consideration 1 as a surety 2 as an Advocate or a common person And in these two I conceive Christ as our representative is set forth 1 as a surety that did undertake to do a thing for another and doth by his own consent bind himself thereunto and when he hath done it for the party then he is discharged of his bond and the party also for whom he was bound unto the performance And in this sence Christ was made sin for us and laid down an answerable price for us 2 as a common person as one who personates another and acts his part by the allowance and authority of Law so that what he doth is by the Law reckoned to be done by the person whom he represents and a possession taken by him stands good in Law as if it had been taken by the other And this the Lord hath made Christ unto us that according unto all sorts of Laws among men our redemption and salvation by him might be to declare his righteousness Rom. 3.25 that by all sorts of legal considerations amongst men it might hold good in a way of Justice And unto these two great ends as a double representative of all men as the second Adam Christ was elected and we in him as in a common head Now though man as a creature subjected unto the sovereignty of God comes under an act of his will yet the Lord Christ being the Son and thought it no robbery to be equal with God did not and therefore as he did not suffer without his own consent for a sacrifice it could not be unless voluntary the person having a power over himself and his own actions and therefore the Lord did not by his authority impose it upon him whether he would or no so his being chosen to it was by his consent that as he did chuse you together with the Father and had an equal hand in your election I know whom I have chosen and as you were from eternity given unto Christ by his Father in your election Rev. 13.8 thine they were and thou gavest them to me so did Christ also consent unto his own election and it was not meerly by the appointment of the Father as an act of his will and sovereignty as the election of man was but the Father did appoint him and Christ did consent unto that appointment and determination of the Father before the World began and therefore as he became a surety by his own will so he was by his own will appointed a surety and a common person for all the elect of God And herein we see the great ground of the Covenant between God and Christ before the World was God did not chuse Christ as a person that was to be chosen as he did chuse you but The word was with God God was the word John 1.2 and there were transactions and consultations between God and Christ before the world was and upon the Fathers motion and the Sons consent he was chosen unto this great service and you in him so that the Covenant between the Father and the Son doth reach as high as to be the great ground of the election of Christ unto this great service and office that he hath undertaken For God did not impose it upon him as an act of his dominion but barely by his own consent and as he did not call him unto the execution without his own consent so his own consent did concur unto his election for election is an act of the will of God and of his soveraignty and as he was the Son he could not come under an act of his will but by his own consent Vse 2 2. We may hence see how deep the plot of our Redemption and Salvation by Christ was laid it was not a thing occasionally taken up and barely to serve a turne but it was a plotted thing I confess the Scriptures do hold forth the Incarnation of Christ to be the ground of his redeeming men that were sinners He came to seek and to save that which was lost and when we were weak God commended his love to us in this that he dyed for the ungodly c. But the foundation of this was laid in a deep counsel between the Father and his Son at the Council-Table in Heaven before the World was and the Covenant of mans Redemption was made with our surety before the Covenant of your Creation was made with you And so much those two words Prov. 8.22 23. the Lord possessed me and the Lord anointed me do necessarily import and that word also Mic. 5.2 His goings forth as from the days of eternity Which as Calvin expounds it refer unto the Mediator as being head of the Church and not unto his eternal generation as is commonly expounded and this is the ground of Christs delight with the sons of men before the World was Prov. 8.31 as those whose names he had covenanted to bear and whose persons he had ingaged himself to represent before the Father And this shews how the design of God from everlasting hath been to save sinners and to glorifie himself in a way of mercy and grace through a Mediator And it is the consideration hereof that is the greatest ingagement in the World to sinners to come in and return to him because God is in Christ reconciling the world c. 2 Cor. 5.19 For he did undertake to represent your persons as your surety and representative before the world was 1 This Covenant made with Christ could not indeed actually take place as unto us till man was fallen because it was in the hand of a Mediator and required satisfaction by way of a sacrifice but yet though it be last in execution it was first in intention and the Covenant of Works made in your creation is only called the first Covenant in reference unto the relation and discovery of it unto us but it was the Covenant of Grace in Christ that was the first Covenant in it self and first past between the Father and the Son from everlasting and this shews how exceedingly the heart of God was ingaged in it before you were before you had need of a Surety for the Lord to appoint one and enter into a Covenant with him to perform this work for God to create the World first and bring men into it and for the Lord to take notice of mans necessity of a help meet for him before man did observe any such want of himself this was an argument of great love and care of God towards man but to provide not only a meet help but a meet Mediator and to take care to provide for your salvation and his own glory therein before he did proceed to your creation this shews how strangely his heart was set upon this great design of glorifying himself in the World in a way of Grace in your Salvation 2 If he had only taken up this purpose in himself it had set forth much love
be like him for we shall see him as he is answerable to our vision of him such will be our conformity to him Mercies unto wicked men are suitable to their services they give to God unsanctified services and God does give them unsanctified rewards and their services are seemingly services but really sins so are the mercies that God gives them seeming blessings but really curses they are indeed blessings in the thing but as they draw out their corruptions so they are curses unto the men So Iratus dat amanti quod malè amat as Austin saies God gives it in wrath as he did to them Quails c. and though they were fed to the full yet he sends â—anness into their souls he gave them their hearts desire in wrath 5 By this Covenant you do ingage your selves that whatever God bestows in mercy you will return again in duty that you may injoy nothing apart from God but as the Lord saith of his people in Covenant they are his portion so you also say of God he is your God and as all that is in him is made over unto you so you will be his people and all that is in you shall be made over unto him and should be laid out or laid down for him and you shall resign to him whatever he shall call for and this is for a man to hate Father and Mother and his own life and acknowledge as David did of thine own have we given thee God gave it unto them and they do return it willingly unto God again that which is a Samuel asked of God shall be also lent unto the Lord and the soul never desires or expects good from any mercy from which God hath no glory for a man is a servant to God and it is all the Master 's that the servant hath of gains as the Law saith Cant. 8.11 Servi sunt res Domini quicquid acquirunt acquirunt domino c. Solomon had a Vineyard and he let it out to keepers and he expected the fruits thereof even a thousand pieces of Silver and of the Husbandmen to whom the Vineyard was committed the Lord expected fruits c. a soul is never so well pleased as when it brings forth fruit for God and lays out his strength to the uttermost that he may bring in a revenue of glory to the Lord his God 6 When all the duties of the Covenant are performed by us in the fittest time and in the highest and the best manner 1 In the fittest time as the Lord takes the fittest time to show us mercy so should we also take the fittest time to perform our duty to him and it 's a great matter to know the season there is an accepted time there is a day of salvation 2 And also we must perform it in the highest manner as David said It is for the Lord and therefore the house must be magnificent this have I done out of my poverty though he offered the wealth of a kingdom And the Lord says to Israel Wouldest thou offer this to thy prince I am a great king God expects we should perform all our duties with that reverence and exactness as we do when we offer any gift or present to a Ruler over us 2. We are to improve the Covenant in reference unto God for the obtaining all the mercies of the Covenant because therein the Lord hath in faithfulness ingaged himself Debita reddit nulli debens c. God pays debts and yet is debtor to none but to his own faithfulness So do they Isa 63.18 19. The Lord was departed and had sold them into the hand of strangers and they possessed their Land they pray Return for thy servants sake the tribes of thy inheritance the people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while