The Oberlin Evangelist

August 28, 1839

Lecture XV.

THE COVENANTS

by the Rev. Charles G. Finney

Modernized by Cliff Collins

“In that He says, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Hebrews 8:13)

The more experience I have in preaching the gospel, the more ripe are my convictions, that ministers take it for granted that their listeners are much better instructed on religious subjects than most of them really are. Therefore, ministers take many things for granted; ministers assume that their audience already understands many things they are ignorant about. This sometimes exposes listeners to misconceptions of what they hear, and often throws them into an unsettled state of mind concerning the truths they may have heard, because so many things are assumed that they know nothing about. From some remarks I have heard, I think that what I have said on the subject of the covenants could be misunderstood, because of a lack of a somewhat more fundamental examination of the subject of covenants than I presented in any of my lectures.

In the context of today’s passage, Paul is speaking about setting aside the Old Covenant, and introducing the New.

In discussing this subject, I plan to show:

I. What a covenant implies.

II. The different kinds of covenants.

III. Some of the principal covenants between God and men.

IV. Which of these covenants are set aside, and in what sense they are set aside.

V. That the New Covenant is the accomplishment of what was proposed by the preceding covenants.

I. What does a covenant imply?

1. A covenant is a mutual promise between two or more parties. A promise of one party, that is not agreed to by the other party, is not a covenant but a promise. To be a covenant, the promise must be mutual.

2. The promise must be made by lawful persons. In other words, they must be of suitable age, of a sound mind, not lunatics, or idiots; and the circumstances must be such that it is legal for them to enter into the proposed covenant. In certain circumstances, persons may agree to a covenant for their heirs, or for those whom they represent. In all such cases, those whom they represent are equally bound with them. Thus, parents can covenant concerning their estates binding their heirs. Thus, Abraham could covenant with God concerning himself and his descendants.

3. A covenant is not only a mutual promise by lawful persons; it also does something legal. Persons cannot covenant and bring themselves under an obligation to do anything that is unlawful, or immoral. In other words, an unlawful covenant would be void, and would be no covenant at all. No courts of law or equity, nor the tribunal of God, will consider any such covenants as being valid at all.

II. What are the different types of covenants?

1. There are covenants where the parties involved are equal; that is, where one party is under no special obligation to the other party, but where each has an equal right to canvass and dictate the terms of the covenant. This is one kind of covenant and is called by Greek grammarians “suntheke”. Of course, no covenant of this kind exists between God and His creatures.

2. There are also covenants where one has the right to dictate the terms of the covenant to the other, and where the parties sustain to each other the relation of sovereign and subject. This kind of covenant is called “diatheke”, and means the same as the Hebrew word “berith”. Covenants of this kind are the same as laws, institutions, and governmental ordinances. All government implies a mutual promise between the sovereign and subjects, a promise of protection on the sovereign’s part and a promise of obedience by the subjects. Therefore all laws, ordinances, and institutions dictated by the sovereign and consented to by the subjects, are properly covenants between the parties.

3. Another important distinction that should be made concerning covenants takes place,

(1) Where persons covenant to do what they were under previous obligation to do on the ground of natural right or justice. This kind of covenant can never be dissolved by the consent of parties, because they were under obligation to do what they engaged to do before any promise.

(2) Where two parties covenant to do what was not obligatory before, but the whole obligation arises from their mutual promise. This kind of covenant may be dissolved by the consent of all parties. Concerning those laws and institutions that require only what is obligatory on the principles of natural justice, they cannot be repealed or set aside by either or by both parties. For example, the law of God requiring His creatures to love Him with all their hearts can never be repealed by God. God can’t do away with this obligation, because it is clearly right in itself, and a dictate of natural justice. Those laws and institutions that are ceremonial, and not obligatory by nature, may be set aside at any time at the will of the lawgiver. Please understand then, that in the sense of “diatheke”, all laws, institutions, and ordinances are covenants, and imply the mutual consent, as well as mutual obligations, of the sovereign and his subjects. In this sense, the laws and ordinances of God are covenants.

