it requires. Until he is determined to yield to its decisions, and not allow the world for a moment to turn him aside, it will be like seed "sown among thorns," and will never bring forth fruit to the glory of God. It is similar with Christians in a state of lukewarmness and departure from God. Till they are determined to hear and retain it, truth will never reclaim them and bring them to the path of life. We have already seen that the Spirit has no other instrumentality but that of truth, and it is plain that the truth cannot affect us only by a voluntary yielding to its dictates. The Spirit of God would turn you from sin as a free, voluntary being, because it can be done in no other way. He cannot take you, without your consent, and plant you down as an active Christian, in a state of progressive holiness in the way to heaven. You must follow him willingly when he speaks to you by the truth, or never be reclaimed. When by a view of the truth you are impressed with a sense of duty, it is the voice of the Spirit of God. When he tells you to repent of your sins and return to your closet,-to establish the duties of religion in your family, or converse with your neighbors, brethren, if you would be sanctified, it must be done. You are praying to be sanctified, and the Spirit of the Lord tells you to fellow his direction, and to perform these known and important duties. 3. If truth is the means of conversion and sanctification, then fearful responsibilities rest upon the people of God. Although truth can be rendered effectual only by the Spirit of God, it is to be exhibited for that purpose by men. It is to be presented as we have seen, with a design as simple and direct to convince or persuade, or in other words, to convert or sanctify the mind, as if we had the power to make it effectual. Such would be our feelings and our conduct, if the condition of sinners and slothful Christians, were as fresh before our minds as it should be. This is a work in which all Christians may engage. There is no preaching that brings the truth with a point so sharp, and directly to the heart, and in a manner so difficult to evade or resist, as when it is presented by a neighbor or a friend, who brings a consistent and upright character, and a warm and benevolent heart. It was in this manner that the primitive disciples "went everywhere preaching the word." How powerful and glorious would be the effects, if all the members of our churches were to be colporteurs of this description? And why not? If we have been plucked as brands from the burning, shall we do nothing when God is willing to bless our efforts to rescue others? What other work is there, to which we can turn our feeble powers, as important as this? If we felt the tenderness and the deep anxiety of our first love, in what way could we employ our minds, that would appear to us as rational, when we come to see the worth of the soul in the light of the Judgment Day, as this? Is there not interest enough in the scenes to which we are rapidly passing, to make it a subject wor thy our serious and habitual conversation? But if we take so little interest in the salvation of others, that we have no serious and earnest appeal to make while souls are perishing around us because truth is not presented before them, how can we believe that our spirits are maturing for a residence with the Spirit of Christ, and of just men made perfect? How can we meet these immortal beings at the Judgment of the Great Day, for whose salvation we are doing nothing, if for the want of our efforts they shall be found at the left hand of the Judge? 4. If truth is the instrument in the work of conversion and sanctification, what an unutterable importance is attached to Bible Classes and Sabbath Schools? Where can we find a service that, by the grace of God, will as richly reward a benevolent heart, as to store the minds of children with that truth with which the Spirit of God may "make them wise unto salvation?" How can Christians, especially such as are in the morning of life, neglect so inviting an opportunity to promote the eternal interests of men, and the honor of Jesus Christ? 5. This subject presents distinctly to our minds our obligations and our encouragement to send the Gospel to the heathen. It is as true with the heathen as with sinners in a Christian country, that except they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, they cannot be saved. But how can they believe on him, of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear, except those who have the Gospel shall send it to them? If the love of the everlasting Redeemer led him cheerfully to give his life, to save such as repent from everlasting death, why do we not conclude at once that if we do nothing in attempting to persuade them with all our facilities and encouragements, we have not the spirit of Christ? So increased are the facilities for this work, that comparatively few and feeble as the professed children of God are, they still have it in their power to convey the Gospel to every human being. Let us remember, brethren, that this favorable time for effort with us will soon be past for ever. Let us awake and act in accordance with our elevated hopes, and our fearful responsibilities. Then shall we furnish the clearest and most satisfactory evidence that we have the spirit of Jesus Christ, and that we are his. Then let the scenes of death and judgment come, we shall have the best preparation for them that the universe affords. Whether their coming is soon or sudden, we shall be prepared to say with the poet, My lifted eye, without a tear, The gathering storm shall see; PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY IN THE UNION THEOLOGI- Delivered before the Synod of New York and New Jersey, October 21, 1846, and published at their request. THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. The Scriptures foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying in thee shall all nations be blessed.