MADAM Your Ladyships to honour and serve you in the Lord Theophilus Gale Newington March 26. 1678. A Summary of the Two Covenants THIS following Discourse of the two Covenants preached by that great Divine Mr. William Strong needs no Prologue to usher it into the World The Authors Character The Author was indeed as it is said of Augustin a Wonder of Nature for natural Parts and a Miracle of Grace for deep insight into the more profound Mysteries of the Gospel He had a Spirit capacious and prompt sublime and penetrant profound and clear a singular Sagacity to pry into the more difficult Texts of Scripture an incomparable Dexterity to discover the Secrets of corrupt Nature a Divine Sapience to explicate the Mysteries of Grace and an exact Prudence to distribute Evangelic Doctrines according to the capacity of his Auditors Are not the Ministers of Christ termed Stars in his right hand Rev. 1.20 Rev. 1.20 And was not this our Author one of the first magnitude O! what a glorious Star was he in the right hand of the Lord to reveal the resplendent light of the Gospel unto his Auditors What lights and heats of Divine Grace did he communicate unto others It 's prophesied of our Lord Hab. 3.4 Hab. 3.4 His brightness was as the light he had horns or rather beams coming out of his hand and there was the hiding of his power This brightness of Christs light must be understood of his Evangelic light whereby he as the Sun of Righteousness irradiates Evangelic Churches and by the Horns or rather Beams for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here must signifie coming out of his hand we must understand according to our Lords own interpretation Rev. 1.20 Evangelic discoveries by the Ministers of his Gospel those Stars in his right hand imployed by him for the irradiation and illumination of this inferior world and O! what an hidden power is conveyed together with this light And may we not conclude this our Author one of those Stars who diffused illustrious beams of Evangelic light from the right hand of Christ where was the hiding of his power And as he transcended the most of this Age in the Explication of Evangelic Verities so in his Intelligence and Explication of the two Covenants he seems much to excel himself this being the great study of his life and that whereon his mind was mostly intent And I can here truly apply that observation of the Queen of Sheba 1 King 10.7 touching the wisdom of Solomon to this our intelligent Author The Notices I received from his other Works gave me a great impression of his Divine Wisdom but what mine eyes have seen and my thoughts imbibed of his incomparable Intelligence from this his elaborate Discourse of the two Covenants assures me that not the half was told me by his Works formerly published He was indeed a Person intimely and familiarly acquainted with the deepest points in Theology but yet as to these that relate to the Covenant of Grace his Spirit seems to have been most deeply baptized and immersed into them which any judicious Reader may with facility perceive by a transient inspection into any part of the following Discourse Of what incomparable excellent Use this Discourse may be for the diffusing Evangelic Light and Truth no one can be ignorant The excellent use of this Discourse who is acquainted with the mind and intendment either of the Law or Gospel or sensible of those many dangerous errours which have of late sprung up from the ignorance of both How many have taken away the use of the Law thereby to advance as they conceit the Grace of the Gospel And have not too many on the other hand destroyed the Grace of the Gospel whiles they have endeavoured to exalt the letter of the Law as a Covenant Both these extremes our judicious Author has accurately obviated and avoided He has approved himself a good Advocate for the Law as it is a rule and instrument subservient to the Gospel but yet he gives the Gospel the principal place and preeminence as it is saiths magna Charta He has indeed exactly hit the difference between the two Covenants which argues his deep insight into both and surely they that rightly understand the Idea or Notion of the two Covenants attain thereby a clue of thread to lead them into the most intricate Mysteries of Evangelic Doctrines as on the contrary those who have not right sentiments of the two Covenants what hesitation and suspension if not errour and misapprehension do they fall under in the most momentous points of Religion Yea doth not the rectitude not only of our Faith but also of our Christian practice and conversation principally depend on the due notices of the two Covenants Are not these as the centre wherein all the lines of Divine Grace and humane Duty meet Are we not then greatly obliged to this our Author for his elaborate endeavours in this work He demonstrates 1 That God never did nor will deal with mankind meerly in a way of Dominion but also in a way of Covenant 2 That both Covenants are made with men not immediately but in and by some publick person 3 That it is Vnion with either of these publick persons that brings a man under their Covenant 4 That it is impossible for any man to be under both Covenants because the terms and conditions of the one destroy the terms of the other These with some other weighty Truths relating to the two Covenants in general he doth distinctly and fully explicate and demonstrate The Covenant of works and its curse Our Author begins his Discourse with the Covenant of Works and treats first of the Temporal Curse that attends the breach thereof and then of the Spiritual of which more fully in the Contents we shall only give some short and particular Reflections on and Notions of this first Covenant 1 The Covenant made with Adam was not particular with his person under a single capacity but with his nature as a common person or representative Head from whom all mankind were by natural generation to descend and herein the Covenant made with Adam differs from that made with the Angels which was particular and personal they being all created at once and existent when their Covenant was made Hence 2 In this first Covenant made with Adam all his posterity stand bound to God both naturally by virtue of their being created in him and voluntarily by virtue of his stipulation Whence 3 Every son of Adam falls under both the duties and curses of his Covenant for as the duties so the curses of Adams Covenant seized not meerly on Adams single person but on his nature and so on all mankind who are in him both legally and naturally Thence 4 No man can be freed from the curse of the Law that is not freed from it as a Covenant There is since Adams Fall an essential and inseparable connexion between
did all by Covenant and Christ dying did give Legacies that by the means of death they that are called may receive the promise of eternal Life it is a Testament confirmed by the death of the Testator Surely it shall be performed for it is a Covenant made unto Christ and if you did love him your hearts would rejoyce more in the performance of it as to Christ than unto your selves § 3. I come now unto the fourth particular in the opening of the point That is the Terms of the Covenant as they did pass between the Father and the Son and are set forth in the Scripture A Covenant is an agreement upon certain Conditions unto which two persons or parties by mutual consent do freely bind themselves So that in a Covenant properly and so in this there are four things 1 The parties that make the Covenant must be free 2 The Articles or Terms must be propounded 3 There must be a mutual free and full consent 4 By this consent they are bound each to other 1. In a Covenant the parties must be free and in their own power and therefore in Vows to God or Covenants with men if one under the power of another do Vow or Covenant it is in his power under whom he is to disannul and make it void Numb 30. 4.8 And therefore Divines do here commonly observe two things 1 The difference between a Law and a Covenant a Law being the act of a Superior that hath power over another doth bind whether the party bound thereby doth consent or no for it is an act of the Will of a superior upon one that is subject to his will but it is not so in a Covenant it doth require consent in both parties 2 They distinguish between the Covenant that passed between the first Adam and that which God made with the second Adam The Covenant made with the first Adam was such that though his consent was necessary to make it a Covenant else it had been only a command yet unto this Covenant by the right of creation he was bound to consent and consenting it was but his duty and there was a duty which lay upon him antecedente◠to consent unto that Covenant and the terms that God should propound But it was not so in the Covenant that God made with the second Adam he was free to accept of the terms of the Covenant or no when God had propounded them so that there was no duty that lay upon him anteceeding his consent So that the Covenant between God and man is not properly such a Covenant as is between God and Christ and between man and man in which each party is free and not bound to any thing but by his own consent Now 1 consider God is free and a debtor unto none God the Father who hath the first and the great hand in the Covenant and in propounding the terms thereof is debtor to none For he that is the first cause and the last end of whom all things are and to whom they are he can be debtor unto none but so God the Father is of whom are all things And that is Aquinas's rule * Deus non est debitor quia ad alia non ordinatur sed omnia adseipsum Psal 40.7 Heb. 10.7 Rom. 11.36 2 Christ is free and in his own power 1 If we consider him as the Son the second person with whom properly the Covenant was made for God did agree with the Son that he should take the nature of man upon him and in that nature suffer and satisfie and his very taking of mans nature was an act of obedience and duty that was due from the Son by Covenant and he did it in reference to the will and command of the Father as he did all other things either doing or suffering in that nature John 1.2 The word is God and thought it no robbery to be equal with God Phil. 2.7 and therefore is free even as God himself and is not bound unto any duty but by his own consent 2. If we consider Christ as man in that he was not free for he was bound unto the Law and to all the duties of it as he was a creature It 's true he having taken the nature of man was by his Covenant bound to offer that nature as a sacrifice for Gods satisfaction and for mans sanctification in that nature he was to be made sin and to bear our Curse If we do consider Christ as meer man then he was bound indeed unto the Law by right of creation as well as we but if we consider him as God and Man so we cannot say that he is bound for actiones sunt suppositorum And our Divines generally say that there is a communication of properties between the two natures so that he does offer himself by the eternal Spirit Heb. 4.14 All his actions and passions in our nature are not only humane but Divine being from him who was both God and Man and that he was no otherways bound to obey God in that nature than he was to assume the nature no Law did require that his obedience should be the obedience of God and that God should be satisfied by the blood of God and that he should suffer that did never sin this was from the Covenant of God the Father and the superabundan◠grace of God the Son And therefore when Christ saith that he received a commandment to obey it refers only to his obligation by covenant and not by any antecedent duty that he did owe his Father 2. The terms of the Covenant or Articles of agreement that did pass between the Father and the Son are contained in two things 1 Something that the Father did require of the Son 2 Something that the Father did promise the Son 1. There is a service that the Father doth propound unto the Son and that is double 1 That he should take upon him the form of a Servant The children being partakers of flesh and blood that he should take part of the same Heb. 2.14 Bernard Rom 3.26 He took not only the form of a Servant that he might be subject but also of an evil Servant that he might be beaten he was willing to take the body that the Father had prepared for him that he might be bruised by him 2 That in that nature he should perform whatever was necessary for the satisfaction of God or the sanctification of man and in all things he must be Gods servant do his will and serve his ends deny himself humble and abase himself that his Father may be exalted Isa 42.1 1. He did whatever is required unto the perfect satisfaction of God The Justice of God is twofold 1 Remunerative justice in reference unto the precept of the Law as man was a creature 2 Vindicative justice in reference to the curse of the Law as man was a sinner and he that shall give a perfect satisfaction to Justice must perform
the first Covenant Doth this Covenant afford the least reward to any services that have the least imperfection adherent to them And can sinners offer to God any such perfect services Will it not thence hence necessarily follow that such as stand under this first Covenant have all their services rejected all their sins imputed to them their persons hated their blessings cursed and all the curses of the Law bound fast on their consciences by the sentence of the righteous God What are all their seeming services but real sins and what are all Gods rewards to them but real curses albeit seeming blessings What can they expect for such unsanctified services but unsanctified rewards which are indeed real curses But to treat somewhat more distinctly of the misery which attends such as are under the first Covenant we may consider it under these two Heads that both the Law and Gospel The Law to such as are under the first Covenant the means of death which are means of Life and Salvation to such as are under the first Covenant prove as to them means of Death and Condemnation First as to the Law it proves the means of death and condemnation to such as are under the first Covenant two ways 1 In regard of its coactive Rigor 2 As it irritates Sin 1. The Law doth by its coactive Rigor work death and condemnation in such as are under the first Covenant Doth not the Law exact of such perfect obedience 1. By its compulsion but gives them no strength to perform it It 's true the Law requires obedience of those who are under the second Covenant also but the promise gives what the Law requires But of such as are under the first Covenant perfect obedience is required but no intern principle is engraffed duty is required but no love or delight therein conferred Yea do not such perform duty as godly men commit sin May they not say of sin as Paul doth of duty Rom. 7.15 What I would that I do not And what Paul saith of Sin may not such say the same of Duty What I hate that do I The Law discovers sin to those that are under the first Covenant but did it ever cast out any one sin discovered by it Sin is sometimes wounded by it but did it ever kill any one sin Are not the hearts of such like Ezechiels pot in which the scum did arise but then boyled in again The Law drags such to the Tribunal of God as a righteous Judge but can they ever come to God as a Father Is not this the priviledge of such only as are under the second Covenant Lastly the Law drives such as are under the first Covenant unto self-condemnation but can any thing but the Gospel work Justification and Peace of Conscience So deadly and mortiferous is the Law to such as are under its violent compulsion and coaction as it is a Covenant And whence is it that the Law hath such a compulsive power over such as are under it as a Covenant 1 Is it not from those Principles of self-love and legal fear implanted in the heart of man whereby he is constrained to duty and restrained from sin by the threats and terrors of the Law which move Conscience as extern weights move artificial Automata or machines O! what a great power has Conscience over such when acted and enflamed by the terrors of the Law Doth not Paul Rom. 7.1 assure us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Law doth Lord it over a man so long as he continues under it as a Covenant And how doth the Law as a Covenant Lord it over the man but by ruling in the Authority and Sovereign Dominion of God in and by which it will at last judge the man And oh with what rigor and compulsion doth it rule over his Conscience and thereby restrain him from sin and constrain him to duty Again 2 Doth not the Law receive much Authority and force from the Spirit