th intelligence and have sure ground for our faith.

"God is love;" and reciprocal love constitutes "the bond of perfectness"
between God and rational creatures. Communion with God is the supreme
felicity and highest honor of which angels and men are capable. The
first emanation of divine love revealed to us was displayed in the
covenant of works; although not called a covenant, the narrative
contains all the elements essential to a federal deed, comprising a
summary of the whole moral law. Thus the sovereign love of God was
manifested through the medium of law and covenant inseparably combined;
and this is the Lord's manner of dealing with mankind till the present
time.

That covenant was made with us in Adam as our common father and public
representative. By the breach of it we are born in Adam's image and
"children of wrath;" for the principle of representative identification
pervades the moral universe. Our rational and social nature fits us both
for personal and federal responsibility.

When we had "destroyed ourselves" by apostasy from God, then did God
"show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us
through Christ Jesus." The gift of his Son to be a covenant head to
sinners is God's highest, and most glorious demonstration of his
ineffable love. The breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the
love of Christ passeth knowledge; and the displays of this love through
the covenant of grace will doubtless furnish matter of admiration to
holy angels, and of adoring gratitude to redeemed sinners throughout
eternity. Rev. i: 5, 6.

Ever since our fall in Adam God has dealt with our sinful race by
covenant. This covenant was made with Christ as Mediator between God and
man, and as the representative of all whom the Father gave him to be
redeemed and brought to glory. John xvii: 2. Accordingly, the Lord
Jesus, immediately on the fall of our first parents, entered upon his
work of mediation. To them first he announced his commission, declaring
his purpose to "bruise the serpent's head--to destroy the works of the
devil." Gen. iii: 15; 1 John iii: 8. Christ is given "for a witness to
the people; a leader and commander to the people; to have power over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as the Father hath
given him."

Throughout the whole of the mediatorial administration the law and the
covenant are distinct, though inseparably connected: and although many
covenants are mentio