-GAL. iii. : 8. AFTER the apostasy of the human race, it being in the purpose of God to provide an economy whereby sinners could be justified and saved, the development of this economy in its visible forin was gradually made. On the first pages of inspiration we perceive the divine intention of mercy obscurely intimated. Then it appears embodied in individual cases of piety. Subsequently it is manifested in a distinction between classes of mankind-such as "the sons of God and the daughters of men ;" and finally the fruits of redemption are presented as a visibly organized community, avowing their devotion to the service of God, and bearing in themselves the peculiarities of those who are not conformed to this world, but who are transformed by the renewing of their minds, that they may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. In the history of God's plan of redemption, or of the development of the progress of his Church, a marked and eventful epoch is what is familiarly known as "the calling of Abraham." When, consequent upon their dwelling together in the same society, and the unrestrained intercourse of the godly with the profane, of idolators with the worshippers of the true God, the maxims and the practices of the wicked were found to incorporate themselves with the principles and lives of the holy, then God in his wisdom saw fit to separate one devout family from all the world-to unfold, in a more full and detailed manner than had ever before been done, his plan of mercy, and establish his covenant of grace, with the venerable head of that house, and to make him the medium and the instrument of a purer spiritual organization than had ever previously existed. He saw fit, by means of extraordinary interpositions of his providence, to preserve in the posterity of that man a remarkable family union and distinctiveness, down to a time when they became sufficiently numerous to be nationally consolidated; and then to lead them forth as a conquering army to the extirpation of heathen nations, and their settlement in a land made their own by his special gift. While they existed as an organized community, through the instrumentality of prohibitory enactments and peculiarities in their national polity and religious observances, he guarded them against holding intercourse with surrounding nations, and reared a middle wall of partition, which effectually turned back the tide of heathenism, and maintained in its simplicity the worship of the one only living and true God, until, in the fulness of time, the great mystery of godliness was disclosed-" God was manifested in the flesh," and a new era in the developments of his gracious economy was introduced; an era in which his Church was blessed with clearer light, attended with mightier demonstrations, and favored with special divine influences, which placed her in a position not only of self-defence, but also imparted to her an aggressive power, in the exercise of which, by the word and spirit of God, she should go forth conquering and to conquer, until her triumphs filled the whole earth. It is the assigned duty of this occasion to explicate the nature, the extent, and all the characteristics of that transaction, which took place between God and his servant Abraham at the time when he was called away from his home and kindred to sojourn in a strange land, with a view to the fulfilment of God's gracious designs toward men. This transaction is commonly called the Abrahamic covenant. We shall undertake to unfold its character, and to set forth its high and solemn significancy in their relation to our interests, our hopes and our responsibilities. In the inspired records, the transaction referred to is not brought into view in all its details in a single passage. The covenant, in the fulness of all its parts, may be collected from the book of Genesis, from the 12th to the 18th chapters inclusive. In the first instance its great substance was announced; and then, in the subsequent communications of God with Abraham, its parts were more fully disclosed as occasions and circumstances required. To every one who thoroughly examines and analyzes all that the Scriptures contain upon this subject, it will appear that the covenant transaction is made up of two parts. The one embraces the great end or final cause; the other includes its subordinate means and instrumentalities. The one is spiritual and permanent; the other is secular and temporal. The latter was fulfilled mainly in the domestic and national history of Abraham and his lineal descendants. The former realizes its fulfilment only in the operations of divine grace upon the soul, which are carried forward and consummated in its endless salvation. The subordinate and temporary department of that cluster of blessings promised to Abraham contains such as these: a numerous posterity to one who had long regarded himself as doomed to be perpetually childless; unprecedented rapidity of increase among his posterity; special divine protection against their enemies; assistance in overcoming those nations that stood in the way of their enlargement; a high and honorable position; an overawing power; and an envied name among the nations of the earth. The spiritual department of this covenant includes three plain and most important promises, which are, in the language of the covenant, these: "I will be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee (Gen. xvii. : 7); and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (Gen. xii. 3.) These promises are evidently spiritual. In respect to Abraham himself, no one will doubt but that God was the God of his soul, as well as of his body; the guardian of his eternal, as well as his temporal interests. In his case, the language expresses the whole idea of his being his Saviour and everlasting portion; and the very same language, in the same connection, applied to his seed, cannot have a different or a more limited meaning. To be the God of the seed of Abraham signifies as much as to be the God of Abraham. It is true that in another passage we are taught that the certain fulfilment of all that the promise imports, in the persons of the individuals of his family, was based upon a condition, which condition is, the fidelity of Abraham in commanding and rightly training his household after him. This passage occurs Gen. xvii. : 19. But this condition does in no wise affect the signification of the promise itself. The promise is spiritual, and its blessings are eternal. And the same is true of the third specification of this great and precious pledge, to wit: that in or through Abraham all the nations and families of the earth shall be blessed. Some have undertaken to place a limit around this part of the general promise, which they cannot place around either of the preceding ideas; and to make the promise signify merely that the heathen nations would be benefited in various temporal respects, by means of the superior intelligence, the more perfect civilization, and the purer morality of the descendants of Abraham. But to say nothing about the unreasonableness of this interpretation in other respects, it is palpably opposed by that passage which we have placed at the head of this discourse; "and the Scriptures foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thee shall all nations be blessed. The blessing which they were to receive through Abraham is the Gospel; and they are not merely to be elevated by it in their temporal condition to a higher degree of civilization and refinement; but they are to be justified through faith in the Gospel; i.e., all nations are to be spiritually and savingly blessed through Abraham. These three, therefore, are the great elements and essential parts of the covenant which was made with the venerable patriarch. It is with all propriety called "the covenant of grace. grace." It begins by imparting a personal assurance to him of his salvation; then, upon the condition specified, an assurance of the salvation of his posterity, in their generations, so long as they should be preserved |