' .Adminijlration of the Covenant: 21] · makes heavt'!l home to believers.' 0 ! but the.paffilge betwixt the two worlds, is a dark., dangerous, and gloomy one! Who ·can without horror think of thejor• dan of death, and the darkfome region of. .the grave!' · But withal, God's covenant-people firoul(h::.emember, that their 1 ... ord hath bufin\efs in that paffage; ~s well as • on either fide ofit . 1 he llneofthe:covtnant is drawn through, it making a path by which the redeemed fafe· , ly pafs. So there alfo is the fcene ofChriiVs admini– flration of the covenant; he hath tht keys-of hell atJd of death, Rev. i. J 8. It .is great weaknefs, to think that he doth only, as it were, fiand on the ,other fide of the, river, ' direCting the believer in his paflage, and r~ady to receive himwhen come afhore: nay, it lies on him.as adminifirator of the <:oven~nt, even to go into the water with the paffe 1. ger, to take him by the arm, and going between him and ,the fiream, to break the force thereof unto h[m, and to bring n~m fate afhore. , Pfal. xxiii. 4· ' Though I walk through the' valley .of the fhadow ofdeath, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.' In the lfraelites paffitig ov-er to Canaan, the ark went firft.into ']otdan, and was lafi in coming · ·out, being there till all.t.he people were paffid clean o– ver, jofh. 3d and 4th chapters. ·The ark being a type ofChrifr) as Canaan w.as ofheaven~ thi£ teacheth us, that our Lord Jefus w.ill have bufinefs in the paffi1ge between the worlds; as long a~ there is one of his peo· ple to pafs that way; and that his admini{hation there will never be at an end, until the lafi inan within the . bond of the covenant, is fa~ely landed on the other iide. This done, he is , to adminifier the cove·nant to them there alfo, . compleating their bappinefs by a per– fect <tccompliatment of all the promifes thereof, unto them. As Jefus is th~ author, fo he is the fin ijher of our faith, Heb. xii. . 2. ln .which text there is an al– lufion to the races famous amongfi the ancient Greeks, wherein there was one, that opened the race, ran it, and went on the head of all the refi, another, who 0 4 was I ,
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