ating to human nature. "Good master, what good thing shall we do, that we may inherit eternal life," is the natural language of their hearts;, not considering that their hearts are deceitful, desperately wicked, and full of implacable enmity against God and his law. Grace claims all the honour, as it performs all the work. It stains the pride of all human glory, and will bring down the haughty imaginations of sinners, or leave them to perish by their folly. To seek salvation by grace, is to build on the rock which bids defiance to every storm; to attempt this by our own moral righteousness. is to build on the sand, and to secure infallibly our final perdition. Let us, then, be fully convinced that, "By grace are we saved, through faith, and not of ourselves, all being the gift of God."

3. MUCH of the employment of believers should lie in improving the promises. It is the great excellence of the gospel that it consists in great and precious promises. The law demands and threatens; the gospel promises all freely. These promises contain every thing that their diversified cases, circumstances, and necessities can require. Wisdom to guide in all cases, ability for every duty, security against all enemies, provision for all wants, encouragement amidst all difficulties, &c. are contained in them. An extensive acquaintance with them is necessary, that the believer may have them in readiness on every emergency. They are a sure ground for the soul to rest upon. They are God's part of the covenant, which he has engaged to fulfil. His word is as unchangeable as himself. What he hath said he will do, and what he hath promised he will make good: "for he is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent." Beware, then, Christians, of treating the great and precious promises of the VOL. II. K k

gospel with indifference, or neglect to improve them. If you do, you will pour a most solemn contempt upon the free grace of God, and do the greatest injury to your own souls. It is only in these promises that you can find any one good thing, either for this life or the life that is to come. Much of your spiritual wisdom will lie in a wise improvement of them. They are summed up in this one promise, "I will be your God." But they are also parcelled out for the purpose of exhibiting particular blessings, adapted to particular cases. Make it your work to know yourselves, to feel your wants, and to find such promises as are adapted to them; then address yourselves to God the Author of the promise, and urge upon him the performance of his own word. Beware of staggering at the promises through unbelief, as this will prevent their accomplishment. Study a lively and vigorous faith, as this ever will be successful. Continue instant and fervent in prayer, and-beware of impatience and despondency, though the promises should not be so speedily fulfilled as you expected:" for in due time shall you reap if you faint not.

DISCOURSE XXI.

OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT.

GEN. xvii. 7.

And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thce, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant

GAL. iii. 14.

That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ.

THERE is a striking resemblance between the divine operations in the natural and spiritual world. In both there is a progression from small beginnings. From nothing God produced the original chaos of the universe, and by the work of six successive days brought the whole design to perfection. Still in the animal and vegetable parts, a small seed is the first stage of existence, which gradually advances to a more perfect state. In the spiritual world we find small beginnings, a gradual progress, and at last a perfect state. This is equally true whether we consider the internal progress of grace on the heart, or the external dispensation of means. Hence it is, that the sacred writers frequently introduce the progressive state of things in the natural world, in order to illustrate a corresponding progress in the spiritual world. The beginnings of grace in the soul are small in comparison of its more advanced and perfect state: so that there are little children, young men, and old men in the family of God. The

nature of the work is the same though the manner of carrying it on may be some what different. The same grace that forms the little child, in regeneration leads it forward, by various steps, to the strength and vi gour of youth; and at last advances it to the steadiness, wisdom, and experience of an aged father. The manner of the divine procedure in his church externally has exactly corresponded to this. At her first visible appearance in the world she was truly in an infant state. Her members few, her ordinances few, and her light small. According to the wise scheme which God proposed to himself, this progressive manner of proceeding was proper. The perfection and glory of the church are wholly in Christ the promised seed. He is "the Lord her righteousness"—the source and spring of her life and all of her enjoyments he is that glorious luminary," the Sun of righteousness," from which she receives all her light. She was to exist in the world many ages before the actual appearance of this luminary in his meridian splendor, and therefore what light she enjoyed was only an indication of his certain appearance, and gradually increased till it ushered it in. The first promise, like the dawn of the natural day, was truly the day spring from on high," and an infallible harbinger of the "Sun of righteousness,” though the light was very obscure, when compared with what it became afterwards. The light, however, was the same, and its benignant influence of the same salutary nature, with what they are at this day. The mediums through which this light hath shone, have been various, and admirably calculated to shed, upon the church, that degree of light, with which

God meant to favour her, at any period.

Prior to the

times of Abraham this light seems to have shone but

very obscurely: at least nothing else can be collected from the short account which we have of that period. But as God meant Abraham to sustain a very distinguished character in the church, he favoured him with means of farther illumination than had been previously enjoyed. Having considered the nature of the grant to that eminent patriarch, together with the seed and the blessings promised in that grant, I now proceed

IV. To consider the administration of it to Abraham and to his seed.

THIS is a wide field, in which, were we to enter upon it at large, we should find much work, both useful and entertaining; but it is only a very few general things that are proposed. All God's gracious dispensations to men are partly external and partly internal. The latter consists in the actual communication of saving blessings, and the former, in the means by which they are conveyed. In the means there is a considerable variety, while, in all ages, the blessings are uniformly the same. This administration might also be considered as it relates to Christ the principal seed promised to Abraham, as well as to all his other seed; but it is not our design to descend to particulars. I therefore proceed to remark

1. THAT which is administered to the church, in all ages, is the divine promise, grant, or testament, containing all saving blessings, and dispensed to sinners by a variety of means. In, and by, these means, God has ever declared it to be his design, his will, that sinners should be saved, in the same way, and on the same footing. The whole plan originates in grace, and nothing but free and sovereign grace appears in the whole work. The channel of conveyance is the Son of God incarnate, who undertook the cause of sinners