of God setting it home on Conscience and thereby terrifying and wounding the sinner 3 Is there not also in all men under the first Covenant a sinful Weight or Bent of Lust which makes the yoke of divine Precepts extreme irksome and burdensome to them And doth not this adde much to the rigour and severity of the Law Doth not the Law of God lay the same rigorous restraint on the lusts of those who are under it as a Covenant which the Providence of God lays on the lusts of Diabolick spirits And oh what a miserable case are such in who lye under this tyrannick compulsion of the Law as a Covenant If their lusts rage within but dare not vent themselves because the Law holds a rod over Conscience how do they burn like fire in an Oven and now and then flame forth in rebellious thoughts against God and his Law wishing there were no Law Or else if lusts break forth into Act how soon doth the Law bind over Conscience unto wrath and condemnation and oh what stings and torments follow hereon And is it not also a miserable case for the sinner to be compelled and forced by the Law to do those good offices which he really hates Would it not be a great torment to a Saint to be constrained to bow down and worship the Devil and is it not as great misery to a person under the first Covenant to be compelled by the Law to worship God whom he hates as much as an holy man hates the Devil And is not this the genuine cause of all that hypocrisie which is lodged and deeply radicated in those under the first Covenant that all their omissions of sin and performances of Duties proceed meerly from the violent tyrannick compulsion of the Law as a Covenant And as the Law doth by its rigorous exaction more or less prevail on Conscience so their hypocrisie is more or less radicated and refined Oh! how partial and inconstant are such in their abstaining from sin and performing Duties How disagreeable are those good works they do to their Natures and Principles and thence how little pleasure and delight do they find in the doing of them Yea the rigour and tyranny of the Law over such most eminently appears in this that in constraining and forcing men to duties it is so far from giving strength that the more they perform duties the less strength they have to perform them the more they hear meditate or pray the less strength they have to perform those duties as they ought So also for the Laws restraining such from sin the more they are restrained the stronger their lusts grow and break forth with greater violence in the issue Whereas one under the second Covenant the more the Law restrains his lusts the weaker they grow and the more it constrains them to duty the stronger they grow in the performance of them because together with the restraints and constraints of the Law there is conveyed a force and strength by the
a principle of life within or else a principle from without either weights or springs as it is in Clocks or Watches which makes the motion so many men may move to duty and abstain from sin not from an inward principle of life in the one or the other but from a weight without 5. There is in every unregenerate man a sinful and unrenewed heart deceitful above all things Jer. 17.10 and desperately evil a heart fully set in him to do evil and because this is natural therefore his heart is fully bent to go this way so that let him be constrained to do duty yet he will hate the duty that he does and count it a weariness and look upon it as a burden Mallet non facere si posset impune and say When will the Sabbath be gone And let him be kept from sin yet he will love it still if you chain up a Beast from the prey yet his inclination will be after it and keep the stone from the Center and force it up into the air as often as you will it will still return and when it comes down to the earth and can descend no further yet it will have a tendency thereunto So Conscience thâ—â— is meerly natural counts it its misery and affliction to be kept from sin for restrain it from sin never so much it will at last break these bounds and will be carried on with the greater fury greediness and violence because of the former restraint that was put upon it and the Devil will enter with seven worse spirits the dog will return to his vomit and the latter end will be worse than the beginning it had been better that man had never known the way of righteousness for he will be more wicked than if he had never known it Thus let the man have a heart set upon lust and let the power of the Law come into his Conscience acted by the Spirit it 's no wonder if it so far over-awe the man as to restrain him from sin and constrain him to duty § 2. But is a godly man that is under the Covenant of Grace wholly freed from the Coaction of the Law Answ This distinction was laid down in the beginning that though the main part of our Christian Liberty consists in being freed from the Law yet this liberty is in this life either inchoata or perfecta in respect of justification and condemnation A godly man is perfectly freed from the Law as a Covenant but in respect of Irritation and Coaction he is freed from these effects of it only in part We have seen how far the Irritation of the Law remains even in the regenerate and it is like lime which does quench those fires sometimes kindles 〈◊〉 Sin while it does remain and is acted by Satan may take occasion by the Commandment and produce woful effects even in the Saints so for the Coaction of the Law they are not wholly freed from it so far as they are unregenerate and the law of the flesh remains in their members the Law is of use to them and a handmaid to the Gospel and they do and ought to make use of legal motives to constrain to duty and to restrain from sin and the Law is to be preached to the regenerate to this purpose Heb. 11.25 1. To constrain to duty many times The Saints are to make use of the Law and the good things thereof so did Moses he had respect to the recompence of reward and the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 5.9 We labour whether present or absent that we may be accepted of him for we must all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ and knowing the terrour of the Lord we perswade men Again Heb. 12. ult Let us have grace to serve him acceptably for our God is a consuming fire These be the helps that the Lord has given us and it were our sin not to make use of them there is no man but he finds so much deadness and backwardness in his flesh that he shall be forced to call in this help many times Mark 9.44 2. And to restrain a man from sin also Christs exhortation is Cut off your right hand and pull out your right eye for it 's better to go to heaven maimed than having two eyes to be cast into hell where the worm dies not c. And if Adam in the state of Innocency had need of the threatning of the Law to deter him from sin much more a godly man that is holy but in part Yet there is a great deal of difference 1 in a godly man this is not the only principle that acts him as it is in the unregenerate for an unregenerate man would never do duty while he lives were it not from this Coaction of the Law out of a principle of self-love and natural conscience for he does duties as a godly man commits sins and he must say that which I hate do I but in a godly man there is another principle also there is a law of his mind an inward disposition the law written in his heart a new and divine nature and his obedience to God is natural to him as it is for a tree to bring forth fruit in its kind and a fountain to cast out mud and to work out any thing that is contrary to it 2 As this is not the only so it is not the main principle that works in them but there is the Spirit of Christ that dwells in them and leads them and there is a law of love that does mainly act them in all they do 1 Joh. 5.3 they abstain from Sin as from Hell and that which they see all evil in and as that which is dishonourable to God and defiles their own beauty for Sin is the souls deformity as Grace is the ornament of the soul and he does duty from an ingenuous and free spirit And therefore Christ says Take my yoke upon you for it is easie Whence so far as a man is regenerate he is a law unto himself and he would be kept from sin and carried on to duty if neither of these were but only from a principle within 3. The more a regenerate man is acted by legal principles and the less love he has to spiritual duties the less spiritual he is and therefore his desire is always to be led by the Spirit of God and he always prays to God for his free Princely Spirit SECT III. The APPLICATION § 1. WE may hence learn what a miserable estate a man is in being under the first Covenant every thing is a burden to him because it is a constraint upon his spirit the thing he does he hates he has a contrary principle within him which he would indulge and gratifie Now there being in a man the same nature and the command of God lying upon a man this may and this does commonly put a force upon him to perform duties of the law but that
in all things written in the book of the Law to do them which cannot be meant of the Ceremonial Law but of the Moral Law and therefore if this Interpretation could stand the answer were easie that the subserviency of the Ceremonial Law was to end when the seed came and yet the Moral the copy of the first Covenant was still to remain and might be a servant to the Gospel and Gospel-ends but it must be understood of the Moral and that was the Law that was added till the seed came 2. Some by the Law understand the whole Pedagogy of Moses in the Ceremonial Judicial and Moral Law and so Beza and Pareus that way of discovering of the mind of God under the time of the Law which was to last only till the coming of Christ the promised seed and all these were added because of transgression that the Jews might thereby be stirred up to long for Christ to come and to pray and wait for the consolation of Israel being shut up under the Law and this darker and obscurer and less spiritual administration till Faith should come that is the dispensation of the Gospel which was afterward to be revealed as it is ver 23. for though the Saints were heirs of the Promises yet they were during that administration as it were under the morning twi-light the Sun not being yet risen as Beza has it and so by the Law he understands the same that before we understood in the continuance of the Law and the Prophets untill John and makes the sense of the words to be the same 3. Some do conceive the seed to be meant primarily indeed of Christ personal but yet in the second place of Christ Mystical Christ with the whole body of Christ and the Church the promise being made unto Christ primarily being primus foederatus the second Adam and the Head and Prince of the Covenant yet so that as the first Covenant was not made with the first Adam in his person only but together with him with all his posterity in him so the Covenant is first made with Christ the second Adam but yet not with him apart from his body but with them in him and so they understand the seed to be not only Christ in himself though he be primarily meant but also Christ in his body all the faithful and then the meaning seems to be this that so long as there are any of this seed to come or to be brought into the body of Christ and to be continued and kept there so long there will be this use of the Law Reinolds the use of the Law as given for the Seed discovering sin restraining it and condemning it that they may with the greater earnestness fly to the city of refuge And as for those places Rom. 6.14 and Rom. 7. it is spoken of Adam as under the Law as a Covenant and as a Husband irritating strengthning and stirring up sin in us sin taking occasion by the Commandment for so he saith Sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the Law as a husband stirring up sin in you and thereby bringing forth fruit unto death but under grace as pardoning and so healing corruption and subduing sin and breaking the power thereof and so you are not under the Law provoking sin and strengthning it but under Grace healing sanctifying and subduing it Gal. 5.18 As many as are led by the Spirit are not under the law irritating sin and forcibly compelling unto duty Thus a man may be freed from the Law in these evil effects of it which are but fruits of the Curse even upon the Law of God it self accidentally as it meets with a corrupt nature and yet the Law remain unto those good ends for which it was given in the hand of a Mediator for our Salvation and to advance the Grace of the Gospel Vse 1 § 4. First then it is for Instruction in several particulars 1. It shews us the great end of God in publishing the Law it was for the Saints and for their good only The Law was published by Christ he was the Law-giver of him Moses received lively Oracles Act. 7. and Heb. 12. the end and giving of the Law was in reference unto the seed to whom the promise was made As there is a double end of the Gospel so there is of the Law 1 That which was intended principally and by it self and that only was Salvation both in the Law and in the Gospel to advance the ends of the Gospel 2 There is an accidental end Intentio principalis per se that which follows not from the nature of the thing but from the evil disposition of the subject and so unto all unregenerate men the Law doth discover their sins and make them out of measure sinful doth irritate and stir up their corruptions and so doth heighten and increase them and their condemnation for them as the Gospel doth but yet we may say of the Law as Christ does of himself That he came not into the world to condemn the world but that the world by him might be saved yet by accident he did condemn the world being despised and set for the falling as well as the rising of many in Israel but the proper and principal intent of his coming was salvation and not damnation so here I may say of the Law as it 's said of Christ had there not been some souls that Christ did intend to life he had never come into the world so had there not been a seed unto whom the Law vvas to be a servant the Lord had never given the Lavv never renevved it for there vvas condemnation enough in the vvorld before and death enough before and the vvrath of God did abound upon men the Gospel brings it not upon them but leaves them under it neither vvas it Gods intention in the Lavv to bring them under further condemnation though it does through their corruption prove so but had it not been for the seed the Lavv had never been added as a handmaid to the Gospel so that all the use of the Lavv and the discoveries of it to unregenerate men they do ovve to the Saints for it vvas for their sakes only that Christ did reveal it again to the vvorld 2. See the folly of those that cry dovvn the preaching of the Lavv it vvas published by Christ the foundation of the Gospel and the only Gospel Preacher the great Evangelist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Gloss and Jerome do expound the vvord Isa 41.27 and yet the Lavv is dispensed unto the seed by and in the hand of this Mediator he that loved this seed so that he laid dovvn his life for it abased his glory and veiled his Godhead yet he did as a fruit of his love unto this seed deliver the Lavv unto them and in the days of his flesh interpreted it and vvill you slight his Love vvill you say it is
