them.* 3. It signifies also a precept; and to cut a covenant is to give a precept: I made a covenant with your fathers-saying, At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother.+ Hence it appears in what sense the decalogue is called God's covenant. But properly, it signifies a mutual agreement between parties with respect to something. Such a covenant took place between Abraham and Mamre, with Eschol and Ener, who are called BANGALE BERITH, ADRAM, confederates with Abraham.‡ Such also was that between Isaac and Abimelech ;§ between Jonathan and David. And of this kind likewise is that of which we are now to treat, between God and man. IV. No less equivocal is the DIATHEKE of the Greeks; which, both singularly and plurally, very often denotes a testament; as Budæus shews from Isocrates, Æschines, Demosthenes, and others. In this sense, we hinted, it was used by the apostle.** Sometimes also it denotes a law, which is a rule of life. For the Orphici and Pythagoreans styled the rules of living prescribed to their pupils, DIATHEKAI, according to Grotius. It also frequently signifies an engagement and agreement; wherefore Hesychius explains it by SUNOMOSIA, confederacy. There is none of these significations that will not be of use in the progress of the work. V. To make a covenant the Hebrews call BERITH BEROTH, to strike a covenant, in the same manner as the Greeks and Latins, ferire, icere, percutere fœdus. Which doubtless took its rise from the ancient ceremony of slaying animals, by which covenants were ratified. Of this rite we observe very ancient traces ;tt whether this was then first commanded by God, or borrowed from the custom of nations. Emphatical is what Polybius‡‡ relates of the Cynæthen ses, EPI TON SPHAGION TOUS ORKOUS KAI TAS PISTEIS EDIDOSAN ALLELOIS, Over the slaughtered † Jer. xxxiv, 13. 14. + Gen. xiv. 13. 1 Sam. xviii. 2. ¶ In comment.ling. Græc. tt Gen. xv. 9. 10. # Lib. iv. p. (mihi) 398, * If. lix. 21. § Gen. xxvi. 28, 29. **Heb. ix. 15. victims they took a solemn oath, and plighted faith to each other. Which phrase is plainly similar to what God uses,* cORETHE BERITHI NGALE DSABACH, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. They also used to pass in the middle between the divided parts of the victim cut asunder.+ Whoever wants to know more about this rite may consult Grotius on Matth. xxvi. 28. Bochart in his Hierozoicon, book ii. chap. xxxiii. p. 325, and Owen's Theologum, book iii. chap. 1. It was likewise a custom, that agreements and contracts were ratified, by adhibiting solemn feasts. Examples of this are obvious in scripture. Thus it is said, that Isaac, having made a covenant with Abimelech, made a great feast, and eat with them. In like manner acted his son Jacob, after having made a covenant with Laban.§ There is mention of a like federal feast, 2 Sam. iii. 20. where a relation is given of the feast which David made for Abner and his attendants, who came to make a covenant with him in the name of the people. That it was also customary among the Heathens, the most learned Stuckius shews.|| VI. Nor were these rites without their significancy, The cutting the animals asunder denoted, that in the same manner the perjured and covenant-breaker should be cut asunder, by the vengeance of God. To this purpose is what God says,¶ I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof-I will give them into the hand of their enemies ;—and their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth. Compare 1 Sam. xi. 7. An ancient form of these execrations is extant in Livy.** "The Roman people do not first fail in these conditions if they should, through public resolution or Gen. xxvi. 30. § Gen. In Antiq. Convivial. 1. i. c. 40. ¶ Jer. xxxiv. 18, *Pfalm 1. 5. xxxi. 54. 19, 20. ** Lib. 1. † Jer. xxxiv. 18. base deceit, do thou, O Jupiter, on that day, thus strike the Roman people, as I do now this hog; and strike so much the heavier, as thou art stronger and more powerful." When the covenanters passed thro' the parts cut asunder, it was intimated that they were united by the closest bond of religion and an oath, and now formed one body, as Vatablus* has remarked. Federal feasts were tokens of a sincere and lasting friendship. VII. But when God, in the solemnities of his cov enants with men, thought proper to use these or the like rites, the significancy was much more august. They who made covenant with God by sacrifice, not only subjected themselves to punishment, if, impiously revolting from God, they slighted his covenant; but God likewise intimated to them, that all the stability of the covenant of grace was founded on the sacrifice of Christ, and that the body and soul of Christ were one day to be pulled asunder. All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen.† His blood is the blood of the New Testament,‡ in a far more excellent manner, than that with which Moses sprinkled both the altar and the covenanted people.