we are thine thou never barest rule over them and thy name was never called upon them they were never a people whom thou tookest into Covenant as thou hast done unto us And so Isa 63.9 Be not wroth very sore nor remember our iniquity for ever behold I beseech thee we are all thy people Jer. 14.8 9. O thou the hope of Israel the saviour thereof in the time of trouble why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land why shouldest thou be as a man astonished as a mighty man that cannot save if thou O Lord art in the midst of us and we are called by thy name Thy name is called upon us we are thy people in Covenant The Lords portion the lot of his inheritance for God is always mindful of his Covenant and in pursuance thereof he doth whatever he doth in the world if he give Christ it is with respect to the Covenant he hath raised up an horn of salvation Luk. 1.72 that is a strong and powerful Saviour for he has laid help upon one that is mighty And all is that he might perform his Covenant unto our fathers and to remember his holy Covenant Christ and all the mercies by him which are given to us are a fruit of the Covenant that was made with Christ before the world was Lev. 26.41 42. if their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they accept the punishment of their iniquity then will I remember my Covenant with Jacob and with Isaac and with Abraham and I will remember the land Now How should a man improve his Covenant in reference unto God 1. Consider rightly the latitude of Covenant mercies and the greatness of them for it is in this Covenant that all your salvation lies that your hearts may be carried out answerable to the vastness of the loving-kindness of God and that no mercy of the Covenant may be left unconsidered and untasted of but that you may have a taste that the Lord is gracious in every one of them and that a man may see that it is the weakness of his heart and the lowness of his spirit that he doth not press towards them all for the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.9 He labours whether present or absent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are ambitious c. habet sapientia sui generis superbiam and therefore a godly man is not willing to leave out any thing either of the graces or the priviledges of the Covenant for they are Covenant mercies that are the precious mercies of your lives the flower of all the mercies of a mans life it is therefore said to be a Covenant stablished upon better promises the first Covenant did promise life for ever in Heaven as it did threaten death for ever in Hell but yet there are better promises as he said Est aliud in Christo formosius salvatore There is something in Christ more beautiful than a Saviour so there is something in the Covenant that is better than Heaven 1 The Lord hath made over himself to us in this Covenant He is not ashamed to be called our God to be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee
them to have the Remainders of sin in them in this life and they shall never be freed from it till their dissolution We shall easily see that he as the Lord of all has ordered this by his Sovereignty and Supremacy for the good of his people and that it was for their sakes 1 That hereby he may exalt the Grace of Justification unto the Saints for God to pardon sins past it were rich mercy infinite mercy but for the Lord to leave sin remaining in a man and while he is conflicting with it and fears he shall be overcome with it every moment sees himself still to remain a sinner and yet the grace of Justification still to hold out that as there is in me a Fountain of sin so God is the Father of mercies and he doth not only pardon at first but when I sin and endeavour to make a breach upon my Justification again he shews mercy still and doth multiply to pardon Isa 55.7 this exalts the Righteousness of Christ imputed in justification for tolle morbos tolle vulnera nulla erit medicinae causa Dam. Therefore a man doth daily wash his feet and sees the Sun of Righteousness to rise upon him daily that he may be justifi'd not only from the Acts of sin but also from the remainders and Reliques of sin that are in him Joh. 13.10 And this also doth exalt the grace of God the Father justifying When the Apostle had had more than ordinary experience of the remainders of corruption in him and was much afflicted looking upon himself as a miserable man by reason thereof and judging himself worthy to be destroy'd for it and might by reason thereof have expected the sentence of death every moment now he looks upon the grace of the Gospel as justifying and he finds a new sweetness in it there is now no condemnation unto them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 Not only the sins committed before Conversion but the sins remaining after do justly make the soul liable to condemnation but such is the grace that justifies us that there is no condemnation unto them that are in Christ Jesus 2 That there may be a continual Conflict kept up in us our life is a Warfare and therefore Job 14.14 it is said all the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the days militiae meae of my warfare this is not against enemies without against spiritual wickednesses in high places only but against enemies within in a special manner the Flesh lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and by this means the war is maintain'd The Lord will have the time of this life to be tempus militiae a time of warfare and the other life laetitiae of triumph as Bernard speaks this laboris of labour that mercedis of reward and there is no conflict in the world like unto this to have two contraries in the same place each of them striving to destroy one another and yet neither of them compleatly and totally prevailing for they are contrary Gal. 5.17 and there is a greater opposition against sin than there is against the Devils themselves or any enemies without there are the sorest battels fought between flesh and spirit in the same soul and with greater displeasure and indignation against them than Saints against the Devil himself for this is the greatest evil to them because it is in them and because the Lord will have a conflict that so the graces of his People may be both exercised and also tryed and improved the power of Grace and the truth of it would never have been so gloriously seen if there had not been such a principle of corruption drawing it forth daily 3 That he may keep his people humble there is no one thing that the Lord takes more care of than that the Saints should not be lifted up it is the end of Affliction to hide pride from their hearts and of temptations and desertions in the flesh that they might not be lifted up in themselves and exalted above measure Now it 's true it 's matter enough to humble one if duely considered to call to mind what he has been as it did Paul I was a persecutor and a blasphemer and injurious 1 Tim. 1.13 As some of the Heathens having risen to be Kings from small beginnings would keep something still to put them in mind of their Original as one being a Potters son would be served only in Earthen Vessels all his life-time The remembrance of what is past might humble a man to say Such were some of you such were ye but it is much more effectual to humble a man to consider that very iniquity is not fully purged unto this day but there are still some remainders of it upon me there is still a law in my members that rebells against the law of my mind that when I would do good evil is present with me and this makes me to look upon my self as a wretched and a miserable man and makes me to loath and abhor my self the same sore is running upon me still I am sensible I have the leprosie and therefore I can take no pleasure in my self the Devil comes and hath something in me there is a Principle that is prone to close with any temptation there is a sea of corruption that doth but wait for a wind nay if the Devil should never disquiet it yet it is a Fountain that will cast mire out of it self c. 4 That the Saints may be exercised in Prayer and Repentance daily Now it is that which the Lord requires of them every day Pray without ceasing and a man is Nulli rei nisi poenitentiae natus c. Now that there may be something that we may ask of him daily to give us that is a further degree of Grace a greater measure of purging and that we may apply the Righteousness of Christ for to mortifie sin in us as well as to satisfie God for sin and that there may be always something that we may confess and bewail before God and repent of and mourn for this sin is still left in us And look what benefits the people of God do receive from these constant and daily exercises all these do flow from the Sovereignty of God towards them in leaving of the remainders of sin in them and by this means we come to have a part in that great honour which belongs to Christ and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking away of sin It 's true Christ only doth it by way of satisfaction and he is the only original of our sanctification but yet we do it as having our spirits also acted by the Spirit of Christ and so our wills and desires joyning and concurring with him in that work therefore we are said to mortifie the deeds of the body and to crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts to purge