promise higher things the Lord to be your God and Christ to be your head your Husband his Spirit to be the guide of your way and also the earnest of your inheritance a higher Righteousness a higher Sonship a nearer Union a fuller Communion as the Spouse of Christ and as his Members and a more exceeding eternal weight of glory being rewarded not according unto the Covenant of man but according to the Covenant of Christ 3 Better promises because of their assurance and stability the promises of the first Covenant might come to an end and be swallowed up in the Curse as they were but the promises of the second are the sure mercies of David for the righteousness of it is an everlasting righteousness and therefore the promises are eternal promises 4 But there is one thing as great as any of these and that is they are all of them the promises made unto Christ and by vertue of the Covenant belong unto him 2 Cor. 1.20 In him are all the promises yea and Amen That is they are made unto him and they belong unto us and unto us are fulfilled only by vertue of our Union with him as we live in him and dye in him so we receive promises in him and this is the sweetness of all Gospel promises they do every one of them carry a man to the fountain of his interest and that brings into the Soul infinitely the more sweetness As if a Wife take a favour from her Husband and look no further there is not so much in it but yet in every favour she is carried back unto the Marriage Covenant which assures her not only of this but also of all others whatever is his she has a right to because of the Covenant past between them this is sweet to her And so here it brings into the Soul the sweetness of all the promises together with the present mercy As to a wicked man in Hell that hath the terrors of God upon him every evil doth carry him unto the fountain of it and that is to the anger and hatred of God and the curse of the Covenant that he hath broken and this imbitters his misery a Thousand times more for now the Soul saith this is but a pledge of infinitely more wrath So it is here every promise carries him to the fountain and that assuring him not only of this supply but whatever else he can stand in need of for in a mans interest in Christ is infinite more sweetness than in any blessing or benefit we receive by him Now when a man shall look upon this promise not only as sweet but as his inheritance as he is a Son of Abraham and an Heir of Promise it brings with it infinitely more sweetness than the promises of mercy it self abstractly and in it self injoyed 5. For all the duties and obedience to the Covenant And this is commonly the great affliction of the people of God the Gospel requires obedience as well as the Law and there is a Law of Christ to be kept and there is a yoak of Christ to be born and Christ that hath abolished the Law as a Covenant and a Curse has established the Law as a rule of Gospel obedience and hath therein made it a hand-maid to the Gospel and therefore the Law upon Mount Sinai was given in the hand of a Mediator Gal. 3.19 And how shall we be able to perform this duty by the power of inherent grace It is impossible 1 from the remainders of sin Rom. 7. There is a law in the members rebelling against the law of the mind and the fulfilling of the Law requires a holy nature as well as a holy life 2 From the imperfections of Grace Says the Apostle Paul Not that I have already attained not that I am already perfect c. And how then shall a man appear before God Now comes in the Covenant of Christ and of this Covenant he is a surety Heb. 7.22 not only to pay the debt that we did owe under the old Covenant but also to perform the duty that is required of me under the new and therefore the Lord did lay help on one that is mighty we should have failed Psal 89. for we could neither pay the debt of the one nor do the duty of the other therefore the Lord hath laid all upon Christ and will expect all of him and he must present us unto his Father as a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle and what imperfection soever there be in our duties he must offer them pure before God with his odours and all this is from the Covenant made with him In him is our fruit found Rev. 8.3 6. The stability of the Covenant can never fail it is an everlasting Covenant and sure mercy 1 Upon the faithfulness of God it 's confirmed with an Oath 2 From the obedience of Christ who hath performed all that is required in this Covenant 3 From the promise made unto him for the Oath is made first to Christ Heb. 7. Psal 110. and if the Lord could fail with you he could not fail with him There are Three things that amongst men are in a special manner noted as the acts of the highest injustice and wickedness 1 To keep back the hirelings wages 2 Not to fulfill the will of the dead 3 The cry of innocent blood going unrevenged and all these the Lord abhors in men and they shall not be found in him Now Christ is Gods hired servant and his reward is Heb. 9.15 16. to see the travail of his soul it is his last Will and Testament when he died that by means of his death they that are called might receive the promise and it 's a blood that speaks better things than the blood of Abel Adams Covenant did change because it was established with a mutable head And hence as the Lord doth make suppositions Isa 54.10 The Mountains may depart and the Hills remove if you can change the Covenant of the day and of the night then may the Covenant of my peace be broken And in assurance thereof the Saints do make supplications The Lord is our God we will not fear though the earth be removed and the mountains cast into the sea Psal 46.1 2. And the root of all the stability of the Covenant lyes in Christ the foundation of the Covenant 7. The acceptation that you find with God is grounded hereupon 2 Cor 5.9 We labour whether present or absent to be accepted of him and there is a double acceptation one of persons and the other of services 1 Of persons as we find Gen. 4.4 If thou dost well thou shalt be accepted says God offer it to thy Prince will he accept thy person 2 Of services Mal. 1. Heb. 12.28 They are acceptable services As God delights in the plagues of wicked men Psal 120. Coals of Juniper which burn sweetly and fiercely so in the services of the
stead that what he did was accounted to be ours whether to righteousness and life or unto sin and death but yet so that had he stood the same obedience was in their own persons required of his posterity for themselves as was required of Adam though not with the same respect not as publick persons and representative heads so that if they had not performed it they had fallen for themselves though all mankind had not fallen if Adam had stood for the woman was first in the transgression 1 Tim. 2. Rom. 5.12 and yet though the woman fell first all mankind did not fall in her fall but by one man sin entred into the world and therefore it was not every sin of a particular person that would have destroyed all mankind but of their representative only But the second Covenant hath this in it that the first never had in Adam the second Covenant hath a surety and that is something more than a publick person that is one that represents another and stands in his place and is bound unto his debt so that if the person ingaged pay not the debt the surety must and so Adam was not the surety for all mankind that he would perform the debt or bear the curse for them all there was no Covenant that had a Surety but Christ and he was a surety of the first Covenant Gal. 4.4 made under the Law and of a better Covenant to perform all the duties of the Gospel So that all that is required is of Christ as the second Adam only in his publick capacity and representation the Law is required of us but if we perform it not we have a surety that has undertaken it Thus as the first Covenant was made with the first Adam and all his posterity so the second Covenant is made with the second Adam and all his posterity also 2. We read of a Covenant made with Persons and people and promised unto them as special mercies a Covenant made with Abraham and Isaac a Covenant made with David 2 Sam. 23.5 The Lord has made with me an everlasting Covenant in all things ordered and sure And there is a Covenant made with a people also Jer. 31.31 God made a Covenant with the house of Judah a Covenant that he would bring them under the bonds of the Covenant and Esa 55.3 Every one that thirsts come to the waters c. and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you even the sure mercies of David and Ezec. 16. I entred into Covenant with thee and thou becamest mine and therefore Zac. 9.12 By the blood of thy Covenant I have delivered the prisoners out of the pit in which there is no water 3. Men are said to make the Covenant and to break it Hezekiah exhorts them 2 Chron. 30.7 8. to give the hand unto the Lord 2 Chron. 30.7 8. it 's an expression of entring into Covenant as striking the hand is in the Proverbs an expression of entring into suretiship for another there are four expressions of it in 1 Chron. 29.24 All the Princes and the mighty men and all the house of the Kingdom gave their hands unto Solomon it notes a military subjection by way of Covenant and agreement between them they did take an oath of Allegiance unto him And so that expression to joyn the hand Ezeck 17.18 He hath broken the Covenant after he had given his hand c. and Job 17.3 to strike hand is to enter into suretiship or to be engaged in a Covenant so the saints are said to enter into Covenant with the Lord by sacrifice Psal 50.5 Esay 56. and they are said to take hold of the Covenant again they are said to break the Covenant which could not be if the Covenant were not made with them and not to be faithful and constant therein Psal 25.10 Lev. 26.15 4. It will appear from the promises of the second Covenant though it 's true that they are all yea and amen in him yet are they properly and formally made unto us either the first promises of grace or else of reward unto grace Promises of grace are He will give his Spirit and will give repentance he will heal our backslidings c. and we have an unction from the holy one c. And reward of service done either in the inward dispositions Blessed are the pure in spirit blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness c. or in the outward action 1 Cor. 9.24 So run that you may obtain 1 Cor. 15. ult your labour is not in vain in the Lord. And though the Covenant be made only out of free grace yet the Saints do claim these promises not only out of mercy but from the faithfulness of God 1 Cor. 10.19 1 Jo. 1.9 2 Tim. 4.8 God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able he is faithful and just to forgive us c. And what is the ground of this but the Covenant of God whereby his faithfulness is ingaged 5. The Covenant of grace is a Covenant in the hand of a Mediator and confirmed by the death of the Testator Heb. it 's not only a Covenant but it 's a Testament 1 Christ is the Mediator now no man is a mediator between God and himself a Mediator is not a Mediator of one it must be a third person a dayes-man that must lay hold upon both therefore there is a Covenant made with Christ and Christ is a Mediator for the establishment of the Covenant with us also And 2 Christ is the Testator he died and left his Legacies of all the promises to the saints now no man gives a Legacy to himself In the Covenant made between the Father and Christ Christ is a party and a publick person but in this Covenant between God and us he is a Mediator and the Testator by whom we receive all the Legacies and Inheritance that he has purchased for us and granted to us Rom. 4.11 6. The Sacraments are seals of the Covenant of grace Now if we look upon the Covenant made with Christ and consider that his faith was perfect in God and he knew the Lord would not fail him but saies He is near that justifies me who will contend with me he will not leave my soul in Hell c. But though Christ had a strong faith yet we have but a weak faith and therefore had need of Sacraments and outward signs to confirm it wherefore the Sacraments are not to confirm the Covenant made with Christ but the Covenant made with the Saints he to whom the Covenant is made unto him the seals are to be applied and it would seem unreasonable for the Covenant to be made unto one and the seals to be applied unto the other therefore there is a Covenant made with the saints and to this Covenant the Sacraments are added as seals 7. There is a double oath to confirm this
when God leaves him under that Covenant and deals with him according to the terms of that Covenant under which he desires to be In a word if God hate their persons and impute their sins reject their services despise their image curse their blessings give them neither grace restraining nor renewing if he leave them to wrestle under temptations by their own might and to resist sin in their own strength and be defiled and as they offer to God unsanctified services so God gives them unsanctified rewards and as their services are seemingly services but really sins so Gods blessings be seeming blessings but really curses When they shall come and plead with God at the last day they shall be made speechless in this for God shall let them see that in all his dealings with them he has proceeded with them in all things according to the terms of the Covenant under which they stand Vse 2 § 2. We may by this see what a miserable state a state of sin is and wherein the great danger and misery of it lies it makes a man perfectly miserable in all things but it makes him also insensible of this misery and makes it a desirable condition unto him which he is still willing and content to be in And here observe these three things 1. See here the compleat raign and dominion of sin which it has over men who are yet in their sins in a state of sin which consists in two things 1 In power and authority to command 2 In a ready and willing subjection thereunto Rom. 6.19 when men do yield themselves servants to sin as it is in respect of acts of sin men please themselves in them and they cannot forsake them they are the joy of their lives their sweet morsels which they hide under their tongues and they keep them and will not forsake them so also in respect of a state of sin which they are in under their Covenant as the servant that would not go free Exod. 21.5 Now when it is so that men are content with the bondage of the first Covenant and the second Adam is offered to them and they will not be delivered this shews that they are perfectly under the bondage of sin that not only they are with pleasure held under the acts of sin and cast fire-brands and say am I not in sport but they are held under a state of sin also and will not accept deliverance will not go free 2. See here also the folly of sin and the sinner even the highest rank of men civil men and formal professors temporary believers that have oyl in their lamps and go forth to meet the Bridegroom and yet the Holy Ghost says they are foolish Virgins because men do not judge of the danger of their estates by reason of their Covenant but go on as the Ox to the slaughter yea they cleave unto this Covenant and see not the misery that they are in under it and though the great work of the Spirit of God is to convince a man of his estate of sin in this that he is under the first Covenant and out of Christ Joh. 16.8 yet men go on and will not see it and yet walk with a great deal of confidence in hope of an everlasting reward 3. See here how Satan blinds the eyes of them that believe not and how the Lord gives them up to blindness in judgment that live under the Gospel they have the offers of the second Covenant made known to them they are under the Law and they do hear the Law that they are by nature bond-men and can from this mother expect no inheritance but as bond-men to be cast out of the house for ever and yet they cleave unto this and the more the glory of the second Covenant is offered unto them the more violently they do oppose it because it would spoil them of their own righteousness and subject them unto the righteousness of God Thus we see it in the whole people of the Jews but eminently in the Pharisees this Covenant they had chosen unto themselves and they did desire to be under the Law and they thought themselves very much enriched with the righteousness of the Law so that Christ preaching the second Covenant unto them and the grace thereof their desire to establish their own righteousness did raise up the malice and rage of their spirits unto such a height that they broke forth into the unpardonable sin even the great transgression and there is the same devilish principle in us all if the Lord restrain us not that in opposition to the grace of the Gospel we should oppose it even to the unpardonable sin Vse 3 § 3. It is an Exhortation to several Duties but specially three 1. Labour for a work of humiliation for this sin and to be rightly convinced of it for surely the nature of man is deeply leavened with it There is a double conviction of sin 1 Rational when a mans reason is overcome by the Word that a man cannot deny nor dispute against the truth of it and yet his heart is not affected with it Joh. 16.8 2 There is a spiritual Conviction when the Lord comes in with an irresistible light and discovers the sin and causeth the heart to own it and stoop to it and be affected with it with shame and sorrow and this is that conviction of the soul that does lead unto conversion whereas the other many times doth and may lead unto condemnation And this sin will be set upon the soul with these Considerations 1 It is a sin against the Gospel and the foundation of all the grace thereof now this is an aggravation If the word spoken by Angels were stedfast c. Heb. 2.2 3. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation If it be so dangerous to break the first Covenant what is it to despise the grace and offers of a second 2 It doth reject the grace of God the Father who had the first hand in the second Covenant for he might have dealt with us as he dealt with the lost Angels he did not catch after them when falling Heb. 2.16 Now for the Lord to give you a second offer of grace when he let the Angels go and you to despise this grace and whereas God had multitude of thoughts concerning this Covenant and the grace thereof for you to make all these thoughts of God of none effect by desiring to establish the first and by rejecting the Grace of the second Covenant is a great transgression 3 Hereby a man is very injurious to the Lord Jesus Christ Joh. 4.10 who is the greatest gift of God and the main of the excellency of this gift lies in this that he is given as a second Adam as a Mediator of the Covenant the surety of the Covenant Heb. 7.22 Isa 42.6 Heb. 8.6 the Angel of the Covenant Mal. 3.6 by whose blood the Covenant is sealed and
