For when the seed of the woman was to break the serpent's head, it was necessary that those that would enjoy the fruit of that conquest should be enemies to the nature of the devil and the works of the devil; otherwise they could not join with that interest which overthrows him. It is unreasonable to think the head should have an enmity, and the members an amity: and we cannot have an enmity to that which is the same with our nature, without a change of disposition. It is not a verbal enmity that is here meant: while we pretend to hate him, we may do his pleasure; and Satan is never troubled to be pretendedly hated, and really obeyed. As wicked men do the will of God's purpose, while they oppose the will of his precept; so they do the Devil's will many times while they think they cross it. There must be a contrary nature to Satan before there can be an enmity. We are never enemies to those that encourage us in what we approve. His nature can never be altered by reason of the curse of God upon him: therefore ours must, if ever the league be broken. In Isa. lxv. 25. it is said, "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox, and dust shall be the serpent's meat." The nature of men may be changed by the Gospel; but dust shall always be the serpent's meat. The saving some by water in the deluge was a figure of this inward baptism, which is the answer of a good conscience towards God, 1 Pet. iii. 20, 21. As the whole world was so corrupt, that all must be washed away before it could be restored, so is the little world of man: the cloud and sea through which the Israelites passed signified this, as the Apostle informs us. Whereupon some think there were some sprinklings of the water upon them, as they stood like two walls, to favour their passage.

Necessary in the time of the law.

By the moral

law this renewing was implied in the first command, of not having any other gods before him. We cannot suppose that command only limited to a not serving an outward image. Is not the setting up self, our own reasons, our own wills, and bowing down to them, and serving them, as much a wrong to God, as the bowing down to a senseless image? nay, worse than the adoring of an image, since that is senseless; but our wills are corrupt, and no more fit to be our God than an image is fit to be a representation of him. So that in the spiritual part of the command this must be included, to acknowledge nothing as the rule of perfection but God; to set ourselves no other patterns of conformity but God; which the apostle phraseth a being new created after God.

If all idolatry were forbidden, then that which is inward, as well as that which is outward. If we were to have no other gods before him, then we were to prefer nothing inwardly before him; we were to make him our pattern, and be conformed to him; which we cannot without another nature than that we had by corruption.

Upon this are those scriptures founded which speak of covetousness to be idolatry; that if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him: he doth not love God.

Now the preferring self before God, is the essential part of the corrupt nature; therefore all men by the law of nature (which is the same with the moral law,) and the Jews, to whom this law was given, were bound to have another nature than that which was derived from Adam, which essentially consisted in the making ourselves our God. Self-esteem, selfdependence, self-seeking, is denying affection and subjection to God.

By the ceremonial law more plainly. There duty was not terminated in an external observance of the

types and shadows under the law; but a heart work God intended to signify to them in all those legal ceremonies. As sacrifices signified a necessity of expiation of sin; so their legal washings represented to them a necessity of regeneration.

Therefore God is said not to require the sacrifices of beasts. "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, (that is, sacrifices of beasts,) burnt offerings and sin offerings hast thou not required;" Psal. xl. 6; viz. as the ultimate object of his pleasure; but as representations of Christ, the great sacrifice. So neither did he command circumcision, and other legal purifications, for any thing in themselves, or any thing they could work, further than upon the body; but to signify unto them, an inward work upon the heart. Hence they are said not to be commanded by God, "For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; but this thing commanded I them, saying, obey my voice." Jer. vii. 22, 23. That is, God did not principally require these, as the things which did. terminate his will and pleasure; but an obedience to him, and walking with him, which cannot be, without an agreement of nature: for how can two walk together, unless they be agreed. Hence God speaks so often to them of the circumcision of the heart; and promises this circumcision of the heart. "And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed," &c. Deut. xxxvi. 6. And Paul expressly says, that "he was not a Jew." Rom. ii. 28, 29. That is, a spiritual Jew, one of the spiritual seed of Abraham, who had the circumcision that was outward in the flesh; but he that had that of the heart.

So among us, many confide in baptism, which signifieth nothing to men grown up, without an inward renewal, and baptism of the heart, no more than outward circumcision did to them.

The obligation upon us is still the same. The covenant made with Adam was made perpetually with him for all his posterity: therefore all his posterity, by that covenant, were perpetually obliged to a perfect righteousness. If God had made this covenant with Adam, that he should transfuse this original righteousness to his posterity only for such a time, then indeed, after the expiration of the term, the obligation had ceased, and none had been bound to have it, as a debt required by God: the fault of wanting it, had been removed, without any infusion of grace; because the time being expired, and so the obligation ceasing, it had not been a fault to want it: neither could Adam's posterity have been charged with his sin, because the want of righteousness, after the expiration of the time fixed had not been a sin: but because there was no time fixed, but that it was perpetually of force, as to righteousness, which was the main intent of it, we still remain under the obligation of having a righteous nature.

Now God seeing the impossibility of answering this obligation in our own persons, by our own strength, appoints a way whereby we may answer it in a second head, not annulling the former covenant as to the essential part of it, which was à righteous nature; but mitigating it; as the chancery annuls not the common law, but sweetens the severity of it.

This latter covenant, is called an everlasting covenant. Not that the obligation of the other to righteousness has ceased, but transmitted to another head; which head cannot possibly fail, as our former did, who hath both a perfect righteousness in himself, and hath undertaken for a perfect righteousness in his people, which he is able to accomplish, and to that purpose begins it here, and perfects it hereafter. To this purpose the Scripture speaks of the eternity

of the covenant. "My covenant shall stand fast with him." Psal. lxxxix. 28. that is, with Christ: and if his people sin, as he expresseth it afterwards, "yet my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him." In this respect Christ is called the covenant of the people. "I will give thee for a covenant of the people." Isa. xlii. 6. And the end of placing David, his servant, over his people, is not to give way to unrighteousness, and maintain men in an hostile nature against God; but that they might "walk in his judgments, and observe his statutes." Ezek. xxxvii. 24. And that everlasting covenant of peace he would make with them, is in order to sanctify them, Ezek. xxxvii. 26. 28. When God would make a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting covenant, it was to set his sanctuary among them, and to let the heathen know, that the Lord did sanctify Israel. And the end of the covenant, is to put "his law into the inward parts." Jer. xxxi. 33.

Christ undertook to keep up the honour of God, which was violated by the breach of that covenant, to "make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness." Dan. ix. 24. This obligation our second head entered into for us; and in him we are complete, even as our head, and as the head of all principality and power, who hath undertaken for our perfect righteousness; of our persons, by his own righteousness; of our nature, by inherent righteousness; as it follows, "In whom you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh," Col. ii. 11. This obligation still remains upon our head, and upon us in him; and to him we are to have recourse for a full answering of it. And this cannot be answered without a new birth here, which ends in perfection hereafter. And Christ by a plain