Objection: But you will say, perhaps, the Scriptures say plainly that the new covenant was and is made with believers, saying, "The days come, saith the Lord, that 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 led them out of the land of Egypt," etc. (Heb 8:8-10). So that it doth not run with Christ alone, but with believers also—I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah, etc. (Jer 31:33).
Answer first: It cannot be meant that the new covenant was made with Christ, and the house of Israel and Judah as the undertakers thereof; for so it was made with Christ alone, which is clear, in that it was made long before the house of Israel and Judah had a being, as I showed before. But,
Answer second: These words here are spoken, first, to show rather the end of the ceremonies than the beginning or rise of the new covenant. Mind a little; the Apostle is labouring to beat the Jews, to whom he wrote this Epistle, off of the ceremonies of the law, of the priests, altar, offerings, temple, etc., and to bring them to the proper understanding of the thing and things that they held forth, which were to come, and to put an end to those. If you do but understand the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is a discourse that showeth that the Son of God has come, there is an end put to the ceremonies; for they were to continue so long and no longer—"It," saith the Apostle, "stood in meats and drinks, and divers washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation"; that is until Christ did come. "But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come," etc., puts an end to the things and ordinances of the Levitical priesthood. Read the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Chapters of Hebrews, and you will find this true. So, then, when He saith, "The days come in which I make a new covenant," it is instead to be meant a changing of the administration, taking away the type, the shadow, the ceremonies from the house of Israel and Judah, and relieving by the birth of Christ, and the death of Christ, and the offering of the body of Him whom the shadows and types did point out to be indeed He whom God the Father had given for a ransom by covenant for the souls of the saints; and also to manifest the truth of that covenant which was made between the Father and the Son before the world began; for though the new covenant was made before the world began, and also everyone in all ages was saved under that covenant, yet that covenant was never so clearly made manifest as at the coming, death, and resurrection of Christ; and therefore, saith the Scripture, "He hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." "Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling" not according to the "works" of righteousness which we have done, "but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began," there is the covenant. Still, it was "made MANIFEST by the APPEARING of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to LIGHT through the Gospel" (2 Tim 1:9,10). Therefore, I say, these words are to discover that the time has come to change the dispensation, to take away the type, and bring in the substance, and so manifesting that more clearly which before lay hid in dark sayings and figures. And it is usual for God to speak in this manner.
Again, if at any time you do find in Scripture that the Covenant of Works is spoken of as the first covenant that was manifested, and so before the second covenant, yet you must understand that it was so only as to manifestation—that is, it was first given to man, yet not made before that which was made with Christ; and indeed it was requisite that it should be provided or made known first, that thereby there might be a way made for the second, by its discovering of sin, and the sad state that man was in after the Fall because of that. And again, that the other might be more welcome to the sons of men. Yet the second Adam was before the first, and the second covenant before the first. [This is a riddle]. And in this did Christ in time most gloriously answer Adam, who was the figure of Christ, as well as of other things. Romans 5. Was the first covenant made with the first Adam? So was the second covenant made with the second; for these are and were the two great public persons, or representatives of the whole world, as to the first and second covenants; and therefore you find God speaking on this wise in Scripture concerning the new covenant—"My covenant shall stand fast with HIM." "My mercy will I keep for HIM for evermore," saith God: "My covenant shall stand fast with HIM" (Psa 89:28,34,35); this HIM is Christ, if you compare this with Luke 1:32, "My covenant will I not break"—namely, that which was made with HIM—"nor alter the thing that is gone out of My mouth. Once I have sworn by My holiness that I will not lie unto David," [David here is to be understood Christ.] to whom this was spoken figuratively in the Person of Christ; for that was God's usual way to talk of the glorious things of the Gospel in the time of the Law, as I said before.
