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which the immortal God condescends to be our God, in which we devote ourselves to him, we deem the slightest examination every way sufficient. We frequently even repel with indignation a judicious man, who would venture, by way of caution, to ask, "What are you going to do? What engagements are you going to form? What calamities are you about to bring on yourselves?"

One grand cause of this defect, proceeds, it is presumed, from our having, for the most part, inadequate notions of what is called contracting, or renewing, our covenant with God. We commonly confound the terms, by vague or confused notions : hence one of the best remedies we can apply to an evil so general is, to explain their import with precision. Having searched from Genesis to Revelation, for the happiest text affording a system complete and clear on the subject, I have fixed on the words you have heard. They are part of the discourse Moses. addressed to the Israelites, when he arrived on the frontiers of the promised land, and was about to give an account of the most important ministry God had ever entrusted to any mortal.

I enter now upon the subject. And after having again implored the aid of Heaven; after having conjured you, by the compassion of God, who this day pours upon us such an abundance of favours, to give so important a subject the consideration it deserves; I lay down at once a principle generally received among Christians. The legal, and the evangelical covenant. The convenant God contracted with the Israelites by the ministry of Moses, and the covenant

he has contracted this morning with you, differ only in circumstances, being in substance the same. Properly speaking, God has contracted but one covenant with man since the fall, the covenant of grace upon mount Sinai; whose terrific glory induced the Israelites to say, Let not God speak with us, lest we die, Exod. xx. 19. Amid so much lightnings and thunders, devouring fire, darkness and tempest; and notwithstanding this prohibition, which apparently precluded all intercourse between God and sinful man, Take heed-go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: there shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; upon this mountain,

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say, in this barren wilderness, were instituted the tenderest ties God ever formed with his creature: amid the awful punishments which we see so frequently fall upon those rebellious men; amid fiery serpents which exhaled against them a pestilential breath, God shed upon them the same grace he so abundantly pours on our assemblies. The Israelites to whom Moses addresses the words of my text, had the same sacraments: they were all baptized in the cloud; they did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ, 1 Cor. x. 2, 3. The same appellations; it was said to them as to you, If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine, Exod. xix. 5. The same promises; for they saw the promises afar off, and embraced them, Heb. xi. 13.

On the other hand, amid the consolatory objects which God displays before us at this period, in distinguished lustre; and notwithstanding these gracious words which resound in this church, Grace, grace unto it. Notwithstanding this engaging voice, Come unto me all ye that labour, and are heavy laden; and amid the abundant mercy we have seen displayed this morning at the Lord's table; if we › should violate the covenant he has established with. us, you have the same cause of fear as the Jews. We have the same Judge, equally awful now, as at that period; for our God is a consuming fire, Heb. xii. 29. We have the same judgments to appre-> hend. With many of them, God was not well pleas ed; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were for our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as some of them. Neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed, and fell in one day twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of: the destroyer, 1 Cor. x. 5-10. You know the language of St. Paul.

Further still whatever superiority our condition may have over the Jews: in whatever more attracting manner he may have now revealed himself to us; whatever more tender bands, and gracious cords of love God may have employed, to use an expression of a prophet, will serve only to augment our misery, if we prove unfaithful. For if the word spoken by

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angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? Heb. ii. 2, 3. For ye are not come unto the mountain that might not be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard, entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more. But ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh: for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, Heb. xii. 18-25.

Hence the principle respecting the legal, and evangelical covenant is indisputable. The covenant God formerly contracted with the Israelites by the ministry of Moses, and the covenant he has made with us this morning in the sacrament of the holy supper are in substance the same. And what the legislator said of the first, in the words of my text, we may say of the second, in the explication we shall give. Now, my brethren, this faithful servant of God required the Israelites to consider five things in the covenant they contracted with their Maker.

I. The sanctity of the place: Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord; that is, before his ark, the most august symbol of his presence.

II. The universality of the contract: Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord, the captains of your tribes, your elders, your officers, and all the men of Israel: your little ones, your wives, and the stranger who is in the midst of your camp, from the hewer of wood to the drawer of water.

III. Its mutual obligation: That he may, on the one hand, establish thee to-day for a people unto himself; and on the other, that he may be unto thee a God.

and abjure not only Take heed, lest there

IV. The extent of the engagement: an engagement with reserve. God covenants to give himself to the Israelites, as he had sworn to their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Israelites covenant to give themselves to God, gross, but refined idolatry. should be among you man or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord your God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a rool that beareth gall and wormwood.

V. The oath of the covenant: Thou enterest into the covenant and the execration by an oath.

I. Moses required the Israelites to consider the sanctity of the place in which the covenant was contracted with God. It was consecrated by the divine presence. Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord. Not only in the vague sense in which we say of all our words and actions, God sees me; God hears me; all things are naked and open to him in

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