ath, but not one of
them is disconnected from a covenant with him. As the hand given among
men was in every age a pledge of friendship--the maintenance of which is
so palpably a design of a covenant, and betokened always an accession to
conditions of peace; as when the hand was given on the occasion of
swearing an oath, a covenant was wont to be made,[50] so when the hand,
which, when lifted up in devotion, points out always reconciliation with
God, in swearing is held up towards heaven, a sign that a covenant is
being made with him is thereby given.

Hence, when men, in making a league or covenant with one another,
lawfully vow or swear to the Lord, they Covenant with him--and this is,
moreover, corroborated by the Scripture account of some such covenants.
The covenant between Jonathan and David, made by swearing unto God, is
denominated a "covenant of the Lord."[51] The covenant of marriage, made
by vowing or swearing to the Lord, is recognised as the covenant of
God.[52] A covenant between God and each of these different parties must
therefore have been made. One reason of these designations of such
covenants is, that they were according to God's appointment; but it
would be absolutely gratuitous to deny that there is this other
reason--that those who sware in each case, by swearing came under an
engagement to the glorious Object of all worship to fulfil the promises
made by them to each other. Though marriage be not a sacrament, yet it
is universally admitted to be solemnised either by the making of vows or
by swearing to God; and if this covenant, and all others that are
ratified by oath, afford not the matter of covenants with God entered
into by the parties, there is not afforded by the scriptural forms of
transactions with God concerning things essentially religious, that are
ratified by oath, the least evidence of their being covenant engagements
to him. A covenant transaction among men concerning lawful things civil,
if ratified by oath, has the solemnity of an exercise that carries along
with it an engagement, of its own nature, to God, not less than an
exercise of Covenanting concerning things civil and religious, or
concerning things exclusively religious. Nor is it any valid objection
to the sentiment that every covenant--not excluding those that are
civil--which is ratified by an oath, is to be fulfilled, in virtue of an
engagement or vow to God made by the oath, that the designation of "a
covenant of God