Amply did the Lord provide for the accomplishment of his promises to the fathers. Though the "curses of that covenant" which He made with their seed have driven both Israelites and Jews (long distinct from each other) from the land of their inheritance, He will make a new and everlasting covenant of mercy and peace with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Bearing the two tables of the law, the ten commandments, written on stone, their hearts failed them for fear at the sight of their enemies, and even at the tidings of their strength. The curses of their broken covenant followed them in every age, rooted them out of their own land, and have everywhere pursued and overtaken them, and have been upon them for a sign and for a wonder for many generations in every country under heaven. But after these days, when they shall bear in their hearts the law of their God according to his own everlasting covenant of mercy and of peace, and when they all shall know him from the least unto the greatest, and He will be merciful unto their unrighteousness, and remember their sins and iniquities no more; then the curses of the old covenant, itself vanished away, shall no longer be a barrier against their entrance, nor a hindrance to the full possession and final retention of the land; nor shall they in any way interpose, as heretofore, to retard the full performance of the oath which the Lord sware to Abraham, to give the land of Canaan to his seed for an everlasting possession. Surely the promises made to the believing fathers shall be fulfilled to their believing children,-even as truly as the Lord liveth. The days of their mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land for ever.1

The Israelites continued not in the first covenant which

1 Isaiah lx. 30, 31.

the Lord made with them.

Therefore are they wan

derers throughout the world, who have nowhere found a place on which the sole of their foot could resta people without a country; even as their own land, as subsequently to be shown, is in a great measure, a country without a people. The one and the other have been smitten with a curse. But let that curse be taken away-let the Lord remember the people and remember the land, and there shall be no more scattering nor wandering, no more desolation, no more separation between Zion and her children. Israel has ruined himself; but in the Lord his help is to be found, even plenteous redemption. The broken fragments of the tables of the law, were not gathered up and cemented together; but new tables were made on which the law was written, at the command of the Lord, by the hand of Moses. And a broken covenant is not renewed, but a new and everlasting covenant is established upon better promises, and appointed by the Lord in the hand of a Mediator.

Such is the connection between the covenant with Abraham and the new and everlasting covenant which the Lord will make with the house of Israel, that the words of Jeremiah, quoted by Paul, in which it is so explicitly announced, are ushered in by the declaration of the Lord himself, that He will bring again their captivity; and that like as He watched over them, to pluck up and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will He watch over them, to build and to plant.' And the words which immediately follow the description of the nature of the new covenant are,Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinance of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; the Lord of Hosts is his name.

1 Jer. xxxi. 23, 28.

If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the Lord, if heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.-Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord; and the measuring line shall go over against it;-and it shall not be plucked up nor thrown down any more for ever." Such shall be the issue of the establishment of the new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

The first foundation of it is, indeed, the first promise to sinful man,—the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent. The promise assumed a more definite form when Abraham, at the command of the Lord, had gone to Canaan; and again still more expressly when David had taken the stronghold of Zion. The covenant with Abraham secured ultimately, though not immediately, a special boon to a peculiar people, and the blessing of redemption to all the families of the earth. Justice interposed so soon as, under the law, the march was begun from the house of bondage to the land of promise. But when David was called from the sheepfold to the throne, and when he who, while a stripling, had gone forth in faith against Goliath, was seated there, a covenant was made with him, of which the character is mercy; and by which the faithfulness of God is made known and established to all generations, and a horn of salvation was raised up in his house for Jew and Gentile.

"I will sing," says the royal and inspired psalmist, "of the mercies of the Lord for ever: with my mouth

Jer. xxxi. 35-40.

will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations.'-Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy One, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him; --with whom my hand shall be established.-My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him; and in my name shall his horn be exalted. Also, I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth.-My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.— I will not suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me."2

In virtue of this covenant, the evangelical prophet proclaims the free gospel call to all the ends of the earth, which shall finally see the salvation of the Lord.

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price;-incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David,"3 &c.

In denouncing on Israel, because of unfaithfulness, the curses of the covenant under the law, the same pro

Ps. lxxxix. 1-4.

2 Ibid. 19, 20, 24-36.

3 Isa. lv. 1-3.

phet said, The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.' And Moses, by whom that covenant was given, declared, that if the children of Israel would repent and return unto the Lord, and love him with all their hearts, the Lord would take these curses from them and put them upon their enemies.* But it may be feared that while the Gentiles, professing the faith of the gospel, have accounted the sure mercies of David theirs, they have often left nothing but "the curses," as the appointed portion of the people to whose fathers the promises were given. Or if, as cannot be denied, it be admitted, that were the door at which the Son of David now stands and knocks, opened by any man, whether Jew or Gentile, who hears his voice, He will come in to him,3 yet there may be, in the minds of many, a lingering apprehension, if not a positive belief, that the Jews have long been shut out from the covenanted promises of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, as in any way peculiar to their seed, or pertaining to the land of their inheritance.

Such an opinion derives a seeming sanction from the high attributes with which it seems to clothe the everlasting covenant of grace and mercy by a Redeemer ; and forbids, as it were, the overshadowing of "the glory of the latter days," by any merely territorial allotment to any peculiar people, when the same great salvation, in all the fulness of the gospel, shall extend alike to all.

That glory is not to be defined, which since the beginning of the world men have not heard, neither perceived with the ear, neither hath the eye seen, but the Lord alone, even the glory which He hath prepared for him that waited for Him. But these words, which set forth that glory as indescribable, because inconceivable,

1 Isa. ix. 8.

2 Deut. xxx. 7. 3 Rev. iii. 20. 4 Isa. lxiv. 4.