§ Those sacred banquets, with which the covenanted were entertained before the face of the Lord, especially that which the Lord Jesus hath instituted under the New Testament, do most effectually seal that intimate communion and fellowship that is between Christ and believers. VIII. There are very learned men, who from this rite would draw the explication of that phrase, which we have Num. xviii. 19, and 2 Chron. xiii. 5. of a covenant of salt, that is, of a covenant of friendship, and that stable and perpetual. "Which seems to be so denominated, because salt was usually made use of in sacrifices, to denote that the covenant was made sure upon observing the customary rites in making it," says the celebrated Rivet. Unless we would rather Ad Gen. xv. 10. † 2 Cor. i. 20. Matth. xxvi. 28. § Exod. xxiv. 8. suppose, that a regard is here had to the firm consistence of salt, by which it resists putrefaction and corruption, and in a manner tends to eternity. For that reason, Lot's wife is thought to have been turned into a pillar of salt; not so much, as Augustine remarks, to be as a seasoning to us, but to stand as a lasting and perpetual monument of the divine judgment. For all salt is not subject to melting. Pliny tells us, that the Arabs build some walls and houses with blocks of salt, and cement them with water. IX. Having premised these things in general about the terms, let us now enquire into the thing itself, and the nature of the covenant of God with man: which I thus define. A covenant of God with man is an agreement between God and man, about the method of obtaining consummate happiness, with the addition of a threatening of eternal destruction, with which the despiser of the happiness offered in that way is to be punished. pre X. The covenant on God's part comprises three things in the whole. 1. A promise of consummate happiness in eternal life. 2. A designation and scription of the condition, on the performance of which, man acquires a right to the promise. 3. A penal sanction against those who do not stand by the prescribed condition. All things regard the whole man, or HOLOKLEKOS, according to Paul's phrase, as consisting of soul and body. To each part God promises happiness, of each he requires sanctification, and to each he threatens destruction. And he makes this covenant, to the end that God may appear glorious in the whole man. XI. To enter into such a covenant with a rational creature, formed after his own image, is entirely becoming God, and worthy of him. For it was impossible, but God should propose himself to the intelligent creature as a pattern of holiness, in conformity to which he ought to form himself and all his actions, carefully preserving, and always rendering active that original righteousness, with which, from his very ori gin, he was presented by God. God cannot but bind man to love, worship, and seek him, as the chief good. And it cannot be conceived, how God requiring man to love and seek him, should refuse to be found by man loving, seeking, and esteeming him as the chief good, and as such longing, hungering, and thirsting for him alone. Who can conceive it to be worthy of God, to say to man, I am willing that you seek me alone; but on condition you never find me ? I am willing to be earnestly longed for by thee above all things, with hungering and thirsting after me, but on condition you never be satisfied with me? Nor does the justice of God less require, that man rejecting the happiness, offered on the most equitable terms, should be punished with the privation of it, and besides incur the severest indignation of the despised Deity. Whence it appears, that, from the very consideration of the divine perfections, it may be fairly deduced, that he has prescribed a certain law to man, and that as the condition of enjoying happiness; which consists in the fruition of God, enforced with the threatening of a curse against the rebel. In which we have just now said, that the whole of the covenant consists. But of each of these there will be fuller room to discourse hereafter. XII. Hitherto we have considered the covenant of God, as that of one party. It becomes the covenant of two parties, when man consents thereto, embracing the good promised by God, engaging to an exact observance of the condition required, and, upon the violation thereof, voluntarily owning himself obnoxious to the threatened curse. This the scripture calls, · LENGA BRECHA BIBERITH JEHOVAH, to enter into covenant with the Lord ;* to enter into a curse and an oath. In this curse (Paul‡ calls it HOMOLOGIA, professed subjection) conscience presents itself a witness, that God's stipulation is just, and that this method of coming to the enjoyment of God highly becomes God, and that there is no other way of obtaining the prom * Deut. xxix. 12. † Neh. x. 29. ‡ 2 Cor. ix. 13. |