self-accusation and self-condemnation together with perfect fear perfect sorrow and despair for ever SECT II. Whence the Law hath this Coactive power WHence is it that the Law hath this Coactive power It does arise from these ground §. 1. 1. From the Sovereignty of God in the Law it is the Royal Law as being the rule of mans duty and the whole will of God concerning him that rule according to which man should walk in which he should be accept Eccles 12. ult Rom. 2.12 and by which he shall be judged at the last and great day for they that have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law And Christ that shall be the Judge saith I will not judge you but there is one that judges you even Moses in whom ye trust And though man has sinned and broken the Law and endeavoured to cast it off yet he is held still under the authority and soveraignty of the same Law Rom. 7.1 2 A man is subject to the law as long as he lives and so long as a man lives in a natural state so long he is under this Law as a Covenant and the Law does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord it over him in full dominion for the Law rules in the authority and soveraignty of God it is the great Expansum that God has spread over the rational world of mankind while they â—re in their natural state by which they are to be ruled and by which they shall be judged â—nd this is the main ground of all the rigor and coaction of the Law 2. There is in unregenerate men a natural conscience I call it natural as our Divines use 〈…〉 say because it acts only by natural principles and is in every man naturally in opposiâ—on to a renewed conscience which I conceive to be an ability in the understanding of a â—han to judg of actions and states according unto the rule that is prescribed by God Gal. 6.16 Rom. 2. 1 Conâ—â—ience must have a rule and that rule is the Law of God which is regula regulans whereâ—s conscience is only regula regulata as a rule ruled by the Divine Law 2 The things subâ—â—â—cted unto the judgment of conscience are a mans actions and his state and that not only â—hat he has done but what he is to do and conscience does pass a sentence of Good and â—â—d Evil upon both what is to be imbraced and followed and what is to be avoided and â—â—ough custom in sinning wear out the power of conscience exceedingly and in some men 〈…〉 is less than in others for they have their Conscience seared 1 Tim. 9.2 as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sigâ—fies and so to harden the place or else to cut off with searing some men have very brawny â—â—d insensible Consciences and do seem to walk without any Conscience at all as to live â—ithout God in the world and so walk without Conscience in the world and are less unâ—â—r the power of it than other men are yet there is no man but his Conscience has a power â—er him to constrain him to duty and restrain him from sin in some measure and that by 〈◊〉 authority of the Law of God And if God awaken Conscience by some great affliction â—â—our of death or judgment the power of it will quickly appear over them we may see 〈◊〉 Judas who was a Devil a man exceedingly given up to spiritual wickedness and one 〈◊〉 had a very seared Conscience for Christ had told him it had been good for him never to have been born we see all the other Disciples did abhor and fear the very hearing of the â—ct yet Judas afterwards with a brazen face asks Christ Master is it I but yet when â—od did awaken Judas's Conscience we see the power that the â—aw had upon him c. 3. The Spirit of God comes into the Consciences of men for Conscience is a relative â—culty and does not work by it self but does accuse and excuse by the concurrence of â—â—e spirit and the spirit that is given a man is answerable unto his Covenant The second â—ovenant makes men sons and the priviledge of it is the adoption of sons therefore the â—irit that accompanies this Covenant is a spirit of adoption and makes them all free-men 〈◊〉 the Covenant is a free Covenant it is Gal. 4. resembled by Sarah the free woman but â—â—e first Covenant unto man fallen is a Covenant that genders to bondage and there are â—ne under it but bondmen and therefore it is resembled by Hagar the bondwoman Now â—â—e spirit of this Covenant is a spirit of bondage and all that it works in a man is fear and â—rrour binding a man over to wrath upon neglect of duty and threatning vengeance and â—lling the soul with horrour and amazement telling a man of wrath and judgment to come â—â—d the constraint that is upon his soul in reference to these is very great 4. There is in a man a principle of self-love desiring good and fearing of evil for no â—atural man can act from a higher principle than self in whatever he does and therefore it is â—race that gives self-denial So much self-denial so much grace so much self-seeking so much â—â—rruption there is in every man Hence it is when a mans Conscience does tell a man of the â—od of obedience and the happy end thereof as Balaam did see it and therefore desired â—at his death might be like unto the Saints and a Herod may reform and do many things â—â—d so many do good rationally that never did it obedientially do it to do good to themâ—â—ves but never to bring glory unto God as we see it in Jehu and yet many men having tasted of the powers of the world to come and having had some great apprehensions of the good of the ways of God they may go very far and be constrained to do much for God as we see it in Alexander that afterwards proved an Apostate and a Persecutor and yet did much for God for a season and afterwards fell away And when Conscience doth tell a man of the danger of sin and presents to a man Hell and wrath as the consequence of it though it be a way that seems good to a man yet it leads down to the chambers of death and carries a man to the end of his journey and tells him that the fiery lake is but a little before and comes with the threatning of God as the Angel did to Balaam with a drawn sword in his hand a man may say I will turn back again if my way be perverse before thee and he may turn away from the sins that he loves most dearly he may cast up his vomit with the dog and leave the mire with the swine but it is only in fear of some evil and not from a principle wrought in a man that is the ground thereof There is a double principle that moves all things either
is never pleasant but always burdensome and the man desires to be set at liberty for he can never look upon the law as the perfect law of liberty until his nature answers the law and it is written in his heart 1. If we look upon the restraint that the law does lay upon a man that is unregenerate his condition is most miserable because 1 he does abstain from sin but it is forced and therefore burdensome because still his lust is active and carries the man after it with inward burning and the man is tormented the more it is adding drunkenness to thirst Deut. 29.19 The satisfaction of lust is compared unto drunkenness and the lust is compared unto thirst and as the drunkenness does increase the thirst and the more a man drinks the more thirsty he shall be and therefore none calls for drink more than those that have had too much already so it is here the more a man does to satisfie his lust the more he does increase it We know what a painful thing thirst is unless it be satisfied He that believes shall never thirst but shall have a well of water springing up in him Joh. 7.38 39. There is a double restraint 1 upon mens acts Abimelech's lust was stirred up but the Lord with-held the act Gen. 20 and so it was with the Pharisees they had often as bloody desires long before and sought to take Christ and put him to death but they could not there was a restraint put in for want of opportunity or fear of the people c. 2 There is a restraint upon mens lusts for though the heart of man be full of lust yet there is a Providence of God in permitting them to come forth some at one time and some at another so that the seeds of those sins that were in men before do now shew forth themselves as we see in Judas and Herod and Gehazi and in many men who carry it fair a while till there be an opportunity to draw them forth they have Neronis quinquennium for five years Nero carried it fair and yet afterwards he proved desperately wicked Now this restraint upon mens acts though unto the Elect of God it is a mercy and any thing that may hinder them in a way of sinning Hos 2.6 7 I will hedge their way with thorns and I will make a wall against them God can keep men from sin whether they will or no and if lesser afflictions will not do it God will raise greater But yet for all this the lusts of natural men will go after their former lovers though they cannot overtake them And this is a great misery unto such men first look upon the Saints also and they have desires after good but they find opposition so that they cannot do the thing that they would but there is still a law in their members rebelling against the law of their mind and this makes them to look upon themselves as miserable men because they have desires unsatisfied and they do still groan after a satisfaction and this makes them weary of their lives and they are willing to die that they may enjoy their desire to the uttermost and yet even in a regenerate man these desires are but of half the man and therefore in an unregenerate man when he is carried to sin with his whole man such a ones desires are more vehement Hos 7.4 Their hearts are hot as an oven they go out after it with greediness and they look upon it as the greatest misery to be restrained from it and their hearts rise against any opposition so much the more as you know Amnon and Ahab they were sick because they were restrained from that which they would have The soul of a wicked man is like a wild Bull in a net furiously bent upon sin they will perish rather than be hindred in a way of sinning This the Devil looks on as his great misery that though God lay not restraint upon his lust yet he restrains his acts so that he cannot hurt mankind as he would do though he smite Job with sores and imbitter his life to him yet he shall not be able to take away his life and the lusts of the Devil are as violent and as impetuous as ever he desires to winnow Peter and there is bounds set him that he cannot do what he would and his great torment is his restraint and the chains of darkness with which he is held and he could not enter into Judas that was his own till by the Sop the Lord gave him leave and he could not enter into the herd of Swine without license this is looked upon as a great misery by that violent and proud spirit Look what restraint either the power of God or the providence of God lays upon the lusts of the Devil the same does the Law of God lay upon the lusts of unregenerate men and this they look upon as their misery that they cannot enjoy their full desires there is an inward boiling of spirit and their hearts are hot as an oven they desire but they cannot attain and so their desire is their torment and they can have no rest 2. Even in those pleasures of sin that a man does enjoy this restraint of the law will imbitter them to a man exceedingly that a man does not enjoy them with that sweetness and delight that otherwise he should do because the sentence of the law and the judgments of God follow him with threats so that still they do add water to his wine and mix it with greater discontent than he should otherwise have for a man comes to it with a guilty galled and self-condemning conscience and so he can take no pleasure or but half the pleasure that else he should take and therefore the endeavour of the man is to put out the eye of Conscience and to make it grow sensless and to cast off this yoke and restraint of the law daily more and more and the more a man casts it off the more pleasure he does take in sinning As a godly man that has tasted of the sweetness of Communion with God he cannot take that pleasure in sin that other men do because still at the remembrance of his former communion the sweetness of it does arise in his heart and therefore he says it was better with me than it is now so also an unregenerate man that has tasted the bitterness of sin in the Law and the terrours thereof and has had the restraint of it laid upon his Conscience he cannot taste the like pleasure that other men do in sinning only the one is from a principle of conviction only and the other of conversion This is the misery of an unregenerate man under the restraints of the Law of God either his lusts do rage within and he cannot act them and therefore he wishes that there were no law or else if he do commit them it is but with half the man
in it from restraining Grace or renewing Grace Whether we do serve God in the newness of the spirit Rom. 7.6 or the oldness of the letter It was before conversion but a dead letter to him and did only command duty but it did no way transform the soul in the inward man but there is in a man being regenerate the newness of spirit that is a mans inward man being renewed by the Holy Ghost c. Now the rules of Trial are these 1. Let a man by the Coaction of the Law be put upon duty never so much and never so often yet it will never assist him nay the more he doth duty the less strength he shall have to do it the weakness of his nature will increase by it as the longer he does abstain from sin the more the lust will spread and the stronger it will grow the more he does pray the less love he shall have to the duty and though he may get a dexterity in the outward performance yet the less he shall be able to perform it in a saving and spiritual manner whereas renewing Grace gives a man strength a mans heart is prepared to pray and the spirit of Grace is a spirit of supplication a man has an Unction from the Holy Ghost that flows from his union with Christ and from the Holy Ghost and he has a strength in duties the more he does them the stronger he grows in all the ways of God The righteous shall grow stronger and stronger and he that has clean hands shall hold on his way Job 17.9 and shine brighter and brighter and grow stronger and stronger the more he knows the more he does follow on to know the Lord. And whereas another man has done duty many years and is grown more weary of it and more formal in it but knows no more what does belong to the spiritual performance of it now than he did when he began it and he does possibly abstain from sin but it is not from an inward principle and power of holiness but from an external motive which only keeps it under in the course of his life and therefore although by abstaining the lust may seem weakned and to decay by degrees yet really it grows and they prove more desperately wicked as appears by men that the unclean spirit is gone out of and returns with seven worse spirits and they that have made great and goodly shews of Holiness yet afterwards fall into the sin against the Holy Ghost 2. A man that does duty from the Coaction of the Law is partial in it and takes notice only of those duties to which he is constrained and where the law of God lays a strong hand upon him but as for other things he is not at all solicitous Herod will do many things but other things that either the Law does not so immediately and earnestly press upon him or his lust will not dispense with those he will leave undone But renewing Grace makes a man to have respect unto all Gods Commandments and to hate every false way it sets a man against every sin but specially against a mans own iniquity and those sins that are spiritual that are from Satan per modum imaginis as part of his image wherein they are most like the Devil 3. All that a man does