he make a Covenant ([Hebrew: b'rith], [Greek: diathecheu]) with thee?
wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?"[228] The book of the
Covenant of God, was the book of the law. The curses of the Covenant
were written in the book of the law.[229] In that book, too, the
promises of the Covenant were contained. The statutes and Covenant of
God are conjoined, and both are commanded;--the one that they might be
obeyed, the other, that it might be taken hold upon, and that its duties
contained in those statutes might be observed. "Wherefore the Lord said
unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept
my Covenant, and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely
rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant."[230] And
that which is made known as the everlasting Covenant, is given as a law.
"He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded
to a thousand generations: which covenant he made with Abraham, and his
oath unto Isaac; and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to
Israel for an everlasting covenant."[231]

Covenanting, whether Personal or Social, ought to embrace present and
permanent duty. The Ten Commandments are of perpetual obligation on all;
and so is every moral precept included in them. And not less than these,
is every positive statute which is applicable to this last dispensation.
But the words of the Covenant of Grace were written on the tables of the
Covenant. "And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the
ten commandments."[232] Hence, every Divine statute, obligatory on men,
being in accordance with the decalogue, or forming a part of it, every
duty that can be performed, whether at present or afterwards, is
incumbent, and ought to be engaged to as a Covenant duty. Certain
observances, not merely because they were signs of the Covenant of God,
but were also duties of it, were denominated a covenant; and their
continuance during an appointed term, was enjoined. And if circumcision
and the seventh-day sabbath being thus denominated, and commanded for
specified periods, were duties of the Covenant, ought not all services,
decreed by Divine authority, even as they were, not merely to be
performed because enjoined in the Divine law, but also to be preceded by
solemn Covenant engagement to discharge them aright? In reference, not
merely to one statute of the Divine law, but likewise to each, is
uttered, therefore, to all in