It is here proposed to show, that every incumbent duty ought, in suitable circumstances, to be engaged to in the exercise of Covenanting. The law and covenant of God are co-extensive; and what is enjoined in the one is confirmed in the other. The proposals of that Covenant include its promises and its duties. The former are made and fulfilled by its glorious Originator; the latter are enjoined and obligatory on man. The duties of that Covenant are God's law; and the demands of the law are all made in the revelation of the Covenant. It was unlawful for the Israelites to make a Covenant, either with the gods of the heathen, or for the purpose of rendering to them any service. In like manner, it is still unlawful for any one to make a Covenant either with or for what is evil, in such a manner as to give it countenance or support. Of two words in the Greek language, employed each to denote a Covenant, the one is applied to the cases where the parties are in some respects on a level. The other (διαθηχη) is used where the parties are represented as in the relations of superiors and inferiors. Its etymology points out that the conditions of the Covenant were dictated in some manner; and the use of it shows, that to have been as the issuing of a command. By it is the principal term for Covenant in the Old Testament rendered by the Seventy. One example may suffice:--"Will he make a Covenant (ברית, διαθηχηυ) with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?"[228] The book of the Covenant of God, was the book of the law. The curses of the Covenant were written in the book of the law.[229] In that book, too, the promises of the Covenant were contained. The statutes and Covenant of God are conjoined, and both are commanded;--the one that they might be obeyed, the other, that it might be taken hold upon, and that its duties contained in those statutes might be observed. "Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my Covenant, and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant."[230] And that which is made known as the everlasting Covenant, is given as a law. "He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations: which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant."[231]