hose different dispensations of Divine
grace, which have been denominated from it. It would have prevented from
absurdly maintaining that what is represented as God's covenant with his
people, is not, in reality, a covenant, but merely a law. By tracing all
the dispensations of grace to one great source, it would have
acknowledged them, as they are presented in the sacred record, to be
consistent with one another, and would have prevented all the spiritual
poverty that arises from refusing to accept of the flood of light which
the Old Testament record casts forth towards the illustration of that of
the New; and would have shown, that while some services of a former
period, having served their purpose, have indeed passed, others, and,
among the rest, that of Covenanting with God, which have, along with
those, been by many consigned to abolition, are indeed among those
institutes which, till heaven and earth pass, shall not pass away. But
to proceed. The revelation of the will of God is in Scripture
represented as a covenant. A term, ([Hebrew: chazuth]), meaning
literally _a vision_, and consequently _a revelation_, is put also to
denote _a Covenant_ or _agreement_. In various passages it occurs in the
first acceptation.[401] In the last, it is employed in the original of
the following:--"And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and
your _agreement_ with hell shall not stand."[402] Now, though this
passage does not refer to a covenant with God, yet it alludes to a
transaction of a covenant character; and, consequently, may be
understood as containing, in reference to what is evil, a form of
expression that might be employed regarding a covenant with God. Indeed,
from various representations of Scripture, made in different terms, the
act of Covenanting would seem to be compared to a seeing of God;[403]
and, also, to what corresponds with that--a seeking of his face.[404] It
therefore follows, that the revelation of Divine truth is the revelation
of the Everlasting Covenant; that men, in holding communion with him,
learn concerning that Covenant; and that, in Covenanting with him, they
take hold upon it as dispensed to men, and on it alone. By keeping the
Sabbath, by receiving circumcision, by performing, besides, the other
duties of the law of God, by recognising the obligations of the Church
imposed in former times, and by entering into solemn engagements on
their own behalf, and on behalf of their children, belie