III. What are some of the covenants between God and men?

1. The Adamic covenant, or the covenant made with Adam is the first covenant between God and men. In substance, this is the moral law summed up by the Savior in the two great commandments. The test of this covenant was refusing the forbidden fruit. If Adam abstained wholly from this fruit, it was sufficient evidence that his love for God was supreme, and that he regarded the authority of God above the indulgence of his constitutional appetites. However, the fact that he partook of this fruit was conclusive evidence that his regard for God was not supreme; but that the indulgence of his appetite was far more important than the authority of God. That this was a covenant and consented to by Adam can be seen from the fact that, for a while, he obeyed it.

This was strictly and properly a covenant of works, and proposed to save him on the ground of his perfect and perpetual obedience to God.

2. Now, I want to pass by the covenant with Noah, so I can talk about the covenant made with Abraham, as recorded in the 12, 15, and 17 chapters of Genesis. This was a covenant of grace as opposed to the Adamic covenant, which was a covenant of works. This covenant proposed a new way of salvation. Salvation by works of the law had become impossible, since Adam and his descendants had disobeyed the law. Therefore, God, in the Abrahamic covenant, proposed to save all humanity by grace through faith. The substance of this had been revealed to Adam immediately after the fall, and was, no doubt, understood and embraced by all the saints from Adam to Abraham. We find Abel offering a sacrifice in faith, and his sacrifice spoke of the Atonement of Christ. This covenant, made more fully with Abraham, is said by the Apostle Paul in Gal. 3:8 to be the gospel: “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nations by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” The fact that it was a covenant of grace as opposed to a covenant of works is clear from the above passage, and from the 16th verse of the same chapter: “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds’, as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed’, who is Christ.” Also from Rom. 4:13, 16: “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.” These and many other passages show that this covenant with Abraham was a gracious, in opposition to a legal, covenant or a covenant of works.

We have an account of the solemn ratification of this covenant, according to the custom of those times by dividing beasts in half and the parties involved in the covenant passing between the halves. This is found in Gen. 15:8-12, 17: “And he said, ‘Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it’? So He said to him, ‘Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon’. Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there was a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces.” Here the lamp is the symbol of the divine presence. In the 17th chapter, we have an account of the sign being added to the covenant to which Abraham fully consented on his part, by circumcising himself and all the males of his household. This covenant was made with Abraham and with all who believed in the God of Israel whether Jews or Gentiles. If they would receive this covenant, they were to acknowledge His authority by circumcising themselves and all the males of their household as a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham. Thus the new converts to the Jew’s religion, before they were allowed to eat of the Passover, were required to be circumcised with all their males. “And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you.” (Ex 12:48-49)

3. Next, we have the Sinai covenant, or the law given on Mount Sinai. It appears that all the laws and ordinances given on Mount Sinai made up this covenant. In the following passages, the Ten Commandments are called the covenant, “which had the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the TABLETS of the COVENANT.” (Hebrews 9:4) “So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the WORDS of the COVENANT, the Ten Commandments.” (Ex 34:28) “When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the TABLETS of the COVENANT which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two TABLETS of the COVENANT were in my two hands.” (Deut 9:9,11,15)

These commandments however were only a part of the covenant as other passages clearly show. For example, let’s compare Heb. 9:18-20 with Ex. 24:3-8.

“Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you’.” (Hebrews 9:18-20) “So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words which the Lord has said we will do’. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, ‘All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient’. And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, ‘Behold, the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words’.” (Ex 24:3-8) In these passages, we learn that every precept of the law was included in the Sinai covenant. In the passage quoted above from Exodus we have the solemn ratification of this covenant, which is mentioned also in the passage quoted from Hebrews. Since these are nowhere called two covenants, and since the law on the two tablets had already been given and was so important in its nature, and is so often called the covenant, we can conclude that all the laws given on Mt. Sinai were included in this covenant. Concerning the Sinai covenant:

(1) It did not set aside the Abrahamic covenant, and reintroduce the covenant of works. This is stated and fully argued by Paul in Galatians 3:17-19: “And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise. What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.”