do all the Issues of grace in this Covenant flow but from Gods tender bowels of mercy Was it not by meer grace that this Covenant of Grace fell from God Yea is not Christ himself as Mediator of this Covenant an admirable instance and effect of Gods free Election and Grace It 's true Christ as God falls not under an act of the divine Will because then he were not God but yet as Mediator he doth Was not his first Designation to office an act of soveraign grace Did he not also become Incarnate by an act of free Grace Is not the Hypostatic Union thence termed the Grace of Vnion Do we not also find mention of the Grace of Vnction whereby the Father qualified him for his Mediatory Office Is not the Oyl of Gladness wherewith he was anointed above his fellows an Oyl of Grace also or an infinite effusion of the Spirit of Grace on his humane Nâ—â—â—re Were not likewise all the Merits of Christ the effect of free Grace Whence hâ—â—â—â—â— his assistances for the doing and suffering his Fathers will but from his Father as Isâ— 42.4 And when Christ had obeyed and suffered to the full was not God the Fathers Acceptance of all an act of free Grace It 's true Christ paid a valuable price for all the mercies he purchased for sinners but yet whence comes it that all this should be made over to us what made way for the commutation of persons that the Righteousness of Christ should become ours and our sins by Imputation become his was not this all from free Grace Has not Augustin in his incomparable Tractate Of the Predestination of Saints excellently well demonstrated this that Christ the Mediator of the New Covenant fell under the free Election of God Now if the Election of the Head and Prince of the Covenant who is God Man was an act of free Grace then will it not necessarily follow that all the Federates Conditions and Effects of this Covenant can flow from no other fountain than the sovereign Grace of God 2 Another Difference between the first and second Covenant may be taken from the generic Idea of both what was the first Covenant but a Covenant of Friendship between the Creator and the Creature where neither part was at variance but what is this second Covenant but a Covenant of Reconciliation between a sin-revenging God and rebellious sinners 3 Do not also these two Covenants greatly differ in their Terms and Conditions What is there to be found in the first Covenant but conditional Promises to Grace but are there not in this second Covenant absolute Promises of Grace Was not the Righteousness of the first Covenant to be in our selves without the least imputation from any other but is not the Righteousness of this second Covenant to be found in Christ only and so made ours by Imputation Did not the first Covenant require perfect Obedience as a Condition antecedent to the acceptation of the person But doth not this second Covenant accept an imperfect evangelic Sincerity as a consequent of the persons being accepted In the Covenant made with Adam was not the Acceptation of his person grounded on the Acceptation of his works but in this second Covenant is not the person first accepted and then the works for the persons sake Is not this fully exemplified in the different acceptation of Cain and Abel Gen. 4.4 c. the former standing on the first Covenant and the latter on the second 4 To pass by other Differences as to the object foundation and duration are not these two Covenants greatly different as to their effects The first Covenant discovers what we are to do but the second enables us to do it the first is a glass to discover our sin and misery but the second is a glass that discovers the remedy as also applyes the same Of what use is the first but to declare men guilty and cursed but doth not the second pronounce pardon and blessing Was not the first given and continued to discover sin but is not the second given to cover it Doth not the first wound and terrifie but doth not the second heal exhilarate and chear Is not the first the Ministration of death and a killing letter but is not the second the Ministration of the Spirit and that which makes alive 2 Cor. 3.6 7 Why was the first given but to check restrain and humble the old man but is it not the principal Intendment of the second to conserve and quicken the New man Doth not the first accuse and condemn but doth not the second excuse and absolve In the first Man is bound to God but in the second God is bound to man the first generates bondage but the second Liberty And is there not a spirit of bondage suitable to that state in all such as are under the first Covenant but O! what a spirit of Liberty belongs to all such as are under the second Covenant and what different effects attend these different spirits Doth not the first Covenant make a legal spirit upon any great discovery of God to flie from him as an enemy but how doth the second Covenant cause an evangelic spirit under all the great discoveries of God to flie unto him Yea doth not the legal servile spirit who longs to be under the first Covenant secretly wish there were no law to rebuke him no hand of Justice to punish him but doth not the Evangelic spirit who hath by means of the second Covenant the Law writ in his heart delight therein as a Rule though he hates to be under it as a Covenant How sour and disgustful are all divine services to a legal spirit but how sweet and pleasant are they to an evangelic spirit Legal spirits give God much service for Quantity but how little for Quality and Spirituality But the Evangelic spirit gives peradventure not so much for Quantity but yet much more for Quality and Perfection Lastly the legal spirit makes all his good Offices matter of vain-glory and fuel for his pride but the Evangelic spirit sees cause to be humbled and self-abased for his best services Such are the different spirits effects and fruits that grow out of those two opposite roots the Old and the New Covenant which greatly demonstrate the boundless differences between the two Covenants 2. 2. The excellence of the second covenant Hence we may take just measures both comparative and absolute of the incomparable excellences of the second Covenant The first Covenant informs us what we are by Nature but the second what we are or may be by Grace The Law was given that men might more studiously seek after Grace Lex data est ut Gratia quaereretur Gratia data est ut Lex impleretur August but Grace is given that men might be enabled to fulfill the Law And what is the supreme ingredient of the Covenant of Grace but the free Grace of God Is not this Covenant then the Believers Great
That they may stand in aw of the threats of God under the second covenant Pag. 164 The difference between the covenant made with Christ and with us lies in these things 1 It was made with Christ primarily as a publick person for the Elect but it is made with every one of us in the second place as we are members of Christ 2 It is made with Christ immediately and for his own sake but with us mediately in him 3 The promise made unto Christ was from everlasting but the covenant is made with us when we believe 4 All the promises of the second covenant belong unto Christ as his purchase and unto us of promise 5 Christ as to his covenant hath no surety but we have a surety of ours ibid. It is the duty of every one to enter into this covenant with the Lord. 1 If they come not under this covenant they have no interest in God 2 It is only in this covenant that all the persons have undertaken peculiar offices for the good of men 3 Otherwise God regards them not nor any thing they do 4 This is a matrimonial covenant and it is a covenant of friendship 5 God and the soul know not how to live asunder 6 This covenant is the last that God ever intends to make with mankind Pag. 165 That we enter into covenant with God it is required 1 That we hear the words of the covenant and know aright the terms of it 2 That we deny our selves 3 Bear his yoke 4 Not shrink at the cross but take it up Pag. 168 God requires of all those that enter into covenant with him that they should make conscience to keep it Pag. 171 Saints have many promises of the second covenant not accomplished to them in this life because they walk not exactly according to the rules of this covenant Pag. 172 A man once in covenant is ever in covenant 1 Because the love of God that made the covenant is everlasting 2 Because it is made with the persons of men 3 Because union with Christ puts them into this covenant and that is indissoluble 4 Because the righteousness of this covenant is everlasting 5 Because Christ is the surety of it 6 Because the everlasting principle of grace in the soul doth always lay hold of and cleave unto the covenant Pag. 173 Saints are yet to be exhorted not to break the covenant 1 Because of the falseness of their hearts 2 Because of the slothfulness and heedlesness of their spirits in whatever is good though bound by many bonds 3 Because thereby they may be quickned to seek to God for grace to keep it 4 Fear those sins which come nearest covenant-breaking Pag. 174 That Saints may keep covenant they must 1 Get a true heart 2 A stablished and fixed heart 3 Exercise faith upon the grace of God in this covenant Pag. 175 Saints being entred into covenant ought to improve their interest in it in all their ways 1 In reference to themselves 2 In reference to God Pag. 177 A fourfold relation is the necessary result of this covenant hereby Christ becomes 1 our Father 2 our Husband 3 our Friend 4 our Lord. ibid. Saints hearts should be always in such a frame as to receive the mercies of the covenant which consist 1 In a believing heart relying upon the grace of the covenant notwithstanding seeming impossibilities 2 In a continual expectation of the promise And yet 3 A resigning it unto the will of God whether he will bestow it in this life or no. 4 In desiring mercy no further than it may make them holy Pag. 179 Saints in this covenant ingage themselves that whatever God bestows in mercy they will return again in duty Pag. 180 Saints having given up their names to God in this covenant they ought