[652] Ps. cxxxii. 14.

[653] Zech. ii. 10, 11.

[654] Is. xxv. 6, 9; see also ver. 7, 8.

[655] 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25.

[656] 2 Cor. v. 14, 15.

[657] Song ii. 4.

[658] 1 Sam. xx. 17; see also ver. 16.

[659] Jer. xxxi. 3.

[660] Hos. xi. 4.--Cords and bands here correspond to the bond of the
Covenant.

[661] Ps. xxxii. 8.

CHAPTER XI.

COVENANTING ENFORCED BY THE GRANT OF COVENANT SIGNS AND SEALS.

To declare emphatically that the people of God are a covenant people,
various signs were in sovereignty vouchsafed. The lights in the
firmament of heaven were appointed to be for signs, affording direction
to the mariner, the husbandman, and others. Miracles wrought on
memorable occasions, were constituted signs or tokens of God's universal
government. The gracious grant of covenant signs was made in order to
proclaim the truth of the existence of God's covenant with his people,
to urge the performance of its duties, and to unfold its blessings. Of
these signs, some coeval with each one in covenant, and many enduring
like the covenant itself, even for ever, all declaring that some are in
covenant with God, and that others will yet also be so in covenant,
enforce not less than all other duties, yea, especially enforce the duty
of Covenanting itself. A token deemed necessary to a covenant was
sometimes freely given: at other times it was requested. Jonathan, in
token of his covenant with David, "stripped himself of the robe that was
upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and
to his bow, and to his girdle." Rahab said to the spies from the camp of
Israel, "Now therefore I pray you, swear unto me by the Lord, since I
have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto my
father's house, and give me a true token." For all in covenant with God,
without their entreaty, have tokens been provided. None attempted to ask
them in the depth, or in the height above. The Lord himself of his own
good pleasure bestowed them. And, first,

The rainbow. "God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make
between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for
perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for
a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to
pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in
the cloud: and I will remember my covenant which is between me and you,
and every living cre