from the Coaction of the Law will never last a man may abstain from sin a while but if a man have the nature of a dog he will return to his vomit and as a Sow will wallow in the mire still wash her never so clean yea he will return with the greater greediness by reason of the former abstinence and so a man may perform duty a while but as Job says Will the hypocrite pray always For he is but as a flag that cannot grow without mire and if once the fleshly respects of setting upon duty be taken away his duties will wither For either praying will make a man leave sinning or sinning will make him leave praying or if not publickly yet will at least kill all his secret duties and make those that are publick degenerate wholly into a form 4. Whatsoever a man does by Coaction of the Law a man has no sweetness in it it is with no delight and complacency for things forced are not pleasant let a man do the least service that he is forced to and it is a burden whereas let the greatest works in the world and the most toilsome be done if a man undertake them willingly he can find pleasure in them as we see men do in recreations running and wrestling c. So to a Saint the yoke of Christ is a pleasing yoke and his burden light a soul can dance under it and the thoughts of his leaving sin is very pleasant to him and when he does duty he delights in it according to his inward man and his soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness he is then in his element when he is keeping the Commandments of God Set water over the fire and make it boil never so much yet take it off and it will return quickly into its former coldness and will be the colder for its former heating and so it is here it is not agreeable to nature and therefore can never be pleasing either for an unregenerate man to perform duty or for a regenerate man to commit sin 5. Whatever a man doth by the Coaction of the Law a man hath no communion with God thereby nor is he drawn nearer unto God A gracious heart is sensible of the want of God and therefore his end in all that he does is to seek God that he may find him and because in Ordinances God will be found and has there promised a special presence therefore he seeks him there and he labours to stir up his Graces in his approach to God and God does in mercy draw near unto him because what he does is from an inward principle of godliness but a man that does duty from a natural conscience only he does not draw near to God but his spirit draws back all the while and looks upon God as an enemy and therefore he has no fellowship with the Lord. The Law indeed puts him upon duty and as a task he doth it but he has no more experience of the approaches of God in it or his love or the power of his Grace the kisses of his mouth the stayings of God with flaggons and comforting with apples c. but a soul that does duties from a principle of godliness is sensible of his spiritual absence from God in duties and of his special presence and would not lose his communion with God in duties for a world but other men are satisfied in the duties meerly and their sinning and hearing is much alike to them and if they have done the duty conscience is satisfied and they have all they desire c. Vse 4 § 4. Here we see what a happiness it is to the
God intending to justifie the ungodly had provided for him a righteousness which is therefore called the righteousness of God and his soul was so taken with this discovery of the Love of God Rom. 1.17 and the Grace of Christ that he saith I felt my self presently new-born and seemed to my self to have entred into Paradise 3. Hence there is wrought in the soul an exclusive resolution to taâ—◠〈◊〉 other way to Life and Salvation but this alone because there is salvation in no other neither is there any other name given under Heaven and therefore he confines all his thoughts and hopes and expectation unto Christ alone and his eye is only upon him he counts all things else as dross he undervalues all duties and performances all hopes and possibilities in nature as things not worthy to be named the same day with the righteousness of Christ and therefore he is desirous to glorifie God in this way of his Son and to submit to the righteousness of God Rom. 10.3 If he had the righteousness of Angels offered to him to be his he would undervalue all for he saith as it is not proportionable to his necessity so it is infinitely short of that righteousness that was discovered unto him 2 Cor. 3.18 He doth behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord and therefore he takes up such a resolution as the Lepers did by which our Divines commonly ex◠〈◊〉 If we stay here we perish if we go into the city the famine is there therefore 〈…〉 the Syrians if they save us we shall live 2 King 7.3 4 and if they kill us we â—an but 〈◊〉 And 〈◊〉 those servants of Benhadad which is another instance used come with ropes about their necks cannot tell whether they shall be saved or hanged but yet they will go because they had heard that the Kings of Israel were merciful Kings And as the Prodigal son in the Gospel I will go to my Father for if I continue here â—ere is nothing but death to be expected So says the Soul if I continue in sin there is â—othing but Hell to be expected and if I fly to the merits of duties there is no comâ—ort and peace to be had they all say salvation is not in me therefore to him will I â—ook for with him is mercy and in him is plenteous redemption And this confineâ—ent of thoughts is not easie for in danger the heart of man is in a hurry Psal 38.10 and runs â—o and fro as a Merchant it is tossed to and fro as a Meteor and a man turns every stone and knocks at the door of every creature and is willing to seek help any way â—s we see in Temporal deliverances what a hard matter it is to be confined to God â—one the heart of man will be plodding ways for its own deliverance and cannot stand â—till to see the Salvation of God And as the heart of man seeks out many inventions â—n a way of committing sin so also in getting off the guilt and the burden of sin â—ut after once this discovery is made to the soul it shuts the eyes upon all things else â—nd now he is willing to part with all his own righteousness and duties and possibilities all his former rotten hopes and whatever before was gain to him and which he â—hought should have brought him in glory at the last and to trust perfectly in the â—race revealed in Christ Jesus whom he chuseth to rule and guide him for ever 4. There is put into the soul an instinct after union with Christ and it doth breath â—â—d gasp after him from day to day the desires of his soul and the soundings of his â—wels all of them run out this way that he might know him and be found in him â—â—ving found the pearl of great price Phil. 3. Cant. 5. he can have no peace in himself till he has bought 〈◊〉 and now his heart being thus touched with a Magnetick touch there is mirrh dropt 〈◊〉 at the hole of the door an impression is left upon his soul that it must go after him 〈◊〉 Elisha had upon him when Elijah cast his mantle upon him What have I done to thee â—ow he follows him from Ordinance to Ordinance now he crys for Wisdom now he â—igs for it now in all his duties he drives no more that low trade of satisfying a natural conscience and those poor and low aims of flesh but it is the merchandize of Wisdom trading for Christ in his Ordinances alone Prov. 3.15 now if God offer him a bribe of all the creatures and indeed with this many a false heart goes away satisfied if he may have but a quiet conscience if he may have plenty peace and ease to his flesh yet still this soul who has an instinct after Union says what is all this to me if I go Christless c. His soul makes after him as the stone to the center as that alone which is the fountain of his happiness and the end of his hopes 5. The Soul accepts of Christ upon his own terms and receives him its whole bent Joh. 1.12 and all the faculties of it open to embrace him and he saith Lift up your heads O ye gates that the King of Glory may come in Whereas before his will was desperately shut against him and Christ would have gathered him but he would not now his will is brought off and the man is made willing Rev. 22.17 For the Covenant between Christ and the Soul is a Matrimonial Covenant and Marriage lyes mainly in consent and now the Soul says He shall be my Lord and my God for ever And this consent to him is to take him with all his Offices as a King as well as a Priest and to take him with all his Graces with his Love and Meekness with his Patience Humility Self-denial for the whole train of these Graces come into the Soul with Christ as his attendants with all the relations of God and of his people the meanest Saint he will own as a brother or as a friend he will take Christ with all his inconveniencies with his Cross as well aâ— with his Crown and can truly say I am as willing if the Lord shall call to bear the one as the other as willing to die for him as live with him to suffer with him as to be glorified with him Christ though with reproach with poverty and with disgrace Christ and a prison Christ and a faggot is welcome he is willing to follow him without the gate bearing his reproach and that he might fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ And he can say when they come as good Ignatius did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now I begin to be a Disciple c. Psal 1â— 6. He gives up himself unto him and leaves himself with him The poor leaves himself with thee He gives up himself unto Christ and gives the Lord
at first created with us 3. The finger that writes it is the Spirit or the writer is Christ and the ink is the Spirit and the table is the heart in which the Spirit works the habits of all Grace De spiritu litera Cap. 3. Austin has decided it against the Pelagians that there must not only be freedom of will in men and a teaching and a moral perswasion from God which they hold and the Papists and Arminians since but there must be an almighty work of the Spirit of God upon a man creating in him a new nature and putting into a man inward dispositions answerable unto what the Law of God doth require and that by a hand without and so writing does signifie something wrote in a man from without and that I conceive to be the meaning of Rom. 2.15 Rom. 2.15 The work of the Law written in their hearts all the outward acts of obedience that they do and their Consciences accusing or excusing them all those are but the fruits of the work the efficacy of the Law that is written in their hearts We do not read that the Law is said to be written in Adams heart only God created man righteous but writing notes rather an act from an extrinsecal hand And therefore I should rather conceive those practic notions Rom. 2.15 to be written in man by the common work of the Spirit of Christ than to be left in him after the fall not the dross of the old Adam but the foundation of the new c. so that the Spirit of God has his works wrought in both only in the one by a common hand in the other by a saving work 4. The thing that the Spirit of God doth write there is the whole Law he doth write the Gospel and all the Promises thereof he doth take of Christ and shew it unto you Joh. 16. he reveals his glory to you and the preciousness of Gospel-promises and priviledges and a man does believe them and is transformed into them He does also shew a man the Law of God and a man is transformed into the likeness thereof even the whole Law so that a man has respect unto all the Commandments there is an universal change for there is not any part of the Law but it is written within him Civil men may have something of the Law put into their hearts as the Heathen had and they may shew forth something of the work of the efficacy of this Law in their hearts and in their lives also but they have but half the copy but where the Spirit of God does write the Law savingly he writes the whole Law 5. The Law is written in the heart as it is written in a Proposition that which is written in the greatest Letters in the Law hath the greatest Characters in a mans soul and that which is most often repeated in the Law that is most often repeated in the heart and therefore Rom. 6.17 Rom. 6.17 There is a form of doctrine into which you were delivered as into a mould Now in a thing cast into a mould as there is not the least scratch in the mould but it will appear in the thing moulded thereby so answerable unto the impression in the mould will the impression be in the thing and if it be deeper in the one it will be deeper in the other now to know God and to fear him to cleave unto the Lord Christ and honour him and obey him these are the great things of the Law of God wherefore for men to neglect these and have their hearts much taken up though about truths yet things of less consequence and lay out the whole intention of their spirits in these to tythe mint and cummin and to be all in meat and drink and neglect true godliness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost in which the Kingdom of God consists mainly this is an evil sign and an argument there is not the right moulding of the Law in the heart 6. Lastly It notes an abiding and continuing of the Law there as things written are for continuance and for after times So Jer. 17.1 The iniquity of Judah is written with the pen of iron that is they are so set upon sin and so hardened in it that there is little or no hope of their repentance their sin is written in the stains and the guilt of it upon their souls So Prov. 3.3 we are exhorted To write the Law upon the tables of our hearts that is by constant observation and meditation to fix them and to imprint them So that the Law is said to be written in our hearts for continuance the Law that was concreated with us in Adam Satan has blotted out but when the Spirit of God does write it there again by the finger of God surely it is that it may be never more obliterated or blotted out Mat. 11.30 Christ saith Mat. 11.30 Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easie so that Christ suffers not his people to go without a yoke he is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lawless as to his actions he is not a son of Belial which Glassius saith signifies a man without a yoke and this yoke is the obedience which in the Gospel the Lord requires and that is nothing else but the obedience of the Law for though Christ hath fulfilled it yet it lies upon us still as a duty though not by way of satisfaction to be performed and this yoke is mainly upon the souls and the spirits of men Now writing the Law in the heart is a perfect conformity of a mans inward man unto the Law of God and all duties that the Lord requires and this is it that makes the yoke easie because it is become another nature an inward principle and what a man does so work from is not burdensome there is a potentia visiva a visive power in the eye therefore it is not weary of seeing and there is a principle a law of motion in the nature of the Sun and therefore it is not weary of motion because it works from an inward principle Men do evil with both hands earnestly and are never weary the reason is because they work from an inward principle And in this conformity unto the will of God which is taking up the yoke 1 There is obedientia voti the obedience of desire when a man desires to obey God in all things and has a careful respect unto all the Commandments and desires to make his heart perfect with the Law of God 2 Obedientia conformitatis obedience of conformity when a man does in some measure answer the Law of God in his actions and in the workings of his inward man 3 Obedientia resignationis obedience of resignation when a man can wholly give up himself to it as to the perfect Law with joy and delight love the law and finds sweetness in it and sees a goodness in whatever it requires and
