Secondly, The fecond reafon is from his covenant-relation to us, thy God. The word denotes a plurality; and fo fhews that one God in three perfons to be the true God, and that all the three are the covenanted God of his people, If. liv. 5. Thy makers is thine bufband; for the word is plural in the Hebrew. Here I fhall fhew,

1. What this covenant is.

2. How this covenant bindeth to the obedience of the commandments.

I. What covenant is this? It is the covenant whereby he was Ifrael's God before the giving of the law on Sinai; for this plainly relates to a former relation betwixt them, by virtue of which they were brought out of Egypt. This was then no other but the covenant with Abraham and his feed, Gen. xvii. 7. & xv. 18. and by virtue of the covenant-promise to Abraham it was, that they were delivered out of Egypt, Gen. xv. 13. 14. &c. That was not the covenant of works, for it is ftill opposed to the law, Rom. iv. therefore it is the covenant of grace.

Under this covenant with Abraham all Ifrael according to the flesh were in an external manner, whereby God had a more special right over them than the reft of the world; and fo is it with all who are within the vifible church at this day. But Ifrael according to the Spirit, the elect of God and believers, the fpiritual feed of Abraham, were and are most properly under this covenant, and that in a faving man ner, Rom. iv. 11. 12. 13. So that this reafon is not general to all the world, but peculiar to the church.

2. I fhall fhew how this covenant bindeth to obedience to the commandments. Not as if obedience to the commands were conditions of that covenant; that is the nature of the covenant of works. For mark, God tells them he is their God before ever he propofes one commandment to them; and for God to be the God of a people in the fenfe of the promise made to Abraham, includes the affurance of their plete falvation, Matth. xxii. 32. But,

i. The confent to the covenant binds to the obedience of all the commands. The covenant is, I will put my laws into their minds, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people, Heb. viii. 10. So confenting that God fhall be our God, we take on us the yoke of all his commands, to be for him only, wholly, and for ever, 2 Cor. viii. 5. If. xliv. 5.

2. The honour of the covenant. Thereby finners are advanced into a near relation to God. They be come his fervants, whofe honour it is to ferve him ; his friends, whofe honour it is to advance his interest in the world; his fpoufe, whofe honour it is to be for him, and obey him; his members, whofe honour it is to ferve himself of them.

3. The privileges of the covenant, Luke i. 74. 75. Such are regeneration, whereby a new nature is given, to be a principle of new life, 2 Cor. v. 17. Juftification, whereby the curfe is taken off the tree, that it may be no more barren. Sanctification, whereby they die unto fin, and live unto righteoufness; even as the curing of the lame and palfied man obliges him to beftir himself.

4. The great end of the covenant, which is no other but to reftore fallen man to his primitive integrity, and to bring him to a state of perfect affimilation to God, Cant. iii. 9. 10. The holiness required in the ten commandments is the kingdom and the throne, from which the devil had expelled and pulled man down. This covenant is entered into for the reftoring him again to that kingdom, and fo binds to endea vours that way.

Thirdly, The laft reafon is drawn from the redemption and deliverance wrought for his people. The history is well known, and fome of the leading circumftances of it will be mentioned anon. Here I will fhew,

1. Why this deliverance is commemorated here. 2. What reafon for obedience there is in it

I.

1. I fhall fhew why this deliverance is commemorated here.

(1) To fhew the faithfulness of God to his promife and covenant with Abraham, Gen. xv. 13.—16. And fo he fhews himfelf to be Jehovah by ocular demonftration, Exod. vi. 3.

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(2.) The ftrangeness of that deliverance. When the Ifraclites were groaning under their taskmafters in Egypt, and had no profpect of relief, the Lord raises up Mofes to be a deliverer unto them. He fent him in before Pharaoh to work wonders in his fight. The Lord delivered his people with a mighty hand and outstretched arm. He fent plague after plague upon Pharaoh, till he fent Ifrael away, blafting the fruits of the earth, killing the beafts of the field, the fishes in the rivers, and all the first born in the land of Egypt and when Ifrael went out of Egypt, God made the waters of the fea to part, and become a wall unto them; they marched on dry ground in the midst of the fea; it was a fafe paffage to the Ifraelites, but a grave to the Egyptians, Pharaoh and his hoft being overthrown in the midft of the fea. Now, this was a ftrange and miraculous deliverance, a mer cy never to be forgotten; and therefore it is comme morated here, to bind them to obedience.

