1. SEE the justice of Heaven in avenging the fhedding of innocent blood. God requires the blood of the children of Jehoshaphat at the hand of their brother: And that of the innocents of Jerufalem at the hand of Athaliah.

2. GOD over-rules the providential changes in kingdoms and nations for the good of his Church; and makes the efforts of the people, in favour of law and civil liberty, subservient to a work of reformation. The restoration of David's line was accompanied with the renovation of the Church's engagements to the Lord.

DISSER

ON THE

COVENANT BETWEEN GOD AND JUDAH,

IN THE REIGN OF HEZEKIAH,

2 CHRON. xxix. 10.

'HE accounts of this tranfaction are ftill

THE more fparing than thofe of the, prece

ding one.

We fhall only,-I. Survey the Character of the Covenanters.-II. The Refolution into which they entered.-III. The Occafions of this Covenant.-And, IV. Deduce a few Inferences from the whole.

FIRST, I fhall furvey the CHARACTER OF the Covenanters in this tranfaction.

1. THE glorious party unto whom they were bound to furrender themfelves is, THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL. This defignation was relative, and led the covenanters back to review the relation in which the Most High stood

unto

unto them; he was their own God, and their fathers God: And alfo to review the obligations they were under to be for him, and not for another. They were his covenanted people; as he was their covenanted God, by virtue of the covenants of their ancestors. The Lord God of Ifrael was the character by which God faw meet to reveal himself under that œconomy.

2. THE perfons devoting themfelves are; King Hezekiah, with the children of Judah, and fuch of the ten tribes as fubmitted to his government. The active The active part which King Hezekiah took in this covenant, probably was a little extraordinary; yet there was nothing in it either irregular in itself, or unbecoming his ftation and office: For, though he excited the proper officers of the Church to do their duty, as he well might in fuch a broken state of the Church, yet he did not wreft the adminiftration of holy things out of their hands; nor, like Uzziah, grafp them into his own. One of the moft diftinguifhed covenanters, then, was Hezekiah, a prince as eminent in his zeal for reformation as any of the line of David; and fignally rewarded by peculiar and miraculous deliverances from various afflictions. Happy in the fucceeding part of his reign, and in almost every thing, except in being fucceeded by fuch a fon as Manaffeh, who, in the beginning of his reign, proved the very worst of all

his race. With this monarch joined the rulers of the city of Jerufalem, and the Levites who had the charge of the temple, and all the congregation of the Lord. Matters had been fuffered to fink to the loweft ebb in the days of Ahaz; but, all of a fudden, the Lord had fpirited up a number to put hand to his work, to the great joy of Hezekiah and all the people: "And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the people; for the thing was done fuddenly." Happy covenanters,—a people prepared by the Lord!

SECONDLY, The RESOLUTION which thefe covenanters formed is the next thing before us. Said Hezekiah, "Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Ifrael, that his fierce wrath may turn away from us *." The refolution is formed, indeed, by Hezekiah himself; but it was certainly intended as a public example, to excite unto public covenanting. Had he intended perfonal covenanting only, there was no need for announcing his intentions to the people; nor, in doing fo, could he be well excufed from oftentation. In this refolution we may,

I. OBSERVE the matter of it, viz. To MAKE A COVENANT with the Lord God of Ifrael.

The facred phrafe is, To CUT A COVENANT. In one of the Abrahamic tranfactions the reafon of this phrafe has been explained. When facrifices were offered for covenant-ratification, the creatures were cut in twain, denoting the feverity of the punishment incurred by covenant-violation: The violator deferved to be cut afunder, as the foederal facrifice had been when the covenant was ratified. This rite had also in it a representation of the fubftitution of Christ, the true facrifice, in the place of the finner; and of the feparation of his foul from his body, as he was made a curfe for us. Taking Hezekiah's refolution in this fenfe, it was accomplished when the whole congregation offered a fin-offering for the kingdom, and for the fanctuary; and the King and the congregation laid their hands upon the facrifice, and the priests made reconciliation with the blood of the facrifice upon the altar, to make an atonement for all Ifrael t. It is probable, however, that formal covenanting followed this folemn facrifice. Along with the oblation of a fin-offering, there was either an explicit or implicit acknowledgment of fin; and this acknowledgment was a proper introduction to covenant-renovation. This facrifice, then, was a foederal one; and it was proper for Hezekiah to fay, I have it in mine heart to cut a

* Differt. II. Part ii.

2 Chron. xxix. 20—24.

covenant,