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The Sinai covenant and the covenant of grace are nt different and distinct covenants. The prospect of salvation from the latter is no greater, than the pros pect of salvation from the former The mere letter of no law or covenant will save men. They therefore are as far from salvation who depend upon the letter of the Gospel covenant, as they who depend upon the letter of the Sinai covenant. The truth of God's word is most excellent: it will not, however, save men ex. eept they apply it, and are governed by it.

He who believes in Christ is safe: if Christ be his, then, salvation is his. But no one is more safe than he, in whose heart is written the Sinai covenant. If this covenant or law, instead of being engraven on tables of stone, be written on the fleshy tables of the heart, by the Spirit of the living God, our salvation is certain. If we obey not the Gospel of God, it will do us no good; if we break God's holy covenant, it will avail us nothing. But they, who are steadfast in the covenant of God, are safe upon the same ground, as those who obey the Gospel. We, hence, see, how to understand the following passage in the prophecy of Jeremiah: “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that 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 that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt (which my covenant they brake, although I was an Husband unto them, saith the Lord;)* but this shall be the covenant, that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people." Thus God makes a new covenant with a person,

*Some say, that they, who disobey the Sinai covenant, are left "without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world. But it is far otherwise with the new covenant. The promises of which this consists, are all absolute." This as it appears to me, is nothing more than to say, that the situation of the saint is very different from that of the sinner; for God has promised to save the saint, but the impenitent sinner, remaining so, is entitled to no divine promise, on which he can rest his salvation. The identity of the covenants, however, remains: in themselves considered there is no difference.

when he writes his law in his heart. A sinner is taken into God's holy covenant, when the law is written upon his heart, or he is converted by the Spirit of the liv ing God. The law, or covenant itself is the same before, as at the time, and after his conversion. The covenant of God, which the house of Israel and the house of Judah broke, was the same in itself when they broke it, as when it became a new covenant by being written by the finger of God upon their hearts.. The. Gospel is the same, whether it have any saving effect upon those who hear it or not: whether the Gospel be a savour of life unto life, or a savour of death unto death, it is, in itself, the same. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." Those things which are new to those who are in Christ, were, in themselves, the same before, as after, their union to Christ. When God once takes a person into the covenant of grace, he cannot break it in such a sense as to miss of salvation; but before he is taken into it by faith, or by having the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost, he can break it to his everlasting destruction. Hence, every impenitent sinner is as constantly breaking the covenant of grace, as he is, transgressing the DIVINE LAW. The Gospel will no more countenance sin, than the DIVINE LAW. The Gospel is the covenant of grace: but it is to all a dead letter, until, by the grace of God, they are made willing to obey it.

The apostle, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, to express the excellency of the ministry of Christ above that of Moses, speaks of his being the Mediator of a better covenant than that of Moses: he speaks of the covenant ministered by Moses as being fauity. but, of that by Christ, as being faultless: he speaks also of a new covenant, and of an old one. Now, it is evident that the apostle means, by the new covenant, in opposition to the old, and the better covenant, and the faultless covenant, in opposition to the less good, and the faulty covenant, to express the superiority of

the dispensation of the covenant since Christ came, above the Mosaic dispensation of the same covenant: or to express the superiority of Gospel ordinances above Jewish ceremonies. The main object of the apostle, no doubt, was, to teach the Hebrews the inconsistency and impropriety of having an high priest, and of offering gifts and sacrifices, since Christ, the great High Priest, had come and offered himself a sacrifice for sin, once, for all. There was no propriety in using the types and shadows of heavenly things, seeing the "Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord had pitched and not man," had come. By the old covenant, it is evident, that the apostle means the ceremonies, types, and shadows of the law of Moses. The moral law is the same: and it becomes to us emphatically the new covenant, when the love of it is "shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost."

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To continue the use of ceremonies, such as sacrifices, burnt-offerings, types and shadows, as the Jews now do; or to substitute any doings of our own, in the place of Christ, is as totally inconsistent with the design of the Sinai covenant, as with the covenant of grace; and, it is totally subversive of the scheme of salvation by grace.

SERMON VIII.

GOD A CONSUMING FIRE TO THE WICKED ONLY.

DEUTERONOMY xxxiii, 2. ̧.

He shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.

IV. INFERENCE.

There is no more fire in the LAW of Moses, than there is in the Gospel of Christ.

SOME seem to have a prejudice against the law of Moses because, say they, it is "a fiery law." But there is no more fire in the DIVINE LAW than there is in the GOSPEL. None need to fear the curse of the LAW in whose heart the fear of God is. If we obey the LAW, we shall escape all the fire there is in it. The Gospel will not burn against the believer in Christ; neither will the Law burn against those who love God. The fiery indignation of the Almighty will burn against the wicked, whether their characters be expressed by haters of God's LAW, or despisers of the Gospel of Christ. If such do not repent, God will show his wrath and make his power known in their everlasting destruction. The wicked are vessels of wrath, and while they remain impenitent, are fitting themselves for destruction. "The LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them. The right hand of God will find out all those who hate him." He will "make them as a fiery oven in the time of his anger." He says of the wicked, "They have moved me to jealousy with that which is no God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in mine anger,

and shall burn unto the lowest hell; and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains." And "God," says Paul, "will render to every man according to his deeds; he will render indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil; of the Jew first and also of the Gentile. But glory, honour and peace, to every man that worketh good; to the Jew first and also to the Gentile For there is no respect of persons with God." And speaking of the wicked, "The same," says Saint John, "shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture, into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever And great Babylon came into remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath."* Hence the language both of the Old Testament and of the New as strongly expresses the anger of God towards his enemies, as if he were full of fire against them. "The wicked," therefore, "shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume, into smoke shall they consume away." God will burn up the wicked. "The day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be as stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up. Hence, the LAW and the Gospel, and the whole word of God, is against them that do evil. But "unto such as fear God's name, shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings."

The LAW of Moses being called a “fiery law," diminishes nothing from its glory and beauty. We ought not to harbour thoughts of prejudice against it; for the majesty of the Holy One of Israel, is no where more beautifully exhibited, than in connexion with the use of the phrase, fiery law. "And this is the

* Rev. xiv, 10.

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