(3.) Because it was a moft great and memorable benefit. They were delivered from cruel tyranny. They were flaves to the Egyptians, who made them to ferve with rigour. They had cruel taskmafters fet over them, who put them to hard labour. All their male children were appointed to be killed, or drowned in the river Nile. Their affliction and bondage was fo great that they were made to figh and groan, and their cry went up to heaven. Hence Egypt is called the iron furnance, Deut. iv. 20. and here it is called the houfe of bondage. Again, they were delivered from Egypt, a place overwhelmed with pollutions and abominations. The Egyptians were grofs idolaters, having changed the glory of the uncorruptible God

into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beafts, and creeping things, Rom, i. 23. They worshipped birds, and beafts, and creeping things; as the hawk, the ox, the crocodile; yea they worshipped onions and garlic. Now, confidering how prone the Jews were to idolatry, it was a great mercy to be delivered from an idolatrous land. This was a fignal and memorable favour. Joshua reckons it among the chief and moft memorable mercies of God to Abraham, that he brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees, where his ancestors ferved ftrange gods, And may not this deliverance from Egypt be juftly reckoned among the choice mercies of God to Abraham's pofterity?

(4.) It was a late and fresh inftance of God's kindnefs to them. Which leaves an imputation of forgetfulness of old mercies on man's nature, for which God ftirs them up, by the newest and latest, to obedi

ence.

(5.) Because it was a type of the fpiritual deliverance by Jefus Chrift from fin, Satan, and hell, 1.) It was typical of the deliverance from the bondage of fin. Now, of all fervitudes fin is the worft; for it enflaves the foul. Before converfion, fays Auguftine, I was held not with an iron chain, but with the obftinacy of my own will. In this flavery the foul is dif torted and drawn afunder as it were by the powerful cravings of contrary lufts and paffions. 2.) Of their deliverance from Satan. Thus all men by nature are in the house of bondage. They are enflaved to the devil, who is called the god of this world, and is faid to rule in the children of difobedience. Sinners are under his command, and he exercifeth an abfolute jurifdiction over them. He blinds their minds with ignorance and error; rules in their memories, making them to remember that which is evil, and forget that which is good; in their wills, drawing them to the love and practice of fin, &c. 3.) Of their deliverance from hell. All men by nature are children of

wrath, and liable to condemnation in hell for ever. Now the Lord Jefus, by price and power, delivers his elect from the ftate of bondage to fin and Satan, Heb. ii. 15. and from the wrath that is to come, I Theff. i. 10. And this is done not for all men, but only for the fpiritual Israel of God, who were typified by the Ifraelites.

2. I fhail fhew what reafon for obedience there is in this deliverance here commemorated. There is great reafon.

(1.) Benefits received are moft powerful engagements to duty, Rom. ii. 4. and the greatest benefits are the frongeft engagements. And no greater benefit are men capable of than that deliverance from the fpiri tual bondage which the godly Ifraelites had as well as the other, and which agrees to us New-teftament faints, Col. i. 13. 1 Cor. vi. 19. 20.

(2.) This deliverance is wrought for that end, and by that deliverance men are put in a capacity to ferve the lord, which otherwise they were not, Lukei. 74. 75. While they were in their hard bondage in Egypt, Pharaoh would not fuffer them to go ferve the Lord, but now they had nothing to hinder them from it. So when men are under the bondage of the covenant of works, they are with held by the rigour thereof from ferving the Lord in an acceptable man ner; but when once they are delivered by Chrift from that rigorous bondage, they are made free men, and can ferve the Lord in righteousness and holines before him all the days of their life, having none to hinder them.

Fourthly, I fhall conclude this fubject with a few practical inferences.

Inf. 1. The ten commandments were not given to the Ifraelites as a covenant of works, but in the way of the covenant of grace, and under that covert. Ye faw it was Jefus the Mediator that spoke thefe, Heb. xii. 24. 26, Amongst all the reafons there is not one