Because the Lord will honour his Son as the second Adam and the glory of the first Adam was a Covenant and an Image and so shall the second Adam be And he must have a seed also to whom these shall be conveyed Isa 53.8 The word signifies generation In whom he shall see his seed and prolong his days as Psal 72. and Christ is his Son in both generation and succession naturally as they bear his Image and legally as they stand under his Covenant and the Lord will honour the second Adam as he did the first in both these the Lord having made Adam the type of him that was to come 3. That hereby the Lord might honour the Creature the Covenant is the staff of beauty because it is the great beauty and glory of any people that God hath taken them into Covenant Zach. 11.10 specially if we consider the second Covenant to be Matrimonial and the Lord doth thereby betroth him unto himself in loving kindness and mercy and faithfulness as Hos 2.18 the great honour of the people of Israel Deut. 26.18 was that they were a people peculiar unto God thence he is called the God of Israel and this is the great honour of the Saints which makes them more excellent than their neighbours because they have God so nigh them to be their God in Covenant 4. That it may be the greater obligation unto men to obedience Gen. 17.7 I will establish my Covenant with thee thou shalt therefore keep my Covenant And it is the great answer unto all Temptations I am in Covenant with the Lord as a woman that is married it is a sufficient answer unto all other suiters I am already married unto another Je◠13.11 As a girdle to the loins of a man so have I caused the whole house of Israel to cleave unto me that they might be unto me for a name and for a praise The Lord bound them to him by Covenant and it is a great aggravation of sin that the Lord loves us and we forget the Covenant of our God therefore Adultery is aggravated above all other sins Hos 3.2 A woman beloved of her husband yet an adulteress how abominable is it 5. To sweeten obedience and make it the more free and voluntary when a man takes it upon himself and gives the hand to the Lord 2 Chron. 30.7 8. which was the custom amongst men when they entred into Covenant Ezek. 17.18 and that men might see that their good always goes along with their duty and that God that did command to obey did promise to reward and therefore did it not ex indigentia sed potentia out of indigence but from power Christs goodness extends not unto God as munificentia by way of munificence Austin puts the difference between man and God in this as the Earth drinks up the water so doth the Sun-beams also one out of its own necessity but the other out of its power so God requires duty out of bounty for your good always that he may reward it Grace does not destroy but raise and rectifie self-love Christ in his obedience had a glory set before him and so had Moses a respect to the recompence of reward There is a love of reward which is lawful when it is not this that is the only thing that lancheth a man forth in a duty but only fills his sails but when it is mercenary love and has respect to nothing in the duty but the loaves this is sinful and it is this Covenant that makes the yoke of Christ easie and profitable having an eye to the exceeding great and precious promises which engages a man to have respect to all the Commandments for the Lord doth delight to allure men into ways of holiness and duty Hos 2.14 Lastly the Lord will have it so 1 That by the promises of this Covenant he may sanctifie a man change his image and make him partaker of the Divine nature and that every one of them may carry the soul continually to Christ as streams to the fountain 2 Pet. 1.4 in whom they are Yea and Amen 2 That this may be the ground of a working faith and a lively hope and a fervent prayer all which are grounded only upon the promises of this Covenant for had there not been a Covenant between God and us there had been no place for faith no ground for hope and no room for the prayer of faith which only is bottomed upon a promise 3 Whatever is done in this Covenant it is God that has the first and chief hand therein and we do not enter into Covenant with him but he enters into Covenant with us first though the Covenant be mutual yet it is called the Lords Covenant as Christ faith unto his Disciples Joh. 15.16 You have not chosen me but I have chosen you they did chuse Christ as every believing soul doth but the love first began on Christs part and so it does also in this Covenant 1 Joh. 4.10 Not that we loved him but he loved us and me love him because he loved us first so we do not begin the Covenant with God but the Lord doth begin with us and the motion came from him alone God the Father is not passive in it but active he was content that Christ should reconcile us to him As it was to David an acceptable service of Joab in reconciling his Son Absalom to him because his heart did run out to him so God the Father is active in this work he is in Christ reconciling the world and all that Christ does is by the Fathers appointment and he is his servant in it and it is the pleasure of the Lord and he doth love to have it so and had not he imployed Christ in this work there had never been a reconciliation between God and man As it is true by our Union with Christ we are joined to or as the word signifies glewed to the Lord yet the Union doth begin on Christs part first and Christ unites himself to us by the Spirit before we can by our faith be united to him so it is in the Covenant also it does begin on Gods part and as it was the Womans great dishonour to be first in the transgression so it is the Lords great glory to be first in the reconciliation And therefore when Adam after his fall stood trembling and could expect nothing but a sentence of condemnation the Lord was pleased to reveal a new Covenant to him for the Text saith he was afraid and he hid himself so unto Abraham the motion of a Covenant was from the Lord and not from Abraham There is a Grace preceding which works Grace and there is also a Grace co-operating that acts Grace but it is preventing Grace that is the first § 3. The main part of this Covenant is transacted by God without us which will appear if we consider the particulars of it 1. The Purpose and intention of
Saints their smell is as Lebanon and therefore is resembled to the Roses and Lillies Hos 14.7 which is the most fragrant smell else they are of no worth for they are done not for the worth of the thing but for the acceptance that they should find with the Lord and let him come and eat the fruit of his pleasant things It is the Lord before whom we must appear i. e. before the judgment seat of Christ and therefore to find acceptance with our Judge is our great concern Now how comes Christ to be accepted of God It is by the Covenant made with him and by vertue of the same Covenant we are accepted Ephes 1.6 He hath made us accepted in his beloved our services in him are accepted and our persons also It 's your Covenant only that 's the ground of your acceptation as Luther says well it is not from the dignity and worth of the duties but from the nature of the Covenant by which they are offered and under which they stand 1 The Father loves you 2 The services are holy and from a holy heart But 3 it is from a Covenant in which the Lord hath promised to accept all his peoples services as fruits in Christ 8. And Lastly The glory of the Saints is the glory of Christ and it is the enjoyment of Christ in Heaven that makes Heaven the place of Glory it is to enter into your Masters joy and to be dissolved and be with Christ is a Saints hope were it only the reward of your own graces it were much but to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God is a great priviledg but O! what is it for a Soul to sit with Christ upon his Throne As he overcame and sat down with the Father upon his Throne so also shall we be exalted by him to sit upon his Throne in Heaven CHAP. III. The Covenant of Grace made with Believers opened and applied Gen. 17.7 I will establish my Covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their Generations for an everlasting Covenant to be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee SECT I. The Covenant as made with Believers explicated and demonstrated § 1. THat the Covenant of Grace was made with Christ primarily as the second Adam has been formerly cleared unto you but when we look farther into the Scripture we find also that God did establish that Covenant with the Faithful and with their seed and this the Text holds forth clearly to you when I have but premised this position That the Covenant that God made with Abraham is the same for substance with the Covenant under which the Saints under the New-Testament do and shall stand to the end of the world Luk. 1.72 which I conceive is to perform the mercy promised to our Fathers and to remember his holy Covenant the oath which he sware to our Father Abraham that he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of all our enemies might serve him without fear c. and Rom. 4.11 He received the sign of Circumcision as a seal of the rigteousness of Faith which he had being yet uncircumcised that he might be the Father of them that believe though they be not circumcised and the Father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only but do walk in the steps of the faith of our Father Abraham and therefore vers 16. he is said to be the Father of us all If you are Christs then are you Abrahams seed and heirs of the Promise and Galat. 4.28 now we brethren as Isaac was are children of the promise c. so that both Jews and Gentiles are Abrahams seed because they come under Abrahams Covenant therefore there is the same Covenant now for substance Act. 3.25 that was made with Abraham and hence Acts 3.25 't is said ye are the children of the Covenant which God made with your Fathers Therefore as Abrahams Covenant so the Covenant made with the Saints is made with them and with their seed Hence we do learn in the next place Doctrine Doctrine That the Covenant of grace that was principally made with Christ is also made with the faithful the members of Christ In the opening of this Doctrine there are three things to be spoken to 1 To prove that the Covenant is made with the Saints 2 To shew why it must be so 3 To shew the different manner how it 's made with Christ and with them 1. That the Covenant of grace is made with the Saints and they are all federates therein Rom. 5. 1 Cor. 15.47 will appear by these arguments 1. From the type of the first Adam for he is made the type of him that was to come Now the Covenant that God did make with Adam was not made with him only but with all his posterity as appears plainly because the curse of the Covenant being broken comes upon them all in Adam all dyed because in him all sinned now the Covenant must be as large as the Curse and the Curse coming upon them must argue the Covenant to be made with them and so it is in the second Covenant also God has not only taken Christ into Covenant but he being an everlasting Father has taken in all his seed for he is the Father of all the faithful and the Lord enters into Covenant with them also So that all his posterity were bound unto the same Covenant and to perform the same obedience or to endure the same Curse that he did if they did transgress And whereas it may be said then as all that was required of the first Adam lay upon his posterity so all that is required of the second lies upon his posterity also and as what Adam was to perform they were in their own persons to perform so what Christ did perform that also lies upon all his posterity to perform in this there is a great deal of difference between Adam and Christ the first Adam stood before God as a publick person as a representative head that is such a one as personates and acts the part of another by the allowance of the Law so that what he doth is by the Law accounted to be done by him whom he represents and what is done unto him is accounted by the Law to be done unto the other so in the Law an Attorney appears for another receives money or takes possession for another and that stands good in Law as if a man had done it in his own person and so Embassadors do represent the Princes or States from whence they come and from whom they are sent what they do the Prince that sends them is accounted by the Law of Nations to do if they act according to their commission and what is done unto them the Prince doth take as done unto himself c. And so indeed Adam was a Common or a Publick person standing in our
Covenant there is an oath made by God the Father to Christ and there is an oath also made to us there is an oath made unto Christ and therefore he is said to be made a Priest by a Covenant oath Psal 110.4 and the oath to us Heb. 6.17 18. Who are heirs of promise that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie c. God having taken up unchangeable counsels concerning this Covenant he did therefore to shew the Immutability of his Counsel confirm it by an oath and being so engaged he cannot go back though that be true also because he is faithful and cannot deny himself Yet because his counsel was unchangeable and he did never intend to alter his Covenant for ever therefore he did swear that he might shew how much his heart was in it and that he did never intend to change it but his counsel in it was unchangeable And this Doctrine I do the rather pitch upon in opposition to the licentious tenent of the Antinomians from the former Doctrine The Covenant of grace is made with Christ and he has undertaken to perform all duties required of us and bear all the curse for us as he was our surety therefore say they all is required of Christ and nothing of us and so though we walk never so loosly and corruptly yet God will require all at his hands and while Christ doth not fail the Covenant on our part can never be broken Indeed this is a truth that God has laid help upon one that is mighty and he does expect all at Christs hand because he can never fail the Covenant cannot be broken for he is the surety thereof but yet we must remember withall that we come under the same Covenant with Christ and we in our place are bound unto the same obedience and so far as we come short we sin and may be charged with unfaithfulness before God though this shall never break the Covenant nor be imputed unto a man to his destruction because this Covenant has a surety yet as the Covenant with the first Adam bound all his posterity unto the same duty so does the Covenant made with the second Adam also only a man might have broken the first Covenant for himself though he could not break it for all mankind but under the second Covenant a man cannot break the Covenant for himself so as not to be capable of mercy upon repentance because the second Adam is the surety thereof 2. The Reasons why it was necessary that the Covenant of Grace should be made with all the faithful and not with Christ only as their head are Reason 1 1. To answer those great ends why God will deal with man in a Covenant way 1 The Lord will enter into Covenant that he may declare his glory not only in a way of goodness but in a way of faithfulness In the Creation the Lord did shew forth much power and wisdom and in the Law much holiness But there was no way to manifest his faithfulness Mic. 7.20 but by Covenant The Lord hath chosen you above all people that you might know that he is the Lord the faithful God And Rom. 15.8 9. there is the truth of God to the Jews herein manifested and the mercy of God to the Gentiles who were strangers and not before taken into Covenant so that it is hereby the Lord doth gloriously manifest an Attribute and that which shall manifest an Attribute must be no small matter and therefore when the Lord doth shew his power he doth create the Heavens and the Earth and lays the beams of his Chambers in the waters raiseth such a roof as the Heavens and lays such a foundation as the earth and settles it upon nothing if he will shew his love he will give his Son and if his grace he will pardon sin and if his holiness he will give a Law if his mercy to the vessels of mercy give them Heaven a kingdom of joy and glory and if his wrath he will make Hell So that whatever the Lord hath done in the world is for the manifestation of himself and that which shall make manifest any Attribute of God to the World must needs be some great thing It is only this entering into Covenant that hath manifested the faithfulness of God he had not been else known to be a faithful God unto the World as Exod. 3.6 says the Lord By the name Jehovah I was not known to them that is as a God fulfilling of the promises So by the name of a God faithful and true he had not been known but in reference to the Covenant and the faithfulness of God was so much the more manifested by this Had the Lord only entered into Covenant with Christ he keeping the Covenant and yielding obedience to it the faithfulness of God had not been put to that stress and trial as it hath been now that the Covenant is made with man and he unsteady therein and does transgress it and forget the Covenant of his God and yet that the Lord should towards him remember his holy Covenant still and our unfaithfulness not make the faithfulness of God of none effect and the people of God therefore notwithstanding all their unfaithfulness to cast themselves upon the Covenant of God and the promises thereof as David did 2 Sam. 23.5 and his words yet to be found as it were tryed words Psal 12.6 The words of the Lord are pure words tryed as silver seven times Psal 12.6 c. The fire that tries these words was that of affliction and when a man is brought into a streight and then casts himself upon a promise and thereby has experience of the truth and faithfulness of God therein then it is said to be tryed and all the people of God have had experience of it so often that there is no dross to be found in it no more than can be conceived to be in gold and silver purified seven times 2. The Lords intention was to honour man also and it 's one of the greatest and highest dignities that the Lord hath put upon his people Jer. 13.11 to bind them unto himself for a name and a glory and Deut. 26.18 19. the Lord did avouch them to be his people to make them high above all people and therefore the staff of beauty mentioned in Zach. 11.10 is the Covenant between God and his people I brake my staff of beauty that I might break my Covenant which I made with all the people c. and it is a Covenant of friendship a Covenant of marriage and in all this there is an honour and a kind of equality and it 's the ground of all the honour that the Lord doth put upon us for our union with Christ is grounded upon our Covenant with God Had the Lord taken Christ into Covenant with himself only he had indeed honoured his Son but not his Saints but now to make them
