

This is true not only of the fathers and of Moses and Aaron and all their generation. It is equally true of us and of all generations to this day. Gideon, Barak, Jephthah, Samson, David, Samuel and all the prophets lived and died pilgrims in the land, as their fathers did, with a promise of the everlasting possession, and yet having only a grave in it. Concerning the saints from Abel to our Lord Jesus Christ, "of whom the world was not worthy," the Spirit testifies expressly that "these all having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise," or the inheritances promised (Heb. xi. 39), to the end "that they without us should not be made perfect." All the tribes of the chosen people march together into the heavenly country, and Jehoshua, the Captain of salvation, on the head of them.

THE HEIRS OF THE COVENANTS ARE IMMORTALS.

The everlasting covenants were never made to secure temporal possessions; were neither made with the fathers, nor with the generation of bondmen brought out of Egypt, nor with the generation that crossed over Jordan under Joshua, nor with any mortal since, to secure an impossible estate of inheritance in this perishing world. But they are made with Abraham and his seed, which is Christ, on the part of every child of faith, that each obedient believer may through free grace come, in "the restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets which have been since the world began, into the possession of the glorious liberty of the children of God," with eternal life in the promised earth, where Jesus Christ our Lord shall for ever reign on the throne of his glory.

The children of Israel crossing the Jordan with Joshua fared no better than their forefathers, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, or their fathers, who were buried in Egypt and in the desert. They spent their allotted time on the earth. They gathered their daily bread, they fed their flocks, they sojourned as strangers and pilgrims in the earth, they died, they went the way of all the earth, having the same inheritance their fathers had, a buryingplace in the earth, and having, so far as they are children of faith, the hope of a better resurrection through the promised seed of the woman, and of Abraham, in whom all nations shall be blessed. They wait for the everlasting possession.

So with all Adam's race. Naked they come into this world, and troubled about what they shall eat, and drink, and wear, they are often complaining and murmuring at their lot. Sorely afflicted by the manners of the foreigners, and heartbroken by the violence of Simeon and Levi in the household, and by the cruel fate of Joseph, torn in pieces of the wild beasts, either dissatisfied with the portion of worldly goods that falls to one's share, or, if large, wasting it in riotous living, we pass through

our threescore years and ten, and go the way our fathers have gone, carrying naught with us, save the spirit we are of, the dispositions we have formed, the tempers we have indulged, and the habits we have contracted with the hope of a better resurrection unto life eternal. Of the inheritances of this world-its riches, honor, power and glory-we carry nothing away. The king, the statesman, the warrior, the faithful merchant, the learned philosopher, the meekest brother, returns with the crowd of men_to the dust from whence he came, naked and alone and emptyhanded, earth to earth as it was, and the spirit to God who gave it. This world provides neither goods, nor life, nor joys, nor possessions of lasting inheritance, for any child of Abraham nor for any child of Adam. Our hope, the hope of Israel and the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers, is "the hope and resurrection of the dead" unto eternal life at Christ's appearing "the second time without sin unto salvation."

THEIR INHERITANCE BEYOND THE GRAVE.

The resemblance, therefore, between the holy covenants is complete that of Abraham and his seed, called the covenant of faith, and that of Sinai, called the covenant of works. (It will be remembered that Horeb and Sinai are peaks of the same mount, and give name to the same covenant.) These alike, with that other to the generation following in the plains of Moab, offer to the believer, on condition of his obedience to the laws of the covenant, a temporal possession of the earth and its goods, together with the inheritance of eternal life, liberties and possessions beyond the grave, through Christ our Saviour and our Surety, in the resurrection from the dead. The everlasting covenants of Abraham and of his seed, and of Moses and the twelve tribes, offer to every believer a free salvation without money and without price; the promise of pardon and peace in Jesus Christ to every one that accepts the covenant and rules

himself in obedience to it. They, the covenants, also lay the solid foundation of an everlasting separation between those who choose and those who refuse the proffered salvation. Thus, "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and a peculiar people" are prepared for a crown of life and of glory, of whom Israel are the living type, safely led by the way of the wilderness, wherein were "fiery serpents and scorpions and drought," in the blessed hope of a heavenly country beyond Jordan, "a good land, a land of wheat and barley, and vines and pomegranates and fig trees, a land of oil-olive and honey." Deut. viii. 7. Others that believed not fell in the wilderness. "They could not enter in because of unbelief."

This covenant promise and description of the heavenly country, presented to Israel on their way to Canaan for a symbol of the faith in a lively form, ought to be cherished by the hearers and the readers of the Word in all ages and nations, that the dispersed children of God, being led by the faith of Jesus Christ our Lord, may come out from the house of bondage to the prince of this world, into "the commonwealth of Israel," and may return and come with all saints, through Jesus and the resurrection, into the goodly promised land, the glory of all lands; to possess and to enjoy the regenerate, the new earth, and to rule over it for ever. The promised inheritance is not in this world, not on this side of Jordan, but beyond the river in the land of the blest.

OUR LORD KEEPETH COVENANT.

When the Lord brought the twelve tribes through the wilderness to the banks of the Jordan, he addressed them by his servant Moses, saying, "Because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt." Deut. vii. 8. "Behold, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land (7) which the Lord sware unto your fathers,