good behaviour of the principal is a part of the condition of the bargain, as well as the payment of the money; since caution for it is required by him who is to communicate the benefit. At this rate, the condition is still divided between the surety and principal; and the latter performs a part of it as well as the former: and so the reward is, in part, of debt unto him, as well as to the surety. The application hereof to the case in hand is obvious. The sum of the matter lies here: If Christ did in the covenant become Surety in way of caution for his people's performing some deed; the performing of the condition of the covenant, properly so called, is divided betwixt Christ and them, however unequal their shares are: and if the performing of the condition is divided betwixt Christ and them, so far as their part of the performance goes, the reward is of debt to them, which obscures the grace of the covenant.

2. According to the Scripture, the elect's believing, repenting, and sincere obedience, do belong to the promissory part of the covenant. If we consider them in their original situation, they are benefits promised in the covenant by God unto Christ the Surety, as a reward of his fulfilling of the condition of the covenant. And so they are, by the unchangeable truth of God, and his exact justice, insured beyond all possibility of failure: Psalm xxii. 27, “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord." Ver. 30,"A seed shall serve him." Ver. 31, "They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born." Psalm ex. 3, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." See Isa. liii. 10. with ver. 1; Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27, 31; Heb. viii. 10, 11. If it be asked, To whom are these promises made, and the promises of the like nature through the Bible? it is evident, that several of them are made to Christ expressly; and the apostle answers as to them all, Gal. iii. 16, "To Abraham and his seed were the promises made.-To thy seed which is Christ." And whereas there are found promises wherein Christ himself is the undertaker, as John vi. 37, "All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me;" they are not to be taken for Christ's engaging to his Father, as cautioner for a deed to be done by the seed: but therein he speaks to men, as administrator of the covenant, intrusted with the conferring on sinners the benefits purchased by his obedience and death, and made over to him by the promise of the Father: Matt. xi. 27, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father." Ver. 28, "Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Luke xxii. 29, "And I appoint [or dispone] unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed [or disponed] unto me." Thus far of Christ's suretiship in the covenant.

III. CHRIST THE PRIEST OF THE COVENANT.

As it was necessary for Christ the second Adam his doing the part of a Kinsman-redeemer, that he should become Surety in the covenant; so it was necessary to his performing of what he became Surety for, that he should be a Priest. And accordingly, consenting to the covenant, he became the Priest of the covenant, Heb. ix. 11, "Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come." A priest is a public person, who deals with an offended God in the name of the guilty, for reconciliation by sacrifice, which he offereth to God upon an altar, being thereto called of God, that he may be accepted. So a priest speaks a relation to an altar, an altar to a sacrifice, and a sacrifice to sin.

Those whom Christ represented in the covenant being sinners, he became their Priest, their High Priest, appearing before God in their name, to make atonement and reconciliation for them: and this was the great thing that the whole priesthood under the law, and especially the high priesthood, did typify and point at. Their nature was the priest's garments he put on, to exercise his priestly office in; the same being pure and undefiled in him: and in their nature he sustained their persons, representing them before God, as their great High Priest. A lively type hereof was Aaron's bearing before the Lord, the names of the children of Israel, the twelve tribes, upon his two shoulders, in the shoulder-pieces of the ephod; these names being engraven on two onyx-stones set therein by divine appointment, Exod. xxviii. 9, 10, 12: as also his bearing them in the breastplate, being engraven on twelve stones set therein, ver. 15-29. Thus Aaron the high-priest was all Israel representatively; an illustrious type of Christ the Priest of the covenant, the spiritual Israel representative, Isa. xlix. 3.

The necessity of Christ the second Adam his becoming a Priest, appears in these following things jointly considered.

1. Those whom he represented, were sinners: and there could not be a new covenant without provision made for removing of their sin; and that required a priest. The first covenant was made without a priest, because then there was no sin to take away; the parties therein represented, as well as the representative, were considered as innocent persons. But the second covenant was a covenant of peace and reconciliation between an offended God and sinners, not to be made but by the mediation of a priest, who should be able to remove sin, and repair the injured honour of God: Zech. vi. 13, He shall be a priest upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall

be between them both." And there was none fit to bear that character but Christ himself. No man was fit to bear it; because all men were sinners themselves, and such an high priest became us, as was undefiled, separated from sinners, Heb. vii. 26. It is true, the elect angels were indeed undefiled; but yet none of them could be priest of the covenant; because,

2. Sin could not be removed without a sacrifice of sufficient value, which they were not able to afford. The new covenant behoved to be a covenant by sacrifice, a covenant written in blood; and without shedding of blood, there was no remission, Heb. ix. 22. Therefore the typical covenant with Abraham was not made without the solemnity of sacrifice, Gen xv. 9; that he might know the covenant to be a covenant of reconciliation, in which a just God did not shew his mercy, but in a way consistent with the honour of his justice. Now the sacrifices of beasts, yea, and whatsoever the creatures could afford for sacrifice in this case, were infinitely below the value. But Jesus Christ becoming a priest, gave himself a sacrifice to God, for establishing the covenant; and that sacrifice was for a sweetsmelling savour, Eph. v. 2, or, as the Old Testament phrase is, a a savour of rest, Gen. viii. 21, marg. The represented being sinners, were corrupt and abominable before God; and he as it were smelled a savour of disquiet from them, they being a smoke in his nose, Isa. lxv. 6; their sin set his revenging justice and wrath astir. But the sacrifice of Christ himself, was fit to send forth such a sweet smelling savour unto God, as should quite overcome the abominable savour rising from them, and lay his revenging justice and wrath to the most calm and profoundest rest.