often to renew it 1 Because of the unbelief of their spirits 2 To manifest the sincerity of their hearts 3 Because of the falseness of their hearts 4 Because thereby they lay the greater engagement upon them 5 Because of the forgetfulness of their hearts 6 Because of their ignorance and blindness Pag. 184 He that renews covenant must 1 Be deeply sensible of breach of covenant 2 Resolve to break all other covenants 3 Consider the terms of the covenant anew 4 Do it with a free and full consent 5 Be willing to bind himself in the highest way to obedience thereto 6 Do it with earnest desire to God for grace to keep it Pag. 186 The times and seasons of renewing are 1 After an eminent falling into great sin 2 In time of publick humiliation 3 Of publick reformation 4 After special deliverance or mercy as a testimony of thankfulness 5 When the heart is bent to back-slide 6 At the Lords Supper Pag. 188 The benefits of this renewing covenant are 1 It is a testimony of the truth of repentance 2 It 's the foundation of consolation 3 It 's a means to establish the heart 4 It brings mercies 5 It improves graces 6 It fortifies against temptations 7 It strengthens union with Christ 8 It is a door to communion with God 9 It keeps from or recovers out of back-sliding 10 It is the spring of duty and action Pag. 190 CHAP. IV. The Covenant of Grace is referring to the Seed of the Faithful Gen. 17.7 The Covenant that God made with Abraham is the same that all the Faithful stand in unto the worlds end Pag. 193 Though in the manner of its administration there is a great deal of difference yet as to the substance of the covenant the Confederates are the same and taken in upon the same grounds ibid. That the children of believing Parents are taken into the same covenant with them is a point of great concernment and ought earnestly to be contended for because 1 It exceedingly advances the grace of God unto parents and makes much for their consolation 2 It is one of the great arguments the Scripture useth to draw men in to believe 3 It is the only difference God hath put in his word between the children of believers and strangers 4 It is the only ground believers can have for the salvation of their children that die in their infancy Pag. 193 Ever since the Fall God hath taken children into the same covenant with their parents Pag. 195 When parents are cast out of covenant the children are also Pag. 196 Children of believing parents are members of the visible Church ibid. Thence there is a holiness comes upon those children ibid. God hath made glorious promises to the posterity of the Saints Pag. 197 That children are so taken in is Gospel and to be believed as any other part of the covenant ibid. God will take children into the same covenant with their parents 1 To shew the extent of the grace of the second covenant 2 Because a great number of the Elect are the children of Saints 3 To shew his peculiar love to their seed 4 This is the surest
of God is renewed None of us lives to himself Rom. 14.9 1 Cor. 10. ult nor dies to himself Whether we live we live to the Lord and whether we die we die to the Lord c. But nature never aims at God in any thing makes him neither the end of his being nor of his working if he labour in his Calling and get an Estate he is laying up treasures for himself and is not rich towards God and in his Religious duties if he pray he howles for Corn and Wine If he fast Have you fasted to me says the Lord and when you did eat and drink did you not eat to your selves And when they preach it 's to themselves some preach Christ out of envy and to draw disciples after them Some self-end or other is the great wheel in all they do that acts them and carries them on and if they do reform with Jehu it 's upon a politick principle and not a pious not for God but for themselves and so dum obtemperant non obsequuntur whiles they obey they obey not and in all the duties of Religion Self is at the bottom Hos 10.11 They are as a heifer that loves to tread out the corn And if like the Pharisee they fast or give almes it is to be seen of men God is not in all their thoughts nor his glory in all their aim and they are said to serve other things as Mammon and serve divers lusts and pleasures Now what is service but to do anothers work and to do it to their ends to be wholly theirs therefore Christ is said to be God the Fathers servant because he did the work that God gave him to do and he aimed at Gods ends also he did not seek his own glory but the glory of him that sent him and Grace is in this respect in a special manner call'd self-denial Mat. 16.24 Let a man deny himself and Self in ends is hardest denied of any other This is great Babel that I have built for the honour of my Majesty And thus the soul is taken off from God it has no happiness in him as the chief Good they live not to him they act not for him as their utmost end he is neither the end of their being nor of their working 2. The Soul has lost his interest in God There were glorious relations between God and man by Covenant so that as God had an interest in man so had man also an interest in God Luk. 3. ult Adam was the son of God and had that interest in God that became that relation as a child has an interest in a father and he could truly call him his God and this is the glory of the second Covenant that our interest in God is restored and increased I will be their God and they shall be my people Jer. 31.33 And he that has an interest in another may claim him according to his relation as truly as if all were in his own power as the Wife has an interest in the Husband and she may expect that love care and protection and provision that that relation does intitle her to as truly as if it were in her own power and the Husband may expect from his Wife that love service and help that the relation calls for And it 's true of all other relations whatsoever when persons have a relation and an interest one in another and though the persons be of the highest rank as between a King and a Subject a Master and a Servant a Father and a Son yet the relation gives them a mutual interest one in another and so man had in God at the first he was his God and the Saints now call him in Christ the God of my mercy and the God of my life and so man had an interest in the Wisdom of God and in the Holiness of God and the Soveraignty of God over all the Creatures so far as might be for mans good as truly as for his own glory for that 's the nature of propriety Eph. 6.10 Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might I have no power may such a soul say but I am strong in the strength of God and wise by the wisdom of God all that is in God I have a claim to I have nothing of my own but all the Creatures of God are as mine and therefore as having nothing and yet possessing all things having nothing in my self and yet possessing all things in God as Rev. 21.6 He that overcomes shall inherit all things I will be his God And therefore after all Job's great losses the Fathers bring him in looking upon them all and saying I have lost nothing So long as the soul has an interest in God he can lose nothing he can want nothing But sin has broken all relations between you and God but barely that of a Creature thou art no more a Son and therefore the Jews Joh. 8. boasting that God was their father Christ tells them that there was no such relation between God and them but they descended from another stock of their father the Devil And for servants they serve not God but themselves their own bellies and therefore all this interest must be restored unto them in Christ I ascend to my father and your father my God and your God He is no way a God to us but as he is Christ's God else we have no interest in him and if we sin we can lay no claim to his Mercy to pardon or to his Wisdom to direct us or his Power to protect us or his Bounty to provide for us nay all the Attributes of God that work for the good of his people they all work against such a soul his Holiness is a terrour for he is of purer eyes than to behold evil his Wisdom is a terrour for he knows how to reserve the wicked to the day of judgment to be punished his Omniscience is against us for he will bring every work to judgment with every secret thing He does number our steps and does watch over our sins and the mercy of God thou hast no interest in thou shalt have judgment without mercy c. a man can claim nothing that is in God to be for him And though while men are at ease and enjoy the Creatures they find no want of this yet when they come to die and to be in a streight Act. 27. as Paul was when he said the Angel of the Lord stood by me whose I am and whom I serve and at the last day to look up to God and say I am thine save me Lord it will be more than for a man to have an interest and a title to all the Kingdoms of the Earth and other men that have slighted it they shall know what it is to lose their interest in God 3. The Soul has wholly lost the Image of God in which the glory of the soul did at first lie but it
