24 GODS ELECTION OF MEN IN JESUS CHRIST. [SEEM. St. tament; Ps. ,xl. 7. " Lo, I come, in the volume ; or rather ,the beginning of the book it is written of me : I delight to do thy will, Omy God." Whether this book be the secret book of life, or the public book of scripture, I will not here determine ;both are true. And so it is written also, in the history of the life of Christ; for he speaks oftenwith sacred pleasure; that he came to do his Fafher's will,' and to take care of those whom the Father had given him, to keep them from perishing, and to raise them up at the last-day. Now this is what our divines generally call the cove- nant of redemption, even these sacred transactions be- tween God the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, before the foundation of the world ; and I think the scripture calls it the covenant ; Ps. lxxxix. 28. When the Psalm- ist has represented Christ, under the character of David, as chosen of God from among the people, to lay our help upon hire, he adds, " my covenant shall stand fast with hint, saith the Lord, his seed will I make to endure for ever ; and though they may sometimes fall into sin; yet I will not suffer my faithfulness to fail : my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that lias gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David," that is, I NVill fulfil the promises that I have madè to my Son, the true David, the king of Is- rael, or the head of my chosen people ; for I have con- firmed this covenant with him, by divine solemnities. And I am sure, the five first verses of the seventeenth of John, wherein our Saviour pleads with his Father, carry in them the plain language of á covenant, ai every Leader may observe. The only thing which remains on this head, is briefly to run over the articles of this covenant, or the mutual engagements between God the Father, and his Son Je- sus Christ: First then, let us consider what it was Christ under- took, as the chosen Saviour of his people. The " only begotten Son of God, who lay in the bosom of his Father, and had glory with him before the world was ;" John i. '18. and xvii. 5. agreed to " come forth from theFather, and to come into this world, and to be 'emptied of that glory for a season ;" John xvi. 28. Phil. ii. 7. " to take flesh and blood upon him ;" Heb. ii. 14. " to be horn of
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