faved his people of old from their enemies, and from the hand of all that hated them, his mercy fo difplayed was a figure for the time then prefent, a pledge and earneft of eternal redemption; as if he had faid, "Ye fhall fee greater things than "thefe." And the pfalms, formerly compofed to celebrate the deliverance of Ifrael from Egyptian and Babylonian captivities, are now used, by the church Chriftian, to praife God for falvation from fin, death, and Satan: they are fung NEW in the kingdom of Meffiah. "Old

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things are paffed away, behold all things are become new:" legal figures are vanished, and the terms. employed to defcribe them are tranfferred to evangelical truths. When

the prophets compofed pfalms on occafion of temporal deliverances, they looked forward to a future fpiritual falvation; as Zacharias, in his hymn, the fubject of which is a spiritual falvation, looks back, and has a reference to past temporal deliver

ances.

5. To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant

THE "mercy promised to our fa"thers" was, therefore, a fpiritual mercy; and the "covenant" made with them was a gofpel covenant; for otherwife, God could not be faid, by raifing up Chrift, to have " per"formed that mercy," and "re"membered that covenant." Accordingly,

cordingly, we are elsewhere told, "the Gospel was preached to Abra"ham*;" and the covenant made with him is ftyled "the covenant of God in Chriftt." The Gospel, then, was prior to the law, and was the patrimony of all the children of Abraham. "The law, which was "four hundred and thirty years af"ter," whatever might be it's intention, could not difpoffefs them of this their inheritance; it could not "difannul the covenant, and make "the promise of none effect." But if, on the contrary, it was defigned to keep up, and further the knowledge of them; if it was a ftanding prophecy; if it was "a fchoolmaf"ter" by it's elements training up * Gal. iii. 8. E 2

+ Ibid. 17.

and

and conducting it's fcholars "to "Chrift;" then certainly nothing was wanting on the part of God. The Jews minded earthly things; but to infer from thence, that they were never taught the knowlege of things heavenly, would be a method of arguing too hazardous to be ventured upon; fince, from the behaviour of many, who profefs the Chriftian religion, it might as fairly be concluded, that their Master promifed nothing but "loaves and fithes." Ifraelites might fet their hearts too much on "fields and

vineyards," forgetting or neglecting better things, as men are apt to do, who are bleffed with profperity in this prefent world. But when they did fo, they did wrong: pro

phets

phets were fent to reprove the error, and judgments to convince them, that Canaan was not the end of the

covenant," nor a plentiful harvest "the mercy promised.”

6. The oath which he feare to our forefather Abraham—

THE amazing condefcenfion of God in vouchfafing, for man's fatisfaction and affurance, to confirm his promife by an oath, is finely touched upon in the epiftle to the Hebrews. "When God made promife to Abra"ham, becaufe he could fwear by "no greater, he fware by himself, faying, furely, bleffing I will blefs "thee, and multiplying I will mul'tiply thee-For men verily fwear "by a greater, and an oath for con