romises. Some of these were that the duty
would be engaged in;[409] others of them, that the keeping of
engagements made would be followed with good;[410] others, that all the
blessings of the covenant would be bestowed.[411] The passages belonging
to each of these classes are numerous. Containing a proposal of
conditions on God's part, they lead directly to the duty. What is
wanting, is the acceptance of them on the part of man. So often as they
are read or meditated on, or pressed on sinners in the preaching of the
gospel, the sinner is invited to take hold in God's covenant. The
invitations addressed through them are made by the Redeemer as the
Prophet of his Church, and as the Lord of all. They exhibit the will of
the Father, that his people should acknowledge him as the God of grace.
They testify to the love of the Spirit, whose work it is to lead to
accept of them. They unfold the purposes which were of old. They are the
echo of the promises of the Everlasting Covenant, made to the great
Mediator between God and man.

Through types. Covenanting itself is not a type or shadow, but a
substantial reality. With many other things, however, which in some
aspects of their character were types of good things to come, under
other of their features it may be associated in presenting an emblem of
what is spiritual. Thus, every institution of Divine grace may be
understood as testifying to the excellence and necessity of every other,
and to the reality of the exercises of the heart which ought to
accompany their outward observance. Many things connected with the
former dispensations, accordingly, vouch for the high origin, and
nature, and claims of Covenanting. We contemplate them doing so, not as
types of good things which had no existence when they occurred, but as
emblems of good connected with vowing and swearing to God, which was
common to every era of the history of the Church. By these, not less
explicitly than by the voice of speech, instruction is addressed; and
not less than the most explicit tender of good or obligation are their
dictates to be received. Enoch, who clave to God; Noah and Abraham, each
a covenant head; Aaron and Phinehas, each the representative of a
Covenanted priesthood; and David, the federal head of a royal posterity;
as individuals, were emblems of many devoted personally and socially by
Covenant to the Lord. The Israelites, servants of God: the first-born
among these, dedicated to the Lord: th