and the Lord shall separate thee unto evil, because ye take
not with your enmity, there can be no treaty, a mediator can have no
employment from you.

How shall the breach of peace be made up? Since the first covenant cannot
be made up again, where shall the remedy be found? God is just and
righteous, men are rebellious and sinful, can these meet, and the one not
be consumed? Will not God be a consuming fire, and men as stubble before
the Lord's presence? Therefore, there must be a Mediator between them, a
peace-maker, to make of two one, to take up the difference. And this
Mediator must be like both, and yet neither wholly the one nor the other.
He must therefore be God and man, that he may be a fit day's man betwixt
God and man, and this is our Lord Jesus Christ. In his divinity he comes
near to God, in his humanity he comes near to man, in his person he is
between both, and he is fit to make peace, and therefore he is "a Prince
of peace," Isa. ix. 6. And that he may be a Prince of peace, he must be
both, "an everlasting Father" like God, and a young child like unto man.
God to prevail with God, and a man to engage for man, and therefore he is
called "our Peace," Eph. ii. 14. Our Lord Jesus Christ enters into a
covenant with the Father, wherein he undertakes to bear our curse, and the
chastisement of our peace. He is content to be dealt with as the rebel,
"Upon me, upon me be the iniquity," and so there comes an interruption, as
it were, of that blessed peace he had with the Father. He is content that
there should be a covering of wrath spread over the Father's love, that he
should handle the Son as an enemy, and therefore it is, that sinners are
admitted as friends,--his obedience takes away our rebellion. The cloud of
the Lord's displeasure pours down upon him, that it might be fair weather
to us, the armies of curses that were against us, encounter him, and he,
by being overcome, overcometh, by being slain by justice, Satan and sin,
overcometh all those, and killeth the enmity on the cross, making peace by
his blood, Col. ii. 14, 15 , Eph. ii. 15. And it is this sacrifice that
hath pacified heaven,--the sweet smell of it hath gone above, and made
peace in the high places.

Here, then, is the privilege of a believer,--to be at peace with God, to be
one with him, and this indeed is life eternal, to be united unto the
fountain of life, in whose favour is life and whose loving kindness is
better than life. Is not this