First. The Eternal Three-in-One entered into confederation in the Covenant of Redemption. We are warranted from Scripture to receive this Covenant as a fact. It might not have been; but according to God's will, it was. The purpose of God to save sinners is from eternity. The covenant is due to that. In an order of nature wonderful to contemplate, the former precedes the latter. God willed that the Father should be the God of grace. God willed that the Son should be the Mediator between God and men. God willed that the Holy Ghost should dispense his influences for carrying into effect the purposes of mercy. These purposes stand from eternity--the fruit of the Divine sovereignty--the conscious resolutions of the Eternal--the conditions of a sure Covenant. The reasons for the fulfilment thereof are the sovereign purposes, and the purposes approved of by each person of the adored Godhead, in an economic character. Secondly. God entered into covenant with man in innocence. The Divine character was made known to the gifted immortal. The will of God claiming obedience and the offer of definite good were presented before his mind. He acquiesced, and God was engaged to him and to all his posterity in covenant. One ground on which He was to bestow the blessings of the Covenant was his own purpose; His making, before his creature, and by and before Himself, a promise to confer it, was, according to the principle of eternal righteousness, the other. Thirdly. God enters into covenant with men in Christ. He says to them,--"I am the Lord _thy_ God."[600] Believers are taken into God's covenant.[601] He made with his people a covenant that shall endure.[602] All the promises of God are offers made on HIS part to enter into covenant with sinners. "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made."[603] And, therefore, when these are accepted by men, the Lord is to them a God in covenant. The Lord hath on some occasions sworn to his people, and by his oath _made_ a covenant with them.[604] The Lord brings sinners into the bond of his covenant,[605] and accordingly makes with them a covenant. And he keeps, and hence he must have _entered into_, covenant with his people.