confirmed and therefore called the blood of the Covenant now to despise all this is to trample under foot the greatest and the highest honour of the Son of God for a man to bear old Adam's image still shews that he prefers the Image of the first before that of the second Adam so for a man to stand under Adam's Covenant still shews that he despises the Grace of the second Covenant in comparison of the Glory of the first 4 It is a sin against the Covenant it self and all the Promises thereof this Covenant God has highly honoured with a more glorious head and the righteousness of it is a more glorious righteousness the promises of it better promises and the stability of it far beyond that of the first Covenant for it is an ordered and an everlasting Covenant a Covenant confirmed by an Oath now for a man to bring down that Covenant that God has exalted and in a mans heart and practice and ways for him to exalt the first Covenant above it is the greatest injury thereunto that can be 5 It is a sin against all the happiness and hopes of the godly for all their comfort comes in from this Covenant as they look upon all their curses to proceed from the first Covenant 2 Sam. 23.5 Though my house be not so with God says David yet God has made with me an everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure and this is all my hope Now it is a great evil that men should not be affected with that sin which is against the generation of Gods children against the hope of Israel A man should be deeply humbled and bewail this contrariety of spirit that is in him to the way of the Gospel and to the grace of the Gospel And apply the righteousness of Christ for the pardon of this sin also for as his blood was shed for them that shed it so there is grace in the second Covenant for them that have despised it and have to their utmost exalted the first Covenant above it and there is in the grace of God pardon to be found for them that reject or endeavour to frustrate the grace of it For if righteousness be by the Law Christ is dead in vain Gal. 2. ult 2. Whereever the Covenant of Grace is preached be jealous and watch over thy own heart because there is in thee a principle of contrariety unto it and the grace offered therein this hath been the manner of Gods people when they have been apprehensive of evils in them it has made them the more watchful against them Job will not trust his eyes without a Covenant nor David his tongue without a bridle because they knew how suddenly corruption would break forth and therefore the exhortation is Keep thy heart above all keepings c. God has offered the righteousness of his Son that thou mightest be made the righteousness of God in him and he has given his Son as a Covenant to the Nations that as by one man sin and death reigned so righteousness and life should reign by one Christ Jesus but thou hast a principle of pride in thee and thou dost desire to establish thy own righteousness and thou wouldest not submit to the righteousness of God he is offered but thou wilt none of him Whensoever the second Covenant is preacht take heed of this root of bitterness that it do not rise up and cause thee to reject Grace and forsake thy own mercy truly whosoever does read how quiet this lust was in the Pharisees and they went on as a river runs smoothly without a damm and they wrought for life and by their own obedience they did as with rattles still their Consciences but as soon as Christ came and preacht the righteousness and grace of the second Covenant to them how did this lust rise in them even to the rejecting the Counsel and Grace of God against themselves and even rising up unto the unpardonable sin and so the Papists before Luther found out the righteousness of Faith by an imputed righteousness they were all quiet but afterward this one man odium impetum totius orbis sustinuit And this is the Doctrine preached by the Angel that did fly in the middle of Heaven with the Everlasting Gospel Rev. 19.7 8. and declare then great Babylon begins to fall 3. Be never satisfied till thou find in thy soul the contrary grace and that is a desire of being translated that thou maist be under the first Covenant no more consider there will come a day shortly wherein God will judge the world in righteousness and he will judge every man according to the terms under which he stands Now if thou be found under the first Covenant thou art found in thy own righteousness the Law genders to bondage it works nothing but wrath it speaks nothing but curse and in this Court thou wilt surely be cast only under the second Covenant there is a Chancery a Court of mercy and grace and there is yet a City of refuge to be found before thou beest dragged to the Lords Tribunal go therefore and fly unto the Lords sanctuary go now and acknowledg thou hast stood out long against that grace that must save thee if ever thou beest saved and that thou hast despised that Covenant under which if thou stand not thou art everlastingly undone and tell the Lord thou canst as well cast off Adam's image as translate thy self out of Adam's Covenant tell the Lord who only has made the new Covenant so he only can plant souls into it for the father is the Husbandman and he has undertaken to transplant souls out of the old stock and bring them into the bond of the Covenant Ezek. 20.27 Therefore I beseech you Brethren by the mercies of God by the blood of the Covenant by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto him that you seek a Translation and content not your selves to stand under the first Covenant and do this whilst it is called to day while the offers of the Covenant of Grace last before the Portcullis be let down the black Flag hung out the talent of lead laid the irrevocable decree of God gone forth to seal up the measure of your iniquity and shut thee up under the Law and the curse of it for ever God will not have the Grace of the Covenant nor his Son the Prince of the Covenant nor the Blood of the Covenant always despised and rejected by obdurate sinners it shall not always stand at the door as if the Lord needed entrance and admittance and if once God take away this offer of the Grace of the second Covenant and dismiss thee unto the bar of the Law thou art certainly condemned and cursed for ever for not believing in Christ does not only bring thee under wrath but leave thee under it thou rejecting the remedy which is the Grace of the Gospel and thou art then eternally undone for
of his native soil as they do that plant Colonies from one Country to another and such a Translation is here meant that whereas before a man was under the Kingdom of Satan and the condemnation and dominion of death now his state is changed that is by the change of his Covenant and he is translated or transported into the Kingdom of Righteousness and Holiness This is the Translation that is here meant a change of a mans state through the change of his Covenant upon which follows the change of his image and the change of his nature also A man is translated into it 1 As a Kingdom of Righteousness by the change of his Covenant 2 As a Kingdom of Holiness by the change of his Image Doct. All those that are in Christ have a change of their state they are translated out of their former Covenant Here are two things to be spoken to 1 That the Scripture does speak of such a Translation or change of Covenant 2 The necessity of such a change and the reasons and grounds thereof Rom. 11.24 § 2. First the Scripture does speak of such a Translation or change of Covenant Says the Apostle Rom. 11.24 For if thou wert cut out of the Olive-tree which is wild by nature and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good Olive-tree how much more shall these which be the natural branches c. Abraham is called the root because after a sort the Covenant began in him and therefore he is said to be the father of the faithful and all that grew by nature upon this root they were the children of God and the natural branches unto whom the sap and sweetness and fatness of the true Church all the Promises and Priviledges of the Covenant of Grace did belong and those that were truly under this Covenant they were not broken off but some of them that were under it by profession only they were for their sins in judgment broken off and the Gentiles that were wild Olives strangers to Abraham's Faith and Covenant they were grafted in that is taken into the Covenant of Abraham which is the root upon which they were ingrafted and are made partakers of all the Promises and the Priviledges of the Covenant of Abraham as if they were the natural branches Therefore here are men that are wild Olives that are ingrafted here are branches broken off that are ingrafted in again So that in Conversion there is an Ingrafting a Translation of a man from one stock to another from one root unto another and that is by changing of a mans Covenant for it is by his Covenant only that Abraham is his root c. Some indeed are ingrafted only by an outward profession some by inward implantation into the inward and spiritual part some into the outward priviledges of the Covenant only but some partake of the sweetness and fatness of the true Olive-tree Joh. 5.24 c. Christ says He that believes in him that sent me shall never come into judgment but is parted from death to life The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a passage from one place to another And Joh. 3.14 He is passed from death to life There is a twofold state of death and life and there is answerable a double passage a relative mutation as to a mans Covenant and a physical mutation as to his Image Rom. 7.1 2 3 The law has dominion over a man as long as he liveth the woman is bound to her husband as long as he liveth but if her husband be dead she is loosed from the law of her husband c. It is a dying or a being divorced from the former husband that gives her liberty All the Ancients do generally make the Law the husband from which a man being dead unto the Law is divorced and some Modern Divines as Beza and others make sin the husband as being irritated by the law but the thing is much the same and a man being ingrafted into Christ is freed from the law of the husband It is also a being redeemed and the main of our redemption lyes in it Gal. 4.5 as Christ was made under the law so we were under it now he was under it as a Covenant to fulfill the precept and to satisfie