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HEAVEN OPENED.

INTRODUCTION.

Good news from heaven! the Day-spring from on high hath visited this undone world! After a deluge of sin and misery, behold the bow in the cloud. The Lord God has made and established A NEW COVENANT, and this it is that has cast the first beam on the dark state of lost and fallen man, and has brought life and immortality to light. This covenant is the hope of sinners, the riches of saints, the magna charta of the city of God the forfeited lease of eternity renewed; God's deed of gift, wherein he has, on fair conditions, granted sinners their lives, and settled upon his saints an everlasting inheritance.

Hear, O ye forlorn captives, who have sold yourselves to eternal bondage, spoiled yourselves of all your glory, sealed yourselves up under everlasting misery. You are dead in your sins, guilty before God, under wrath, under a curse, bound over to eternal vengeance. But behold, there is yet hope in Israel concerning this thing; the Lord God has had compassion upon you, has opened a way for you to

escape out of all this misery and bondage. Lift up the hands that hang down, strengthen the trembling knees: an ark, an ark has God prepared, in which is salvation from the flood; a cOVENANT, A NEW COVENANT has he made and established, which, if you lay hold on it, will recover all you have lost, ransom you from death, redeem you from hell, and advance you to a more sure and blessed condition than your original state from which you have fallen. This is the hope of sinners; this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.

Glorious tidings, good news indeed! But WHAT IS THIS COVENANT? Or what is there that is given and granted therein? Why, in sum, there is all that heaven and earth can afford, all that can be needed or desired; and this, by a firm and irrevocable deed, made over, and made sure to all who will sincerely embrace it.

Particularly, God has in his covenant granted and made over Himself; his Son; his Spirit; the earth; the angels of light; the powers of darkness; death; the kingdom-all the means of salvation.

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