nt
(when, lo, he had given his hand), and hath done all these _things_, he
shall not escape.

2 TIM. iii: 3. Truce-breakers--or Covenant-breakers.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

It is the ineffable product of eternal love, and infinite condescension
in God toward his rational creatures, that ever he was pleased to make a
covenant with them, and not to command and require obedience to his holy
and just will, by virtue of his most absolute supremacy and rightful
dominion only; but even to superadd sweet and precious promises, as a
reward of that obedience, which he might of right have required, without
giving any such incitements or pursuasives to it. And as no tongue of
men or angels is sufficient to express, no strength of imagination to
conceive, no sublimity of intellectual faculties to comprehend the depth
of that spring, and breadth of that ocean of unbounded love, which hath
exerted itself in God's covenanting with man; yea, with sinful man, by
means of a Mediator: so shall it always afford matter of wonder and
admiration to all finite and intelligent beings, to the ages of
eternity, and shall never be comprehended by any, but by him whose
understanding is infinite; wherefore He, who is all-sufficient and
self-sufficient, should invite, yea, press and entreat unworthy indigent
nothings, the sinful children of men to such an incomparable degree of
honor, dignity and advancement, as that is, to enter into a covenant
relation, and come into a solemn treaty of peace and conjunction with
Him, who is infinitely removed beyond all blessing and all praise. To
have this invitation, is indeed the honor and privilege of all within
the visible church, to whose ears the joyful sound of the glorious
gospel of Jesus Christ hath come; but few are so wise as to accept and
approve it. Many, too many, account themselves unworthy of this honor,
and by despising this privilege, and rejecting this dignity, deprive
themselves of the greatest happiness; but as all nations, upon whom the
day-star of the gospel hath arisen, have had the invitation to this
duty, and all sound and real believers have actually participated of
this honor, to have God making a covenant with them, and they striking
hands with Him through a Mediator (which covenant is commonly termed the
_Covenant of Grace_,) so these three kingdoms of Scotland, England and
Ireland conjunctly, and Scotland by itself, as an independent nation,
had in an eminent way and manner