Some believe the Sinai covenant is united with the covenant of Abraham making the two a covenant of works. Now there can be no greater error than this. This is clear from the whole drift of the Apostle’s reasoning in the fourth chapter of Romans and the third chapter of Galatians.

(2) This covenant or dispensation acted like a tutor to bring us to Christ instead of being a covenant of works. “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (Gal 3:24) The moral precepts were to convict us of sin, and cut us off from our self-righteous efforts and expectations. The whole system of sacrifices and types were a shadow of the gospel, or a symbolic representation of good things to come, that is, of the great blessings of the gospel of Christ. All those who were saved under this dispensation were saved by faith in the atonement of Christ, as dimly shadowed in this symbolic dispensation. That all the ancient patriarchs were saved by faith is perfectly certain from the whole Bible. This is particularly discussed in the 11th chapter of Hebrews.

(3) This covenant became a stumbling block to the Jews because most of the Jews mistakenly thought that this was a covenant of works. They were so earthly and sensual that they overlooked the spiritual truth taught by those ordinances. They believed that conforming to those laws entitled them to salvation based on their own works.

(4) Thus failing to secure the sanctification, and consequently the salvation of the people, God foretold, and published at various times, and especially through Jeremiah, that at a certain future time He would make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and Judah, that is with the whole Church of God. This brings me to say:

4. The New Covenant mentioned in Jeremiah consists in writing the moral law in the hearts of His people. By the moral law I mean the moral precepts, as comprised and summed up by our Savior in the two great precepts on which, Jesus said, hang all the law and the prophets. “‘Behold, the days are coming’, says the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them’, says the Lord. ‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days’, says the Lord, ‘I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord’, for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them’, says the Lord. ‘For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more’.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34) Concerning this passage please let me say:

(1) This covenant is such a full revelation of God, so full of the Hoy Spirit, and such an effective dispensation, that it provides true holiness of heart in the people of God. The substance of this promise of the New Covenant is found in many passages in the Old Testament, and the Apostle quotes it in his epistle to the Hebrews. From these passages, we learn when this promise of the New Covenant became due, and that the New Covenant dispensation was actually introduced by the first publishers of the Gospel. To my mind, it seems clear, that the day of Pentecost was regarded by Christ and the Apostles as the beginning of the new dispensation. Christ seems to suggest to His disciples that Pentecost was the occasion on which the promise of His Father should be fulfilled.

(2) The writing of God’s law in the heart is called a covenant, because it implies, in the fullest manner, the consent of the person who enters into this covenant with God. Since writing this law in the heart produces the spirit and temper required by the law, it implies the fullest consent on the part of the person who receives it.

(3) The promise of this covenant became due on the day of Pentecost. The extent to which it has been fulfilled, and will be fulfilled depends on the extent to which it is understood, believed, and embraced by the Church. This is a covenant to be made with individuals. No one can receive it but by faith. And, since the promise is now due, it is the privilege and duty of every soul to lay hold of its full salvation.

IV. I will show which of the covenants are set aside, and in what sense they are set aside.

1. The Adamic, or covenant of works, is set aside as a method or condition of salvation. As a rule of duty the Adamic covenant is not and cannot be set aside. The particular test of the forbidden fruit given to Adam is a thing of the past. But the substance of the covenant, the requirement of perfect love to God and men, is not and cannot be set aside, because it is a covenant where the thing performed is right in itself, and is required on the ground of natural justice.

2. The Abrahamic covenant still exists. I will pass on the question concerning that part of it that promised the land of Canaan to the Jews. I am speaking about what is infinitely the most important part of that covenant, which promised a spiritual blessing through Abraham and his seed to all the nations of the earth, and earthly Canaan was only a type of this particular blessing or rest. That this part of the covenant is not abolished is clear.

(1) We learn that this covenant is not abolished from what the apostle Paul reasoned in the fourth chapter of Romans, and in the third chapter of Galatians. He shows that the promise made to Abraham is yet to be fulfilled to both Jews and Gentiles. Many other passages teach the same truth.