the curse and he did this that he might redeem us that were under the law in both these respects so that looking upon the law as a Covenant Christ is said to redeem us from being under it changing a mans father and his mother Mich. 7.20 Luc. 1. Gal. 4. and growing on another root and belonging to another stock as it is said Rom. 4.15 Abraham the father of us all that were before strangers unto Abraham therefore it is said to be his mercy unto Abraham and his oath unto our forefathers and Sarah the mother whereas before we were the children of Hagar All men by nature are under the law children of the bond-woman for the two Mothers are the two Covenants and so long as a man remains under the first Covenant he is the son of the bond-woman but we that believe are as Isaac 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 children of the free-woman being discharged of the hand-writing of Ordinances which was against us and contrary to us which Christ took out of the way nailing it to his Cross c. This â—lotting out of Ordinances Chrysostome and Oecumenius understand not only of the Ceremonial Law given by Moses but also of the Moral Law and the Law of the forbidden fruit given to Adam c. and so Zanchy and others c. Though some other late Divines will understand it of the Ceremonial Law only which I conceive it cannot be because it is spoken for the consolation of the Gentiles that they were delivered from this hand-writing of Ordinances under which they never were So that this change of Covenant is in Scripture set forth by being cut off from the former root and ingrafted into another a change or passage from a mans former state a being dead to a former husband a redemption from a former bondage an alliance to another father and having a bond cancelled that was against a man by its exacting and condemning power SECT II. The necessity of a Translation from the first Covenant 1. THE necessity of this Translation is manifested several ways 1. From the nature of the Covenant as it is broken and mans misery under it for the Covenant in self is unchangeable and eternal as well as the Covenant of Grace and it says for ever This do and thou shalt live it still says Gal. 4.4 5. Cursed is every one that continues not in all things written in the Law to do them the soul that sins shall die And to establish it Christ was made under the Law that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us and what the Law saith it saith unto them that are under the Law still So that while men continue under it their
in him and this is therefore called the Covenant of Promise Ephes 2.12 2 As it was more fully revealed after Christs coming in the flesh Heb. 8.6 7. so the Covenant as to the Fathers being in the Promise is called the first Covenant and as performed and Christ exhibited 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 8.10 In quo nihil merito potuit requiri post dies veteris testamenti exactos Par. the second Yet the first Covenant comes short of the second in two things First because imperfect and only in Types and Typical representations 2. Because the people kept it not neither were made perfect by it but God found fault with them for their disobedience c. 3 As it shall be more gloriously revealed at the calling of the Jews when the Lord shall make this Covenant with them that is take them into this Covenant again and call them my people who were called Loammi and this is their grafting in again Rom. 11. as the Gentiles were grafted in upon their rejection and therefore Israel under this Covenant is fitly called by some Israel surrogatus c. And of this Covenant with Israel who are the natural branches to whom primarily all the Promises do belong does the Lord speak Ezek. 34.25 The dry bones shall live and they shall dwell in their own land wherein their fathers dwelt they and their childrens children for ever and my servant David shall be their Prince for ever and I will make a Covenant of peace with her and it shall be an everlasting Covenant and I will place them and multiply them and set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore my tabernacle also shall be with them yea I will be their God and they shall be my people c. 3 All the mercies and deliverances that God has given his people have been by Covenant ever since the fall Luk. 1.72 he sent Christ into the world a horn of salvation he raised up that is glorious and victorious salvation in the house of his servant David to perform his mercy promised to our forefathers and to remember his holy Covenant he pardons their sins and subdues their iniquities and carries them into the depths of the sea but it is to perform his truth to Jacob and his mercy to Abraham which he swore unto our forefathers from the days of old And he writes the law in their hearts and sanctifies them to himself Jer. 31.33 A new Covenant will I make with you I will take away the heart of stone and I will write my law in your hearts c. Gen. 6.18 And so for all temporal mercies God delivered Noah from the flood that destroyed the world of the ungodly but it was by a Covenant I will establish my Covenant with thee and thou shalt come into the Ark thou and thy sons c. God brought Israel out of Egypt Exod. 6.4 5. but it was by their Covenant I have established my Covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan Zach. 9.11 the land of their pilgrimage And afterwards delivered them out of Babylon the pit in which there was no water But it is by the blood of the Covenant He did nourish the people of Israel in the Wilderness and fed them there but it was because he was always mindful of his Covenant There were many that did not fear him that were wicked but he fed the wicked for the sake of the righteous their meat was given unto them that fear him Psal 111.5 So that the Dispensations of God in all ages have been by vertue of and answerable to a Covenant § 4. A man for the state of his person cannot stand under both Covenants because the one is contrary unto and makes void the other so the Apostle reasons Gal. 2. ult If righteousness be by the law Christ is dead in vain Though in some respects the Law may and doth stand as a rule and as a hand-maid to the Gospel as Hagar to Sarah and so in subordination yet as a Covenant and in co-ordination it cannot stand so for the one doth actually destroy the other and make it void for if the second Covenant take place the first Covenant is made void and if the first Covenant stand there is no place for the second And this will more fully appear if we consider the direct contrariety in the Terms of these Covenants Tit. 3.5 1. The Righteousness of the first Covenant is in our selves the works of righteousness that we have done and he that doth them shall live in them but the righteousness of the second Covenant is the righteousness of another Christ is the end of the law for righteousness Rom. 10.4 Finis perficiens sed non interficiens Aug. all the righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in him It is in the Ark that the law is laid up and the righteousness of the Law is in him alone and in no other else to be found made ours by Imputation only thereby we are made the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 Now a man cannot be righteous by his own righteousness and by the righteousness of another 1 Joh. 5.11 12. A man cannot have life in himself and in another and therefore the one destroys the other 2. In the Covenant of Works acceptation is first of the works and afterwards of the person for the works sake and so does the displeasure of God begin first with the work and then redundat in personam it redounds upon the person and therefore God speaks unto Cain Gen. 4.4 If thou dost well thou shalt be accepted there is not acceptation of the person if there be any imperfection in the work Gal. 3.10 Cursed is every one that continues not in the law c. because of a failing in the work there is a curse upon the person Haec doctrinae nostra summa quam docemus profitemur personam priùs Deo acceptam opus fieri acceptum ex persona But in the Covenant of Grace the person is first accepted and the works for the persons sake God had a respect unto Abel and to his Offering and this indeed is even the sum of the Gospel that the work is accepted for the persons sake but if the acceptation of the person be grounded upon the works it is contrary to the Gospel that says The acceptation is first of the person then of the works 3. The Covenant of Works is a Covenant without a Priest there is none to present a mans person but he must stand before God in his own person for the first Covenant was made with man immediately there is none to bear his sin and there is none to offer his sacrifice for it was a Covenant made with man in the state of integrity wherein he needed none of these Adam had no more need of a Priest in this estate than the Angels have but now all unregenerate men that are under
