in all its causes and respects, terrifying the sinner, and manifesting the righteous curse of the law, are declared by them.

§19. That which is promised with respect to these sins, is:

1. (Eλews εcoμlai) “I will be merciful;" propitious, gracious through a propitiation, under the New Testament, Rom. iii. 25; 1 John ii, 2. And in Christ alone God is merciful to our sins.

2. (Ou un urnodwell) “I will remember no more." The law with its awful sanction, was the means divinely appointed to bring sin to a judicial remembrance and trial. Wherefore, the dissolution of the law's obliging power to punish, which is an act of God, as the Supreme Rector and judge of all, belongeth to the pardon of sin. We may farther notice, that the assertion is fortified by a double negative; sin shall never be called legally to a remembrance.

$20. (II.) The observations from the whole are the following: 1. The covenant of grace, as reduced into the form of a testament, confirmed by the blood of Christ, doth not depend on any condition or qualification in our persons, but in a free grant and donation of God, and so are all the good things prepared in it.

2. The precepts of the old covenant are turned into promises under the new. Their preceptive power is not taken away, but grace is promised for the performof them.

3. All things in the new covenant being proposed to us by way of promise, it is by faith alone we may attain a participation of them, Heb. iii, 1.

4. A sense of the loss of an interest in the benefits of the old covenant, is the best preparation for receiving the new.

$21. To these we may add the following:

1. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in the new covenant, in its being and repairing efficacy, is large and extensive as sin in its power to deprave our na

tures.

2. The work of grace in the new covenant passeth on the whole soul in all its faculties, powers, and affections, for their change and renovation. The whole was corrupted, and the whole must be renewed.

3. To take away the necessity and efficacy of renewing sanctifying grace, consisting in an internal efficacious operation of the principles, habits, and acts of internal grace and obedience, is plainly to overthrow and reject the new covenant.

4. We bring nothing to the new covenant but our hearts as tables to be written on, with the sense of the insufficiency of the precepts and promises of the law with respect to our own ability to comply with them.

5. The Lord Christ, God and man, undertaking to be the mediator between God and man, and a surety on our behalf, is the head of the new covenant, which is made and established with us in him.

§22. And we may observe farther:

1. As nothing less than God becoming our God could help and save us, so nothing more can be required.

2. The efficacy, security, and glory of this covenant depend originally on the nature of God, immediately and actually upon the mediation of Christ.

3. It is from the engagement of the divine properties that this covenant is ordered in all things and sure. Infinite wisdom hath provided it, and infinite power will make it effectual.

4. As the grace of this covenant is inexpressible, se are the obligations it puts upon us to obedience.

5. God doth as well undertake for our being his people, as he doth for his being our God.

6. Those whom God makes a covenant with, are his in a peculiar manner,

§23. On that part of the subject which relates to teaching, we may observe:

1. The instructive ministry of the Old Testoment as such, and with respect to the carnal rites thereof, was a ministry of the letter, and not of the spirit, which did not really effect in the hearts of men the things which it taught. The spiritual benefit which was obtained under it, proceeded from the promise, and not from the efficacy of the law, or the covenant made at Sinai.

2. There is a duty incumbent on every man to instruct others according to his ability and opportunity in the knowledge of God; the law of it, being natural and eternal, is always obligatory on all sorts of persons. How few are there that take any care to instruct their own children and servants! and yet to car ry this duty farther would be looked upon almost as madness in the days wherein we live. We have far more who teach one another sin, folly, yea villany of all sorts, than the knowledge of God, and the duty we owe him.

3. It is the spirit of grace alone, as promised in the new covenant, frees the church from a laborious, but ineffectual, way of teaching. He who, in all his teaching, doth not take his encouragement from the internal, effectual teaching of God under the covenant of grace, and bends not all his endeavors to be subservient to that end, hath but an old Testament ministry.

4. There was an hidden treasure of divine wisdom, of "the knowledge of God," laid up in the revelations

and institutions of the Old Testament, which the people were not able to comprehend. They said one to another, "Know the Lord;" yet their attainments were but small, in comparison of what is contained in the ensuing promise.

5. The whole knowledge of God in Christ is both plainly revealed, and savingly communicated to believers, by virtue of the new covenant.

$24. Respecting the knowledge of God spoken of, observe:

1. There are, and ever have been, different degrees of the saving knowledge of God in the church, 1 John ii, 13, 14. Let every one be content with what he receives, and improve it to the utmost.

2. Where there is not some degree of saving knowledge, no interest in the new covenant can be pretended.

3. The full and clear declaration of God, as he is to be known of us in this world, is a privilege reserved for the days of the New Testament.

4. To know God, as revealed in Christ, is the highest privilege of which in this life we can be made partakers. For this is life eternal, that we may know the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent; John xvii, 3.

$25. Concerning what is said of sin and its pardon, observe:

1. Free, sovereign, undeserved grace in the pardon of sin, is the original spring of all covenant blessings. Hereby all boasting in ourselves is excluded, which God eminently aimed at in its contrivance and establishment, Rom. iii, 27; 1 Cor. i, 29-31. Pardon of sin is not merited by antecedent duties, but is the strongest obligation to future ones.

2. The new covenant (as to its internal form,) is made with them alone, who effectually and eventually are made partakers of the grace of it; though the proposals of its terms are indefinite.

3. The aggravations of sin are great and many, which the consciences of convinced sinners ought to have a regard to.

4. There is in the new covenant a provision of grace and mercy for all sorts, and all aggravations of

sins.

5. Aggravations of sin do glorify pardoning grace. Therefore doth God here so express them, that he may declare the glory of his grace in their remission.

6. We cannot understand aright the glory and excellency of pardoning mercy, unless we are convinced of the greatness and vileness of our sins in all their aggravations.

VERSE 13.

In that he saith, a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old, is ready to vanish away.

$1. Connexion and scope of the text. $2. The force of the argument. (3. How the former covenant was made old. $4. Abrogated by God himself. $5. Its vanishing away $6. Why its being disannulled is so expressed.

§1. THE apostle having in the foregoing verses proved, in general, the insufficiency of the old covenant, the necessity of the new, the difference between them, with the preference of the latter above the former; in all confirming the excellency of the priesthood of Christ above that of Aaron; in this verse he draweth a special inference from one word in the prophetic testimony, wherein the main truth to be confirmed was asserted. Here he fixeth on a new argument, in par