The necessity of a sacrifice in the second covenant, arose from the justice of God requiring the execution of the curse of the broken first covenant; whereby the sinner should fall a sacrifice for his sin, according to that, Psalm xciv. 23, "He shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness." It was an ancient custom in making of covenants, to cut a beast in twain, and to pass between the parts of it: and that passing between the parts, respected the falling of the curse of the covenant upon the breaker: Jer. xxxiv. 18, "And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof;" or rather, more agreeably to the original, "I will make the men that have transgressed my covenant-the calf which they cut in twain, and passed between the parts thereof :" that is, I will make them as that calf which they cut in twain; I will execute the curse on them,

cutting them asunder as covenant-breakers, Matth. xxiv. 51. Now, the covenant of works being broken, justice required this execution of the curse of it, in order to the establishing of a new covenant, the covenant of grace and peace. But had it been executed on sinners themselves, the fire of wrath would have burnt continually on them; but never would such a sacrifice have sent forth a savour smelling so sweet, as to be a savour of rest to revenging justice; forasmuch as they were not only mere creatures, whose most exquisite sufferings could not be a sufficient compensation for the injured honour of an infinite God; but they were sinful creatures too, who would still have remained sinful under their sufferings. Wherefore Jesus Christ, being both separate from sinners, and equal with God, consented in the covenant to be the sacrifice, on which the curse of the first covenant might be executed in their room and stead.

This is lively represented in the covenant made with Abraham, in which he was a type of Christ, Gen. xv. In that covenant God promised the deliverance of Abraham's seed out of the Egyptian bondage, and to give them the land of Canaan; a type of the deliverance of Christ's spiritual seed from the bondage of sin and Satan, and of putting them in possession of heaven, vers. 13, 14, 16, 18. Awful was the solemnity used at the making of this covenant. There were taken a heifer, a she-goat, and a ram, each of them of three years old; typifying Christ, who was about three years in his public ministry, ver. 9. These were each of them, divided in the midst, hacked asunder by the middle; which typified the execution of the curse of the broken first covenenant on Christ our surety and sacrifice for us, ver. 10. Abraham's driving away the fowls that came down upon the carcases, typified Christ's victory over the devils all along during the state of his humiliation, and especially his triumphing over them on the cross, ver. 11. And finally, there was a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between the pieces; which signified the revenging wrath of God seizing on Christ the sacrifice, and justice therewith satisfied, ver. 17.

3. No sacrifice could be accepted, but on such an altar as should sanctify the gift to its necessary value and designed effect, Matth. xxiii. 19. And who could furnish that but Christ himself, whose divine nature was the altar from whence the sacrifice of his human nature derived its value and efficacy as infinite? Heb. ix. 14, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered up himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works?" His blessed body suffering and bleeding to death on the cross, and his holy soul scorched and melted within him with the fire of the divine wrath, both in the meantime

united to his divine nature, were the sacrifice burning on the altar, from which God smelled a sweet savour, to the appeasing of his wrath, and satisfying of his justice fully. Not that Christ was a sacrifice only while on the cross; but that his offering of himself a sacrifice, which was begun from his incarnation in the womb, the sacrifice being led on the altar in the first moment thereof; and was continued through his whole life; was completed on the cross, and in the grave: Heb. x. 5, "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me :"-ver. 6, "Then said I, lo, I come." Isa. liii. 2, "When we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." Ver. 3, "He is a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." 2 Cor. v. 21, "He hath made him to be sin for us."

4. Lastly, There behoved to be a priest to offer this sacrifice, this valuable sacrifice, unto God upon that altar; else there could have been no sacrifice to be accepted, and so no removal of sin, and consequently no new covenant. And since Christ himself was the sacrifice, and the altar too, he himself alone could be the priest. And forasmuch as the weight of the salvation of sinners lay upon his call to that office, he was made priest of the covenant by the oath of God, Heb. vii. 20, 21. As he had full power over his own life, to make himself a sacrifice for others; so his Father's solemn investing of him with this office by an oath, gave him access to offer himself effectually; even in such sort as thereby to fulfil the condition of the condition, and to purchase eternal life for them.

INFERENCES FROM THE SECOND HEAD.

I shall close up this head, of the making of the covenant of grace, with two inferences from the whole.

Inf. 1. What remains for sinners, that they may be personally and savingly in covenant with God, is not, as parties contractors and undertakers, to make a covenant with him for life and salvation; but only, to take hold of God's covenant already made from eternity, between the Father and Christ the second Adam, and revealed and offered to us in the gospel, Isa. lvi. 4, 6. I have no design hereby to disparage our covenants made for national reformation by our godly progenitors, and commonly called the national covenant, and solemn league and covenant, on which God set the seal of his good pleasure in the experience of many. These and the like are covenants of duties, consequential enough to the taking hold of God's covenant of grace. Neither would I discourage any serious souls, from taking hold of God's covenant of grace, for eter