(2) This covenant is not abolished, because it is not yet fulfilled. It was actually made with all the nations of the earth through Abraham and his seed, which is Christ. And from the very nature of it, it cannot be fulfilled until the end of time.

In my last lecture, I said it was never fulfilled in its fullest sense to Abraham, but is to be fulfilled in a fuller sense to Christians under the present dispensation.

(3) The New Covenant spoken of in Jeremiah only carries out and fulfills the covenant made with Abraham, as the Apostle states in Gal. 3:14: “that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

3. The covenant of Sinai, in one sense, was abolished; in another sense, it remains. The covenant of Sinai was a collection of statutes and ordinances, making up, as a whole, the means of salvation by grace through faith. As the Apostle says in Hebrews 10:1: “For the law having a shadow of good things to come…” From this and other passages, as well as from the nature of the case, it is clear that we must regard the old or Sinai covenant as a peculiar method of teaching the substantial truths of the gospel, a further and more perfect foretelling of the gospel than had been made to Abraham.

Now the covenant of Sinai, as a dispensation, as a method of teaching the gospel, as the means of sanctification and salvation, is set aside to give place to the reality or anti-type, the fuller and more perfect revelation by Jesus Christ and His Apostles. The covenant of Sinai was only a shadow of the truth.

But the moral precepts of this covenant, that is, those precepts that require what is right all by itself, and are required, still remain in full force as a rule of duty. This must be, because the precepts belong to the kind of covenant that can’t be abolished at the pleasure of either or both parties. Nothing is more important, than that we should clearly understand in what sense the Old Covenant is done away, and in what sense it is not done away. Of course, those precepts that are symbolic and ceremonial should no longer be observed, since the revelation and coming of Jesus Christ has rendered their observance useless and worse than useless. But it is clear, that the whole substance of the moral precepts, and those that are required on the ground of natural justice, are still binding and have full force and authority, even today.

(1) We know that these commandments are still required from the nature of God’s law. It is impossible that they should cease to be binding because God has no right to get rid of their obligation. These precepts whether found among the Ten Commandments or among the precepts recorded by Moses, are a perpetual obligation because they belong to the entire human race. Their obligation grows out of, and rests on the unalterable nature and relations of moral beings.

If I had the time, it would be easy to take up these commands, one by one, and show that they have their foundation in our nature and needs. Therefore, they can never be done away with, as long as the world still stands. However, I would like to show how this applies to the commands concerning the Sabbath and marriage. I mention these two merely because some have doubted whether our obligation to obey these commands is perpetual. If I had the time, I could make it as clear as sunlight, that these together with all the other commands of the Ten Commandments, and some other precepts of the Old Covenant have a perpetual obligation. Take this command for example, “You shall not give back to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you”. (Deut 23:15) I can’t go into detail on this subject tonight, so I’ll simply say

(2) That the Bible and especially the New Testament everywhere recognizes all the moral laws, as having a perpetual obligation. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 13:9: “For the commandments, ‘you shall not commit adultery’, ‘you shall not murder’, ‘you shall not steal’, ‘you shall not bear false witness’, ‘you shall not covet’, and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’.” Here Paul recognizes the eternal obligation of the moral laws. This together with the whole New Testament proves conclusively that the moral laws are not done away with as a rule of duty, but everywhere, the New Testament insists that they should be strictly obeyed.

(3) If God were to repeal those moral laws, neither sin nor holiness could exist at all. Without a rule of duty, no obedience can exist. As a result, if the moral law is abolished, there is no sin or holiness in the universe.

V. The New Covenant is the accomplishment of what was proposed by the preceding covenants.

The preceding covenants proposed the sanctification and salvation of man. That the New Covenant consists in accomplishing this end is seen from the words of the covenant itself. “‘Behold, the days are coming’, says the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them’, says the Lord. ‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days’, says the Lord, ‘I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord’, for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them’, says the Lord. ‘For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more’.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34) The thing that is promised here is sanctification or the writing of the law in the heart. Therefore, if obedience to law is sanctification, then this is the blessing proposed in the promise of the New Covenant. Therefore, instead of the moral law being abolished, the New Covenant is nothing more than true obedience to the law. This totally agrees with what Paul says in Romans 8:3-4. “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

REMARKS.

