God's procedure when imitable forms a peculiar argument for duty. That is made known for many reasons; among which must stand this,--that it may be observed and followed as an example. That, being perfect, is a safe and necessary pattern to follow. The law of God proclaims what he wills men as well as angels to do. The purposes of God show what he has resolved to have accomplished. The constitutions of his moral subjects intimate that he has provided that his will shall be voluntarily accomplished by some of them. His own example presents what must be willingly done. It affords a complete reason for doing what is besides variously urged. The law of God is his will diffused among his moral subjects. His revealed purposes are his determinations to be carried into effect by means, many of which are beyond the sphere of the willing endeavours of his creatures. The constitutions of his obedient subjects are an instrumentality worthy of the glorious moral character of Him who, though independent of all, acts according to the principles of eternal rectitude, and who in infinite wisdom can cause immortal beings, bound by immutable laws, to act so as freely to perform his holy will. His own example is the direct operation, not of creatures, nor of laws, nor of dispositions, but of the I AM himself, as the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable Spirit, presented to the creatures of his power, for their guidance and direction. I. God himself has entered into Covenant engagements. The dispensations of God in Covenant are peculiar to Himself. No change whatever is produced on him when he transacts with his creatures, or on their behalf. His relations to them are constituted wholly by his doings that affect them; He himself is immutable in his being and purposes. When he acts, he is not moved; when he accepts, no transformation of character is produced upon him; any new relation in which he stands comes wholly from the effect accomplished on the creature. He makes known his will, not as due to the present, but as the same from eternity. He acts in creation and providence; but his creatures alone are affected. He becomes engaged to some of them, not by any alteration being produced upon his views or enjoyments, or state or character, but by the manifestation of what he is. He accepts of those as united to Him--viewed by them through his grace as possessed of a certain glorious character. From eternity his sovereign purposes regarding the salvation of man, were, but not by any change in the Trinity, or in the Unity of the Godhead, defined in Covenant.