voice of the trumpet sounded long and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.' And the Apostle rehearsing these extraordinary things, has these words, For ye are not come unto mount that might be touched, and that burneth with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest; and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, &c. And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake.' Did not those fearful sights intimate the imposibility of being saved by the law of works? And so we think did the flaming sword and cherubims at, and Adam's expulsion from, Eden. And was not this likewise hinted by that most affecting providence Moses refused admission into the promised land?'

It has pleased God therefore, it would seem, to proclaim in a very extraordinary and impressive manner, the abrogation of the covenant of works; or, that heaven is not to be obtained by human merit; which ought not to be deemed surprising, if we consider how common, how criminal, and how perilous a thing it is for people to build their hope of possessing God's favour and future safety on their own supposed goodness or merit. Would you not consider him to hold a most dangerous error who should maintain, that works have absolutely nothing to do with salvation? No doubtlet us remember then, that it is no less dangerous to found our expectations of eternal life upon our

own righteousness; this is, to reject the Saviour, which will end in eternal death.

This discourse having far exceeded the anticipated limits, we must now take leave of Adam's exclusion from Paradise, although we are aware that these observations are far from fully explaining the verses on which they are founded. Let us bless God, that while the first appointed way to happiness by works was necessarily closed by the entrance of sin, yet, that it has pleased the Almighty to provide and reveal another way, to a weightier bliss-'a new and a living way' in the person and mediation of Jesus. O that we may know him, and believe in him and love him, who is the way, the truth, and the life.' Then shall we know that while sin has entered and abounded, grace doth much more abound.' That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.' Rom. v. 20, 21. To this glorious Saviour as revealed in the first gospel promise, your attention will next be directed.

6

LECTURE VII.

On the first Gospel Promise.

Gen. iii. 14, 15. And the Lord said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, (beguiled Eve,) thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel.'

The sacred writings plainly and frequently teach that ere man fell, or was formed, even from eternity, a covenant of grace was entered into between the persons of the sacred and eternal Trinity respecting the salvation of sinners. For the knowledge of God, like all his other perfections, being infinite, foresaw the total wreck of human nature by Adam's apostacy, and fore-ordaining because of his eternal love for his chosen, not to deal with mankind as he did with fallen angels, the whole of whom were left to perish-a gracious plan for the redemption of human transgressors was devised in the covenant of grace. To this most ancient and extraordinary confederacy the Scriptures often allude,

This is the covenant of which

the Apostle speaks, Gal. iii. 17. The covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ.'

This

is the better covenant,' of which Jesus is 'the surety,' mentioned Heb. vii, 22. When the Scriptures speak of Christ's being 'foreordained before the foundation of the world,' of his being 'delivered according to the determinate counsel and fore knowledge of God,' of his being set up from everlasting,' and that 'his goings forth were of old from everlasting,' they plainly refer to that eternal league of which we here speak.*

The promise of Christ in the text on which we are now to discourse, contains the first intimation of the existence of the 'everlasting covenant;' and like the first ray of hope from the Saviour shining into a sinner's heart, may justly be considered as the earliest dawn of that everlasting light of which the Prophet speaks: The Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and thy God, thy glory.' For both in respect of subsequent and more perfect revelations of Christ, in respect of his actual incarnation; in respect of the light of the heavenly glory; and in respect of the way to obtain it, this first promise and revelation of the Saviour was like the first glimpse of day. And like it, we imagine, it was to our first parents, who had sinned themselves into darkness and the shadow of death' -a most welcome and cheering object-more welcome than is the dawn to the mariner tossed with the tempest.

* i Pet. i. 20. Acts ii. 23. Prov. viii. 23. Micah v. 2,

More welcome may the Saviour be to us-which is the case if the eyes of our understanding have been enlightened' in the knowledge of him, and if so be that we are truly aware of the consequences of sin, which are not less alarming than real, and from which is no possible way of escape but faith in Jesus. Let these things be known and felt, then will he be to us, what the first notice of him was to Adam and Eve-like the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds for brightness." And verily O man, it is of greater importance to thee that Jesus the Sun of Righteousness should rise upon thy soul with healing in his beams,' than that the sun should rise upon the earth.

And now to approach nearer the subject of discussion. As the instrument Satan made use of, there can we should suppose, be no question that, the serpent was included in the curse denounced in verse 14. But how was the serpent cursed 'above all cattle, and above every beast of the field?' I. By being condemned to crawl upon the earth -for upon thy belly shalt thou go,' said the Lord God. Which words, together with the serpent being classed as expositors observe among those beasts which are distinguished from creeping things, render it more than probable, that originally the serpent was enabled to move in a more erect posture. 2. From its being said to the serpent, 'dust thou shalt eat all the days of thy life,' it has been conjectured, as a judicious commentator