1. The two covenants contrasted by the Apostle in his epistle to the Hebrews, as the Old and New, or first and second covenants, are the Sinai covenant and the one promised in Jeremiah. The Apostle does not allude to the covenant with Adam or with Abraham. By reading what Hebrews says about the covenants it will be clear that the covenants contrasted are the Sinai covenant or the covenant that was made with the people when God led them out of the land of Egypt, and the covenant in Jerermiah. “‘Behold, the days are coming’, says the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them’, says the Lord. ‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days’, says the Lord, ‘I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord’, for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them’, says the Lord. ‘For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more’.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

“For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says: ‘Behold, the days are coming’, says the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them’, says the Lord. ‘For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days’, says the Lord, ‘I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord’, for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more’. In that He says, ‘A new covenant’, He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Hebrews 8:7-13)

In Hebrews 9: 18-20 that I quoted earlier, the Apostle speaks clearly of this covenant, and refers to the Old Testament in such a way that it is certain that it was the law given on Sinai, and not the covenant of Abraham that he is talking about.

2. The New Covenant and the Abrahamic covenant sustain to each other the relationship of a promise to its fulfillment. As I have said before, the New Covenant is nothing more or less than the carrying out and fulfilling the covenant made with Abraham.

3. In the light of this subject, those who maintain that the Abrahamic covenant is repealed have made a terrible mistake. They confuse the Abrahamic with the Sinai covenant, and believe that the new dispensation abolishes both. This appears to me to be a sad mistake.

4. From this subject we can see the error of some of the modern Perfectionists who seem to think that the old dispensation, or Sinai covenant, was a covenant of works. They don’t seem to understand that the Sinai covenant was only a method of carrying out and accomplishing the promises of grace first revealed to Adam immediately after the fall and more fully confirmed to Abraham later. This, as a system of means for the sanctification and salvation of men, has been set aside to give place to a fuller revelation and to the dispensation of the Holy Spirit under the Gospel, retaining, at the same time, in all its strength as a rule of duty, the obligation of all the moral laws. The people that I allude to have clearly mistaken the sense in which the Old Covenant is done away, and believe that even the moral precepts are so abolished that they are no longer binding. They seem very happy with the idea of being completely discharged from their obligation to the moral law. Before them, the door of licentiousness is fully open, and imagining themselves, as some of them do, to be led by the Spirit to trample on the commandments of Sinai, they most richly deserve and are likely to receive the curse of God and man.

5. The gospel dispensation is not itself the New Covenant, but simply the means of it. The New Covenant, as I have fully shown in my past lectures, consists in writing the law in the heart. The Holy Spirit through the instrumentality of the gospel does this.

The purpose of this lecture is simply to guard against the impression that the moral law should only be regarded as the Old Covenant. In quoting passages in my former lectures to show what the Old Covenant was, I believed I confined myself to those passages that spoke about the Ten Commandments as constituting that covenant, without particularly noticing the other parts of the covenant. This I did because my main purpose in those lectures was to dwell on that part of the Old Covenant that was to be written by the New Covenant in the heart.

Nothing is more important than that the Church should have just and comprehensive views of the covenant dealings of God with His people. It can’t be too clearly understood that the Adamic covenant, or covenant of works, is still binding as a rule of duty, but it is not the condition of salvation. Also, all the covenants of God with the Church have had for their grand purpose the bringing of man into a state of complete conformity to the law, under which man was originally placed, and under which he must be placed throughout all eternity.

Concerning this New Covenant, let me say that the promise of it has been due for more than eighteen hundred years, and I would solemnly ask, shall it lie in your Bibles until it rots and your souls sink down to hell before you lay hold of the salvation from sin that it promises?