one with the Son and to enter into the same Covenant with them and in their own persons that he hath established with the Son it doth highly honour the Saints and exalt the grace of God towards them also 3. That the Lord might bind men unto him more firmly in a way of obedience and that the obedience might be made the more sweet Man was bound unto God by a bond of creation and from whom he had his being unto him he did owe his service but the Lord will bind him unto him with a further cord and bond of stipulation the one was natural and necessary and the other voluntary and though he did owe obedience had there been never a promise made him of a reward yet much more when the Lord will bind himself by Covenant to reward his meanest services The ground of the Covenant is love Deut. 7.7 8. 2 Cor. 5.19 Jer. 31.3 Hos 2.19 and God loves the Saints also in his Son and is willing to be reconciled to them in him and a man may say the yoak of Christ is not only easie but profitable also Matt. 11.29 because it hath a promise annexed to every service and for this cause was the Covenant made with the Saints that they might be a willing people in all their obedience there being a promise going with the duty in whatever was required of them 4. That the people of God might exercise faith in their prayers putting these bonds in suit that the Lord hath made over unto them when they look upon themselves as sons of Abraham Heirs of Promise and Children of the Covenant c. and thereby they come with a great deal the more boldness before the throne of grace as David 1 Chron. 17.23 24. Let the thing thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and his house be established for ever do as thou hast said that thy name may be magnified for ever the Lord of Hosts is the God of Israel even a God to Israel For because thou hast told thy servant that thou wilt build him an house therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray before thee now Lord thou art God and hast promised this goodness to thy servant let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant that it may be before thee for ever for thou blessest O Lord and it shall be blessed for ever have respect unto the Covenant for all the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty Reason 2 2. There is a Covenant made with the Saints also that they may see that they are as strictly bound to obedience in their own persons under the second Covenant as they were under the first Covenant and that the doctrine of the Gospel though it be a Doctrine of liberty yet is not a Doctrine of licentiousness there is as much of duty required of us now as there was then and so far as we come short of the Law we sin and every such transgression is so far as it prevails a Covenant-breaking on our part and an act of unfaithfulness but the Covenant cannot be broken because we have a surety which the first Covenant had not and the righteousness of this Covenant sin can never spend it is an everlasting righteousness therefore that Doctrine that saith God requires all of Christ and nothing of you is a Doctrine of sinful liberty it 's true That he takes satisfaction in his Son and he makes you accepted in his beloved and therefore he will never suffer his faithfulness to fail for Psal 102.28 Thou art the same and the children of thy servants shall continue c. yet in point of duty he expects from us uprightness and perfect obedience so that it is your sin and unfaithfulness if you perform it not as it was required of the first Adam so of all his posterity and as of Christ so of all his posterity also 3. That the Saints also may stand in awe of the threats of God under the second Covenant it 's true there is no curse there for it is a covenant of blessing but yet there is a double anger in God paterna hostilis ira simplex redundans c. I will visit their offences with a rod and that with many sharp and lesser trials and yet my Covenant I will not break they shall be the sure mercies of David still therefore Psal 119. he saith Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me because God had in Covenant undertaken to preserve him to his kingdom therefore he could not else have been a faithful God and there is also a faithfulness in the threatning executed as well as there is in the promises performed and that the hearts of the people of God may stand in awe thereof therefore it is necessary that as they should remember all duty was not so performed by Christ but that there is duty also in their place required of them and all suffering was not so undergone by Christ but that there may be suffering reserved for them also though not as a part of the curse of the first Covenant nor for satisfaction yet as the threatning was for their unfaithfulness under the second Covenant so it is inflicted for their humiliation and sanctification § 3. Wherein lies the difference between the Covenant made with Christ and with us 1 It was made with Christ primarily as a publick person for all the Elect but it is made with every one of us in the second place as we are members of Christ and so being in him we come under his Covenant 2 It is made with Christ immediately and for his own sake there was no mediator between God and Christ 2 Sam 7. Dan. 21.9 but the Lord accepted of his ingagement and relyed upon his faithfulness in performing his duty as Christ did upon Gods faithfulness in fulfilling his promise and whatever the Lord performs unto us it is for Christs sake but it is with us mediately in him he being the mediator of the Covenant and of all the mercies thereof 3 The promise made unto Christ was made from everlasting before the foundation of the world 2 Tim. 1.9 Rev. 13.8 it 's said The Lamb had a book of life before the foundation of the world it cannot be understood of election for he himself as mediator was elected therefore it is spoken in reference to this Covenant that God did make with Christ before the world was Prov. 8.22 he being from the beginning and this Covenant was to take place immediately after the fall but the Covenant with his people is made with them when they believe and are ingrafted into Christ faith being nothing else but a consent unto the Covenant and the terms of it on our part and therefore that is an act done by the creature in time when a man is converted and therefore notwithstanding the Covenant made with Christ yet the elect themselves Ephes 2.12 till they be converted are said
there is many a man that goes back from â—â—is ingagement to God long and per poenitentiae poenitentiam Diabolo satisfaciet Tertul. By repenting â—f his repentance he will satisfie the Devil But a heart that is sincere with God will renew â—t again and he would not have his ingagement broken he still cries out Lord I am thine and thou art the Lord my God surely thou art our Father and thy compassion does not fail but thou renewest it upon us every moment Therefore I come again to give the hand to the Lord and renew my Covenant with him 3. By reason of the falseness of our hearts there is so much treachery of spirit that we are not easily kept within bounds our purposes are easily broken and men draw back from the Lord by reason of the falseness of their hearts and the treachery that is in them Ezech. 16.30 How weak is thy heart unstable as water and it is said that water hardly contains it self within its own bounds And therefore it was Chrysostoms complaint once Gen. 49.4 and since it has been the complaint of many others after him That a Minister did never find his â—ork as he left it and so does a Christian complain he does seldom find his heart as he left 〈◊〉 Now that a mans heart may be fixed therefore the Lord takes his people into Coveâ—ant with himself and they bind themselves much in Covenants 4. They renew their Covenant that by often repeating and renewing it it may be set on upon their spirits the more and lay the greater ingagement upon them for surely the more frequently we bind our selves the faster we are bound and every renewal of our Covenant doth intend and strengthen the obligation and makes the deeper impression upon the heart and therefore Deut. 6.7 the Lord commands Israel to teach them diligently unto their children the word in the Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to sharpen them as you do a Knife saepius ad cotem impellendum the way to make it take the deepest impression upon the soul is to set it on by often and frequent repetitions because of the deadness of our hearts and inadvertence of spirit we are apt to forget the Covenant of the Lord Deut. 4.23 and when men are apt to forget a thing they had need have it repeated often to them 5. By reason of the forgetfulness of the heart there is nothing that the ungodliness of a mans heart is more prone to than to forget his ingagement unto God and therefore was that strict charge laid upon them Deut. 4.23 Take heed to your selves lest you forget the Covenant which the Lord your God made with you and make you a graven Image c. The happiness of the Angels lies in this that they both know all the duties of their Covenant and have them alwaies in mind for where there is no sinfulness there is no forgetfulness but the misery of man lies in this as to the ingagement of this Covenant in many things he is ignorant of it so also is he unmindful of it and thence the Apostle saith Heb. 2.1 2. Lest we prove leaking vessels c. or as some will derive the word Heb. 2.1 2. charta bibula quae Scripturam non bene continet the word is written there as in sinking paper and the Ink runs abroad that afterwards when you have writ it you cannot read it now things that we are willing to remember we repeat them often and do thereby keep them in mind as the remembrance of the creation the mercy the Lord would not have forgotten and for this cause he has appointed a weekly remembrance and the death of Christ he would not have to be forgotten and therefore he appoints us to remember it often do this in remembrance of me because it would else quickly wear out of our minds mercies and duties being for the most part written in our hearts as letters written upon the water no sooner in but out and therefore we read in Esay 48.8 when the Lord would have a thing take deep impression upon them he bids them to remember it yea bring it again to mind O ye transgressors not only remember it once but often bring it again to mind c. Now there is a double curse upon the memory of man 1 There is a natural weakness that it is like a Sieve that lets pass all the Corn and retains nothing but the Chaff 2 There is a weakness that is below nature As there is a strength unto good that is supernatural when a man is immediately acted by the Spirit of God that there is in him more than the strength of a man so there is also in wayes of sin when a man hath an immediate concurrence of the spirit of the Devil Rev. 2.10 Joh. 8.44 Ye are of your Father the Devil and his lusts ye will do and the Devil shall cast some of you into prison that is wicked men acted by the spirit of the Devil and so Rev. 12.11 the Dragon is the Heathen Roman Emperours but it is as they are acted by Satan and therefore it is said to be the old Serpent and Satan in them for the Devil hath not in himself ten horns it is the Devil working in them and acting them so there is also a weakness below nature men are apt to forget the word and their duty which they learn out of it but Satan comes and as an Harpy snatcheth away the word that is he adds a weakness below the nature men are apt to forget it sooner than otherwise they would have done by putting into the heart contrary impressions the things that we regard and take care of we are apt to remember but the things that we care not for we are apt to forget quae curant senes meminerunt old men remember what they care for Now the heart of man is least set upon Covenant duties of any thing and therefore had need to have its memory helped with continual and frequent repetitions of them 6. By reason of the ignorance and blindness of the mind of man we had need to be remembred of our Covenant and to renew it often we are all narrow mouthed vessels and receive all things from God but by drops and light comes in upon us but by degrees in several beams and a man looks often upon it before he can understand it and therefore the Lord gives unto us line upon line and precept upon precept Esay 28.10 And thence the Saints of God read over the same things and be content to hear the same things again because they have a new view of them they have a farther light into and farther discoveries of them Psal 25.14 Psal 25.14 The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him the word in Hebrew signifies mysterium arcanum a secret is something that cannot be known unless it be by revelation that a man by all