happiness of all those that are in Christ even in this that their Covenant is changed and it was unto David the ground of all his comfort that God had made with him this Everlasting Covenant and well it might be for it was the foundation of all his happiness and his salvation But you 'l say Wherein lies the glory of this condition of a souls being translated from their former root 1. Being translated into this Covenant God is reconciled to thee for the Covenant of Grace is a Covenant of Peace and Reconciliation so that the enmity between thee and God is taken up and he looks upon thee as an enemy no more 2. Being taken into Covenant with God again there do many sweet relations grow out of the Covenant for the Lord saith I will be their God and they shall be my people and the Lord is not ashamed to be called their God he is our father and husband and our friend we have as truly by Covenant an interest in all that is in God for our best good as the Lord himself hath for his own glory his power is made over to us as truly as if we had infinite power and his mercy as if we had infinite mercy and grace and wisdom c. 3. Being once in Covenant he becomes the son of God a mans Covenant is a Covenant of Sonship I will be their God and they shall be my sons and daughters c. 1 Joh. 3.1 Behold what manner of love the father hath shewed unto us that we should be called the sons of God Gal. 4.18 and if sons then heirs in all the inheritance of Christ Being sons of the free-woman it is thereby that we become heirs of the Promise the inheritance is not by the Law but by the Gospel if they that are of the Law be heirs then Christ were dead in vain 4. Hereby a man has a ground for his faith upon all occasions and a bottom for his prayers it is the Covenant that is unto faith the Magna Charta where all the priviledges and liberties of a Believer are found and this Covenant is sure God is a faithful God a God that will not lye that cannot deny himself Jer. 31.18 Turn thou me and I shall be turned for thou art the Lord my God Lord do not abhor us for thou art the Lord our God Jer. 14.21 And the Psalmist hath respect unto this Covenant For all the earth are full of the habitation of crueltieâ— Isa 64.9 Remember not our iniquities for ever behold we beseech thee we are all thy people And take them in the worst terms and when a man has even suffered shipwrack yet the Covenant is tabula post naufragium a plank after shipwrack by which the soul is kept from sinking see it in our Lord Christ himself in that hour of the power of darkness My God my God c. how did Christ call the Lord his God for as Christ is God so he has the same essence with the Father and he thought it no robbery to be equal with Him but as Mediator he is God the Fathers Servant and so the Lord is his God by Covenant Psal 89.36 Christ says Thou art my Father and my God And Joh. 20.17 And he is no other way Christs God and Father but by Covenant for Christ took a new Covenant-right unto God as Mediator And as we come under the Covenant so doth the Lord in him become our God also and we have a right unto him and by looking unto God in Covenant the spirit of a Christian is upheld in the greatest sense of wrath when the Lord did bruise and grind him to powder making his soul an offering for sin A man out of this Covenant has no ground for his faith nor bottom for any of his prayers 5. It is a Covenant that can never be broken an Everlasting Covenant a Covenant of salt Heb. 7. a Covenant that has a surety Christ says If he fail in any thing put it upon my account And Isa 56.7 I know I shall not be ashamed One sin did break the first Covenant and it being broken could never be made up by one offence condemnation came upon all but by the free gift righteousness comes upon all for many offences to justification because the righteousness of the Covenant is a perfect and an everlasting righteousness and upon this is a godly mans comfort mainly grounded David by his sin foresaw that he had undone his Family the Lord threatned him by the Prophet That the sword should never depart from his house yet he comforts himself in this that his Covenant remained sure A godly mans comfort mainly comes in by his state much more than by his actions and he comforts himself in the one when he abhors himself for the other and though God will judge for both yet he will judge of mens actions according to their states Therefore whatever you do give diligence to make your calling and election sure which can never be without a Translation into the Covenant of Grace CHAP. VI. A Mans Translation out of the first Covenant is by Vnion Gal. 3.29 And if ye be Christs then are ye Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise SECT I. How our Translation is by Vnion with the nature of this Vnion § 1. HAving thus far opened the necessity of a Translation the change of a mans Covenant as well as of his Image we come now unto the Second Head propounded and that is Wherein this Translation doth consist For which I have chosen this Text Gal. 3.29 And if ye be Christs then are ye Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise In the opening hereof there are Three things that I must lay down as grounds 1. That God will deal with all men not only in a way of Dominion but in a way of Stipulation So that men in Covenant with God are of two sorts either regenerate or unregenerate Sons or Servants Children of the bond-woman or of the free and they that are unregenerate â—emain under the Covenant of Works they that are regenerate are under a Covenant of Grace There is a twofold universal Covenant made with all mankind which Divines do call faedus universale one made with Adam before his fall and with all man-kind For the Curse of his Covenant transgressed coming upon all does plainly prove that the blessing of â—he Covenant should have belonged unto all if it had been observed and the blessing and â—urse of the Covenant does come primarily upon none but those with whom the Covenant â—as made There is another universal Covenant made after the fall made not only with â—an but with all flesh even with every living creature that is upon the earth oâ— Foul and â—attel and every Beast of the earth and it contains in it two Branches 1. That all â—sh shall be no more cut off by the waters or a flood 2. That while the earth remains Sâ—ed-time and Harvest
which we did owe to the Law as a rule of righteousness but also as it was a Covenant of Life 3. Christ was not under the Law naturally and necessarily as other men are neither do I conceive that it is safe to say that Christ as a man was subject to the Law for himself and that he did owe obedience unto the Law for though it be true that Christ as man was a creature and indeed every creature is subject unto the Law yet looking upon Christ as God-man and all the acts of Christ as actiones suppositi actions of the Divine person so they were above what the Law required which is the ground of all his merit above the satisfaction of the Law for the Law required perfect obedience of a man but the Law did not require that it must be the obedience of him that was God and man and therefore Luther has well observed that he is the Lord of the Law whence there is no Law against him wherefore as he did freely and voluntarily take our nature so he having taken it did freely put his name into our bond come under our Covenant that he might in every thing become a surety for us having a right to redeem us being God our brother and being bound to redeem us as our surety and being engaged with us in the same Covenant and for us and therefore as he is said to be made flesh and to be made sin because it was by his own voluntary submission so he is said to be made under the Law also and by his coming under the Law he has both paid our debt and cancelled our bond and so the Law remains unto the Saints as a Covenant no more and has no more dominion over a man as a Covenant 2. He has fulfilled and satisfied for ever all that this Covenant required of us he did it in our stead and there is that full satisfaction given in him that the Law can never ask more of us for ever for this cause we must as it is a Covenant be freed from it and this is the reason given in the Text He has taken it out of the way and nailed it to his Cross that is with the same nails that he was nailed with the bond that bound us that is the Law as a Covenant was nailed also Rom. 7.4 and this is to be dead to the Law by the body of Christ or in the body of Christ that is we died in him and he bore our sins in his body on the Tree and whatever Christ did to the satisfaction of the Law in his humane nature as our nature was assumed by him it was for us his righteousness being imputed to us c. Christ has indeed fully satisfied the Law but yet if the Law should require perfect obedience of us also then it must remain unto us as a Covenant of Works still but as Christ hath done it so he hath done it for us and it is done once for all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for active obedience though the Law require duty of us Heb. 10.10 yet it is not unto Justification and all our own obedience is in this to be lookt upon as a filthy rag and though we do here undergo many sufferings yet it is not for satisfaction for he hath by one offering of himself for ever perfected them that he sanctified he is said to remain a Priest Heb. 10.14 Heb. 3.7 Dan. 9. and so doth his sacrifice and oblation remain in the vertue and efficacy of it for ever and therefore he is said to bring in everlasting righteousness So that if the Law look for satisfaction to the precept it is perfected in him and if it look for satisfaction to the curse it is perfected in him it can remain as a Covenant to us no more because it can as a Covenant exact nothing of us more and therefore to all that are in Christ and stand under the Covenant of Grace the Law requires their duties of him and their sufferings of him so that the Law as a Covenant has nothing to do with them but with Christ who is still under the same Covenant remaining their Surety and Priest for ever and therefore in this victory of Christ over the Law as a Covenant Luther makes the main glory of our deliverance to lye and this was indeed the great end of Christs coming into the world As for the other ends Legem docere miracula facere Duplici jure Christus legem vicit prostravit trucidávit primo ut Dei filius legis Dominus secundo ut sponsor noster in nostra persona Quod tantundem est acsi nos ipsi vicissemus quod à victoria