spects, each respectively,
independent of the other, but also between master and servant, and
between rulers and their subjects. There too is described an engagement
between God, and Adam as the representative of the human race, which, to
say the least, cannot without the most obvious perversion of language be
represented as other than a covenant. It is alluded to in the words,
"They, like men (or, _Adam_), have transgressed the covenant."[2] And
was it not in reality a covenant? There is revealed the Covenant of
Redemption--that covenant which from the days of eternity was made
between the Father and the Son, with the concurrence of the Holy Ghost,
for the salvation of the elect. There too, that covenant is made known
as established with men, that is, made with them or dispensed to them.
Under this last aspect, it appears--"The Covenant of Grace." And there,
are men encouraged to enter into covenant with God by taking hold of
this covenant.

The conditions of a covenant, or the stipulation on the one hand, and
the re-stipulation on the other, are the things promised in the covenant
by the parties to one another. These may be mutual services, as is
sometimes the case among men; or, obedience and good unmerited through
God's favour bestowed, as in the case of man in innocence; or, obedience
and sufferings, and a high reward for these exemplified in the Covenant
of Redemption alone; or, the righteousness of Christ on the one hand, as
in the last case, and free grace on the other, in the Covenant of Grace.

Sinners redeemed are in covenant with God. The term _covenant_
designating their relation to him as a people is not figuratively
applied to it. Were it so, there should be no ground for admitting the
fact of any covenant even among men. True, the term is put to denote the
ordinances of the material universe.[3] But to maintain that it is in
precisely the same manner used to denominate any mutual relation among
moral beings, is to prefer an assumption manifestly gratuitous, and
completely at variance with the obvious truth, that for a race
interested in the blessings of the Covenant of Grace, these ordinances
after the sin of man were continued.[4] Though it was ordained that men
should enter into covenant, the covenant is not like the laws of the
lower creation, an absolute appointment taking effect without regard to
the resolutions of men. As assuredly as the ordinances of the material
heavens and the earth will be co