and therefore it would be hard to perswade them to put them away having convinced them of the sin and obtained of them a promise that they would put them away he doth bind them by a Covenant which they subscribe seal and confirm by an Oath and a curse for he that will keep Covenant with God may sometimes be smitten in the place of Dragons and sometimes his Father and his Mother may stand in the way of his duty to God when he should keep the Covenant they may perswade him to break it now this is praise-worthy for a man with Levi to say to his Father and Mother I have not seen him not to know his own Brethren nor his own Children Deut. 33.9 A man had need have his heart strengthned by all manner of Covenant ingagements or else he will do as the children of Israel did about putting away their servants Jer. 34.9 go back again and behave himself falsly and unsteadily therein 6. When a man doth receive the Sacraments any of the seals of the Covenant it is his duty to renew the Covenant as often as we set to the seal anew we should read over the obligation anew Gen. 15.18 The Lord made a Covenant with Abraham but yet Gen. 17.1 2 c. the Lord renews the Covenant and the occasion of it was v. 10. because the Lord did then institute the Sacrament of Circumcision the seal of the righteousness of faith Rom. 4. when the Lord institutes the seal he renews his Covenant and so should we as often as we set to the seal Psal 50.5 So Psal 50.5 Gather my Saints together to me that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice there is a double sense given of it some say it is a description of the people of Israel whom the Lord owned to be his people because in Covenant with him by sacrifice Exod. 24. Calvin Sigilla Syngraphae sc adminicula ad saciendum Dei foedus others think it to be spoken by way of opposition to them that did rest only in the outward rites the Sacrifices that they did offer and did never look upon them as signs and seals or administring helps to the establishment of Gods Covenant they did only use the sacrifices unto the end for which the Lord appointed or did look upon them as a renewing of their Covenant with God and their ingagement unto him for their obedience And so it should be in every ordinance of God these acts of obedience should lead us unto the Covenant which is the ground of our obligation unto the same obedience this is true of Baptism also 1 Pet. 3.21 1 Pet. 3.21 which I conceive to be an allusion unto John's Baptism wherein the people first confessed their sins and renounced them and afterwards inquired into the work that they were to do in promising and ingaging themselves unto obedience and so there was a restipulation on their part unto God again And so it is true of the Lords Supper it is the New-Covenant or Testament in his blood Now the fruit and benefits that the people of God have found by the renewing of their Covenant are many 1. It hath been a testimony to them of the truth of their repentance Math. 3.8 John calls for fruits meet for repentance and what is a right fruit of repentance but to abhor the former evils we have been guilty of and say Ashur shall not save us c. and to engage to perform the contrary duty for it is not testimony enough of the truth of a mans repentance that he doth abstain from the acts of former sins unless also he has a testimony unto his own soul that he doth endeavour to grow in the contrary graces 2. It is the foundation of consolation 2 Chron. 15.14 15. in the time of Asa the King of Judah they swore with a loud voice with Trumpets and Cornets and all Judah rejoyced at the oath for they had sworn with all their hearts A day of renewing Covenant with the Lord will be a day of great rejoycing and great consolation unto the ssoul for it 's like unto a new Wedding-day the Covenant with God being a Matrimonial Covenant and it brings the soul from its wandrings unto God again and the soul says I will return to my former Husband for it was better with me then than now 3. It is a means to establish and stay the heart which is in it self exceeding fickle and uncertain it 's unstable as water Josh 24.31 they bound themselves by Covenant to serve the Lord and they did it all the days of Joshua and the Elders that had out-lived him that had seen the great mercies of God unto them and their bonds and ingagements to God So Josiah made them all stand to the Covenant and all his days they departed not from following the Lord the God of their Fathers for Jer. 13.11 2 Chron. 34.33 As a girdle cleaves to the loyns of a man so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel that they might be to me for a name and a praise and a glory there is a principle of fixing and establishing in the Covenant that a man is thereby bound to cleave to God with full purpose of heart there is no going back therefore it is called the bond of the Covenant 4. It 's a special means joyned with fasting and prayer to prevail with God for mercy when a man is willing as well to ingage himself to duty as he is to expect mercy from the Lord they sought the Lord with their whole desire and he was found of them 2 Chron. 15. and the Lord gave them rest round about and there is no more effectual way to obtain any blessing or mercy from God than a renewing of Covenant and ingagement of obedience to God And the reason hereof is this because the more the will renews its Covenant with God the more subordinated it is to the Will of God now God doth in a manner to speak â—ith reverence submit the liberality of his mercies to a will subordinated to his will Again the more we renew our Covenant with God the more harmonie there is between our will and the will of God and O! what peace ariseth hence what contentment in â—very condition According to the tenure of the New Covenant a solid full will is acceptâ—â— by God for the effect and therefore the more the will renews its consent to the Coveâ—â—nt the more it is accepted by God 5. It doth not only establish the heart but make it better as the will becomes good â—t first by willing what is good so it is then best when it most strongly wills what is best â—ow when doth the will more strongly will what is best than when it doth most firmly reâ—ew its Covenant with God its best good So many grains as there are of a deterâ—ined will in adhering to God according to the terms of the
might cause his power to be acknowledged 2. God hath made over his attributes to his people that they may take from them all grounds of faith with an assurance that they shall be all exercised for them according unto their necessities Psal 13.5 so the Mercy of God I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoyce in thy salvation Here is mercy the object of faith and an assurance that this attribute shall shew forth it self in a work of salvation and deliverance for him I have trusted in the mercy of God for the bringing me out of this and another affliction and I have been delivered Psal 52.8 therefore I will always exalt the mercy of God So for the Power of God the soul can argue from thence Dan. 3. when men threaten and Devils rage and the fiery furnace may be heated seven times hotter to consume the soul that has no help amongst creatures yet says Daniel and the three Children the God whom we serve is able to deliver us And the Lord encourages the soul from the assurance of his power Is my arm shortned that I cannot save is any thing too hard for the Lord is there any restraint to omnipotence And so also Christ puts them upon it in this With man it 's impossible but with God all things are possible it 's spoken in reference to a work of Sanctification when the Disciples said Who then can be saved Esay 26.4 Esay 27.5 So for the Eternity of God Trust in the Lord for ever for the Lord Jehovah is a Rock of Ages and so men are said to take hold of the strength of God And so of the Holiness of God I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lye unto David and therefore Psal 23.6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life And so Abraham believed God was able to raise him up again from the dead if it might stand with his glory he did not question his will but that his power should be put forth for the accomplishment of his promise We know that the ultimate object of faith is God through Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.21 our faith and hope is in God now the highest object of faith in God is the attributes of God that he has discovered for we can believe in him no otherwise than we know him and as he has revealed himself and the way of Gods revealing himself unto his people in this life is only by his back parts which are his attributes and therefore this is the way of the acting of faith in this life and all the promises of God and the precepts and the threatnings of God are all of them founded on his attributes and in these doth the strength and stability of them lye because the Lord Jehovah is a rock of ages As it is in ends all intermediate ends work in the strength and the power of the utmost end so it is in objects also Objectum mediatum fidei movet in virtute objecti ultimati ab eo perfectionem accipit The mediate object of faith moves in the virtue of the ultimate object and receives perfection from it Eph. 4.18.23.24 3. That from these the soul may receive all principles of grace grace is called the Life of God and the Divine Nature the Image of God created in the soul it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according unto God Now in an image there are two things required 1 Proportion or similitude and resemblance 2 There is a deduction or a derivation it must be taken from it As there is a resemblance of the nature of God so there is a derivation of it from God Now though the incommunicable attributes of God are so called because there are in the creatures no footsteps or resemblances yet there are of the attributes that are communicable from them the image of God is derived unto us and we are made partakers of his holiness holy as he is holy Heb. 12.10 Jam. 1.5 and merciful as he is merciful and wise as he is wise If any man want wisdom let him ask it of God as all of them shall be employed for man without him so all of them shall work in man an image or a resemblance of himself within him that a man beholding the glory of the Lord is transformed thereby into the same image And this is to be made the rule to judge the measure of our graces by for primum est mensura reliquorum c. The first is the measure of the rest in that kind So far as they do come short of bearing a resemblance with the communicable attributes of God I say of bearing a resemblance for they are in God by nature but in us by grace and by new creation they are nature in him they are not so in us so far we are to bewail the defects of our graces and so far grace is the image of God in us but in part a good work begun and no more and it is a discovery of his attributes which are the original pattern that doth perfect his image in us which is but the counterpane and therefore we shall be perfectly like him when we shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3.3 4. God hath in Covenant made over his Attributes that from these the soul may take all rules of duty and as the highest objects of faith are in God so from him are the highest rules of duty and therefore Eph. 5.1 the exhortation is Be ye imitators of God 1 Pet. 1.15 and be you holy in all manner of conversation because he is holy and so from the Soveraignty of God it 's the ordinary argument thou shalt do thus and thus for I am Jehovah thy God And David takes his rule from this in the preparation he made for the Temple the house must be exceeding magnificent and therefore all his preparation though the wealth of a Kingdom was but an act of his poverty for it is for the Lord who is a great God and dwells not in Temples made with hands c. And it 's the argument that he himself useth as the rule unto them in their performances Mal. 1.13 I am a great King and my name is dreadful amongst the Heathen As the soul is never rightly bottomed upon a promise till it is carried out into that attribute upon which the promise doth depend so the soul is never grounded in duty till it looks beyond the precept and sees the attributes in God which are the foundation of the duty and this is properly to walk worthy of God Col. 1.10 That ye may walk worthy c. It doth not note exactam proportionem Daven sed quandam decentiam convenientiam not an exact proportion but a certain decence and convenience when a mans duties are done by rules taken from so great a God and proportionable unto the nature holiness and excellency of that God God is a Spirit
yet amongst the Israelites not a Dog did move his tongue Signum est magni silentii dum canes silent A great love may be seen in an ordinary Providence to a man as Grapes to be had in a wilderness as a Messenger sent one of a thousand a word spoken in due season a Scripture opened to me when I had need it was directed to me in my necessity such a comfort administred at such a time when I was in extremity and it came in the season of it it is an argument of great love as when David was besieged and Saul thought that he had them sure now a report must be brought that the Philistins had invaded the Land and so change his Counsels and divert the forces from pursuing David 6. Small and ordinary things shall be for their preservation Exod. 23.25 He shall bless thy bread and thy water and will take sickness away from the midst of thee that whereas other mens food breeds and nourishes diseases his food shall be blest unto him that it shall be healthful and not hurtful and when Sennacherib is come to besiege Jerusalem after all his ranting and threatning he shall hear a rumour a report shall be brought him that the King of Ethiopia had invaded his Land and so change his purpose and it shall be for the preservation of the people of God 7. Ordinary things shall tend unto the destruction of the enemies and they shall fall by the turning of an ordinary providence the smallest things shall even ruine persons and nations as Pharaoh and all Egypt were even destroyed by flies and lice c. the Sun shines upon the water and they shall say that it is blood The Kings have destroyed one another 2 King 3.22 23. Sometimes by the turning of the wind great things have been done for the people of God great battels have been won both by Land and Sea and sometimes by rain strange things have been wrought for the defeating of the counsels of enemies Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an East-wind c. And we know what small providences have cast the balance for the people of God against the enemies and that in many doubtful cases when they had nothing but providence to work for them 8. Consider how by small and ordinary things the Lord doth preserve the lives and support his people in the world by causing the Sun to shine and the rain to fall the earth to bring forth the fig-tree to blossom and we see he gives them food out of the earth and the beasts do them service and they do it willingly and readily Now what a miserable life were the life even of a Saint here if it were not for such common and ordinary refreshments if the Lord should as a Lion watch over us as he doth threaten them he would be as a Lion and a Leopard in the way to observe them There is a providence that hath given these unto the sons of God as their inheritance so that they do injoy the comfort of them and eat the fruit of them day by day the service of thy hand maid and of thy beast all act for thee as being made by God to be thy servants It is true that the service of the Angels is comfortable but it would not be sufficient without these which are ours in a way of ordinary providence Cogita te esse in regione deserti in peregrinatione vitae Aug. and such as we account less though we taste the good of them from day to day Surely therefore all things even the smallest things shall work together for good to them that love the Lord for the good of their spiritual and temporal state also SECT IV. The Saints Interest in Gods Providential Kingdom both mediate and immediate necessary and contingent § 1. WE have gone thorow the first distinction of the providential Kingdom we come now to the second which is that Providence is either immediate or mediate The one is when the Lord works without means putting forth his own power immediately to the producing of any effect without the concurrence of any means or help of second causes and this is called making bare his arm or making it naked Esa 52.10 So long as the Lord doth work by means though there be his hand yet his hand is hid and covered under the appearance of creatures so that our eyes are either wholly or mainly upon them but when the Lord lays creatures aside and his own arm doth appear to bring salvation so that nothing else is seen but the hand of God in it without the concurrence of creatures the Lord is then said to make bare his own arm that is to shew forth his own power Hab. 3.9 purely and nakedly so Hab. 3.9 His bow was quite made naked c. he speaks it of the discoveries of Gods power in an immediate way and his bow is vis tua robur tuum Drus he speaks it of the dividing of the red Sea and the turning back of Jordan in its own chanel the power of God did immediately appear without any concurrence of means and any instrument or second causes and therefore his bow was naked c. the Scripture doth speak of the Lords smiting with the rod and with his fist c. And here there are three Propositions that I must lay down 1. That whatever the Lord does by means he can work immediately by his own hand without all means he that did give being unto the second causes can without those causes produce their effects he is independent in his working as well as in his being and doth not depend upon means and second causes in any thing that he doth and therefore if he do deprive his people of the means and will supply it in himself it shall be infinitely better they shall have a hundredfold more in this life eminenter the Sun shall be no more thy light by day but the glory of the Lord shall be the light thereof if he deprive them of the light of the Sun yet he gives them his own glory to be instead thereof and it shall abundantly answer it He hath indeed bound us in duty to use the means but he hath not bound himself he is still at liberty either to work by his own immediate hand or in the way that he hath set in the order and subordination of causes yea as much as if no such order had been made by him and therefore the time will come when God shall be all in all and this order of causes shall surely cease and then all effects shall be produced by God immediately and that in a far more glorious manner than now they are by the influences of their causes amongst the creatures 2. In the means which he doth use there is an immediate concurrence of his own power to the producing of the effect concurrit immediatè c. and without this the second cause could do nothing men