It is by his act that the covenant is established; by his own act that he becomes intitled to the blessing; and we may add, by the act of man God becomes intitled to the name, The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel! God is allowed the honor of starting the proposal, but man has the glory of tieing the knot! It is not the act of God, but the act of the creature, the act of man, and of the will of man, which gives existence to the covenant-relation! Why will not this doctrine please men? What is there unfashionable in this? Can this be obnoxious to the pride of the creature?

To encourage our hope in the covenant, the Apostle would often say, that God abideth faithful; but according to our author, this does not reach the case; for as it is on the ground of our "faith and uprightness that he promised to be a "God" to us, he should say rather, that we abide faithful.

If the accomplishment of the promise rested on the ground of the faith and uprightness of a fallible being; if it rested in some possible way, in any part, on the virtue of the creature, how came Abraham to overlook so important a circumstance, and not to include either himself or Sarah in the hopeful consideration, but to rest secure and assured upon a ground in God merely; "being fully persuaded that what he had pro"mised he was able also to perform," Rom. iv. 21.

The word of promise, or proposal, as our author terms it, is thus put down in the Scriptures, "I will certainly return unto thee according to the "time of life; and lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a "son," Gen xviii. 10. Rom. ix. 9. This made Sarah laugh; and according to her prediction, and the turn she gave to that expression of her unbelief, it has made many who have heard laugh with her. And wherefore did Sarah laugh? How

much the promise of God depends upon the faith and uprightness of the creature, may be seen in. the instance before us, that Sarah not only questioned the veracity of God, but was detected by the messenger of the covenant himself, that same day, of falsifying the fact that she laughed,; and with words in her mouth too, that respected the fulfilment of this very article of promise.....Another instance of the same nature, greatly aggravated by circumstances, took place soon after, in which Abraham was the mover, of dissembling in a serious matter, for which they were reproved by Abimelech, an heathen man.....These sad proofs against their faith and uprightness fell out at the very juncture of the time of promise ; nevertheless, Sarah had a son.

Fifthly, We remark, that our author's view of the covenant of promise with Abraham, does not agree with the nature of other covenants of God, with which it is often compared.

1st. It is compared with the covenant with the whole earth, respecting the waters of the flood: For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn, that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee, Isaiah liv. 9. 10.

This covenant with all the earth, was established by the mere sovereign pleasure of God, without any condition on the part of the creature. Our faith and uprightness forms no part of the ground of this establishment. The reason assigned for the solemn confirmation that God was pleased to give to this promise, that he would not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, is so far from being that of a ground of faith and

uprightness in man, that it is expressly the contrary, viz. for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Hence it is, that though the world has been as wicked, and, doubtless much more wicked since the flood than it was before, yet those waters have not again returned to go over the earth. This reason is similar to that assigned for God's mercy towards Israel, He went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him, Isaiah lvii. 18. God hath concluded them all, (Jew and Gentile) in unbelief, that he might have mercy on all; for he has determined to confound this boasting of a ground of faith and uprightness in the creature, as being a condition of his promise......And if we do not voluntarily relinquish such a ground, there is much reason to fear that God, jealous for his great name, will leave us to give to the world the most. glaring proof that, for our own part, we have utterly failed of complying with the condition on which we rest all our hope.

"God spake unto Noah, and unto his sons, saying, And I, behold I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; and "with every living creature that is with you, " of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of "the earth with you, from all that go out of the "ark, to every beast of the earth," Genesis ix,

8, 9, 10.

This covenant with which the covenant of promise is likened, is established with infant children equally as with their parents; yea, we ob◄ serve that it is established with the fowl, and cattle, and beasts of the earth. It is of a nature to be established with the raven, equally as with the most eminent believer on the earth. Our author supposes that the covenant cannot be established with our children, short of their having faith and true religion.....He conceives that to become

parties in the covenant, they must take the vows upon them; but certainly in the fowl, and cattle, and beasts, there exists no such qualifications, no such grounds; they have complied with no conditions; and yet, by the unfailing truth of God, they are held as parties in a covenant of promise. And why may not the covenant which God made with Abraham be as firmly established with our infant children, and they be parties in it, unconditionally, and without any act of theirs, as this of Noah is established with the raven and the dove?

2d. In the covenant made with David, God promised, that after him he should ever have a seed and heir of his throne.....David pronounced this covenant well ordered in all things and sure. This, on account of its perpetuity, and its resting on the indissoluble ground of the promise of God, is styled a covenant of salt, 2 Chron. xiii. 5. And Isaiah, considering the everlasting covenant of promise to be of the same tenor with this in favor of David and his children, as resting solely upon the truth of God, styled it the sure mercies of David....... This covenant is described in the lxxxix. Psalm. "If his children forsake my law, and walk "not in my judgments: if they break my sta"tutes, and walk not in my commandments: "then I will visit their transgression with a rod, " and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail."

According to our author's scheme of the covenant, the throne of David might have been vacated of a royal heir; yea, notwithstanding David thought it sure, it must have been vacated, at some seasons, of an heir of his line according to the promise; for it fell out repeatedly, that the children of David were destitute of faith and true religion, and were notoriously wicked......But,

by the divine direction, and in regard to this covenant, the children of David were put into the throne, although some of them were the wickedest of men; and this reason is expressly assigned, by the Spirit, for this procedure in the cases of the wicked kings, that God would be true to his promise, which was the most express and unconditional; see Jeremiah xxxiii. 17, 20, 21........ "Thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a "man to sit upon the throne of the house of Is"rael. If you can break my covenant of the day, " and my covenant of the night, and that there "should not be day and night in their season; then may also my covenant be broken with "David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne."

Those wicked men of the house of David were indeed finally cut off, the same as Esau and others, according to the rules of dicipline laid down in the covenant for the family of God; such as those given in the passage from the Psalms, quoted above; but this is far from proving that they never were heirs of David's throne, and intitled by the promise to the high honours and glorious privileges of the covenant of royalty.

Sixthly. We remark, that our author's view does not agree with the description given expressly by the Spirit of Truth, of the manner in which this covenant of God's grace with his church and people was at first established.

The prophet Ezekiel, chap. xvi. gives us this account of that ever-adorable transaction, in which God's ancient people were taken into covenant with him....." Thy father was an Amorite, "and thy mother an Hittite.".....This expresses the greatest guilt and misery; the Amorites and Hittites were among the most guilty and obnoxious of the accursed nations of Canaan." And

G