Christi nostra est Gal. 3.16 Tit. 1.22 Tim. 1.9 to teach the Law and do Miracles these were but beneficia particularia particular benefits for his Disciples did teach the same truths and many things more than Christ did in his own person and wrought as great Miracles as he but his great end was Legem vincere abolere to overcome the Law and as a Covenant to cancel it because he has fully satisfied it once for all and therefore by way of satisfaction either in obedience or curse it can never require any thing of us to eterâ—ity 3. By introducing of a second Covenant and translating men there into a Covenant of Grace and mercy and reconciliation and this Covenant Christ hath brought in for it was a Covenant made with him before the world began for there was light promised us and Grace given us before the world began in these eternal Transactions between God and Christ â—nd the Lord hath said That this shall be an Everlasting Covenant and all men that ever are â—aved shall be saved by this Covenant Justified freely by his Grace by Grace you are saved c. Now as the Apostle speaks of the revealing of the Gospel Heb. 8. ult In that he saith new Covenant he hath made the former old and that which waxeth old is ready to vanish away 〈◊〉 the Lord Christ intending to bring in a second Covenant and that upon different terms â—d conditions he hath made the former old and ready to vanish away Vse 1 § 3. See here the infinite Goodness and Wisdom of God as in Christ there are many â—rious Unions in that one so there are also many very curious distinctions as in the one tâ—â—ng that a man would never have thought could have been united so in the other thing that a man would have thought could never have been divided As for the Unions that a child and a son should be given and God and man should become one Person and such a word as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a God-man in the world and Immanuel God with us that he that bears up all things shoud be born he that made all things should himself be made flesh made of a woman that the beauty of Holiness should be made sin and he
the hearts of wicked men for ever 3. The Spirit of God does make use of the Law as a glorious instrument in this work for he works in restraints partly by the Law of God within and partly by the works of God and afflictions without but all his aim is that men may not find their hope Rom. 1.16 The Gospel is the power of God to salvation that is the great and glorious instrument of the power of God so is the Law also an instrument in the hand of the Spirit for the Spirit of God does work by the Word and answerably to the Word and not above it or without it It is so called by the Lord Jam. 3.2 If any man offend not in word Jam. 1.26 Jam. 3.2 he is able to bridle the whole body to put a bridle to any thing in Scripture does signifie to moderate that thing and restrain all the rage and exorbitances of it Isa 37.29 I will put a book in his nostrils and a bridle in his lips Now what is the bridle that does restrain the enormities of the tongue see vers 15. It is the perfect law of liberty and this also is the bridle for the whole man Psal 149.8 9. Psal 149.8 9. To bind their Kings in chains and their Nobles in fetters of Iron and this honour have all his Saints To be bound in chains signifies two things Subjection and Restraint now how do the Saints of God do it the fire goes out of their mouths Rev. 11. that is Rev. 11. it is partly by their prayers and partly by their words setting the the Law of God before them and by this means they bind them for they bind up their lusts they restrain their sins and they bind over their Consciences unto wrath and all the Judgements denounced in the Word of God they do as it were execute them by their bringing them upon them as Zach. 1.6 Hos 6.5 Glass Rhet. Sacr. Ezek. 20.37 Psal 2.3 So that they do by the Law of God lay chains upon their Consciences and they execute judgements upon their souls and for that cause it is conceived that the Law is called the bond of the Covenant Ezek. 20.37 because 1 as a bond it doth bind to obedience and all disobedience it does restrain 2 The Law is counted a bond by men Psal 2.3 Let us break their bonds and thick weighty cords it is meant the Law of the Lord which brought them into subjection and they count it cords and bonds which are a token of three things 1 Of bondage 2 Of burden 3 Of baseness and that also may be the meaning of that expression Gal. 3.22 For the Scripture has concluded all under sin c. And thereupon Luther says Lex carcer est c. the law is a prison for it does restrain mens lusts they cannot walk at large as they desire to do in ways of evil and he says It is with unregenerate men under the restraints of the law as it is with wicked men in prison he that is shut up does not hate his sin but hates the prison and the thief is grieved at heart that he is not free nor at liberty to steal § 2. How does the Spirit of God make use of the Law for the restraining of sin The Lord has a working upon the hearts of both regenerate and unregenerate men and he has mighty acts of restraint upon them both and they are the wonderful workings of God in the world a man that shall consider the rage and malice of wicked men may wonder that the earth is not more filled with violence there being so many Nimrods mighty hunters of men in the earth that men are not made as the fishes of the Sea the greater to devour the less without controul breaking forth into all excess of riot and blood touching blood Yea he that shall consider the rage and madness that is in the hearts of the Saints themselves as we see it in Asa he put the Prophet in prison when in a rage and David caused them to pass under axes and sawes and harrows and that of Peter who did curse and damn himself and that of Theodosius by whose command seven thousand men were slain in the City of Thessalonica he would soon conclude truly the very mercy and grace of God in restraint is great And he that shall see the horrible abominations that men break forth into from day to day and the strange Apostasies that are come into the world he must conclude even restraining Grace is a great mercy and that this is a glorious and an excellent use of the Law 1 Tim. 1.9 wherein it is wonderfully serviceable to the Gospel Indeed the Apostle says 1 Tim. 1.9 that a man uses the Law lawfully when he knows and considers that the Law was not given for a righteous man There is a double interpretation of it that is most common 1 The Law is not given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is not laid upon a godly man as a burthen for he has not only a Rule without but he has also Grace within that dictates to him a living Law within himself So that a godly man lives above the Law for he has a Law within as well as a Law without to restrain him from sin he has an inward principle that makes him hate every false way and what should an obedient and well managed Horse need a bridle for 2 The condemning power of the Law is not for the righteous man against such there is no Law the Magistrate should be nothing else but Gods Vicegerent and he is not a terror to good works but to evil but yet while the Saints of God do live here and are sanctified but in part they need the Law to restrain their lusts and corruptions afterwards when their Graces shall be perfected they shall need to call in no external help of a Law either to restrain from sin or keep them in duty or to quicken them to it but now corruption gets the head many times of the Law within that a man is induced to call in the force of the Law without also and the best of the Saints make use of many legal considerations and motives to constrain and restrain them in this world 1. The Law does restrain sin when the Lord sets before a man the perfection of it It is therefore called a perfect law of liberty this was the perfection in which man was created this was the perfection of the human nature of Christ a perfect conformity unto this Law in nature and life for he was a living Law And this is the perfection in Glory when the Saints shall have a conformity unto this Law and from hence the soul stands in awe of it the Lord shewing a mans abasement and imperfection so far as he comes short of the Law 2. The Law restrains sin so far as the Lord demonstrates its Authority Jam. 2.8 The Royal or Princely Law
ad omnis generis flagitia sicut ergo hominibus obsessis vincula catenae injiciuntur ne quem laedant sic toti mundo qui est obsessus a diabolo adest Deus legibus cohibens manus pedes ne praeceps ruat in omnis generis flagitia 2 The Lord has set bounds unto the sins of the World as well as unto the sins of particular persons and Nations which when they have by degrees filled up judgment shall come upon them to their destruction As there was a fulness of sin when the Flood came upon the world and it repented the Lord that he had made man upon the earth so there is a fulness of sin when the World shall be burnt and when all the wicked have filled up their measure then shall the fire of Gods wrath be kindled upon the World unto which it is reserved Only then when the World was drowned because there was a holy seed remaining upon the earth the Lord did spare the earth for Noahs sake because there was a blessing but when all the Elect of God shall be translated from this earth to Glory then there shall be an utter destruction and the earth shall be burnt up at least refined by fire Now if there should not be a restraint laid upon the lusts of men every one that is now a Serpent would become a Dragon and they that now sin as men would act like Devils and the measure of mens lusts would be quickly fulfilled and the end of the World would be suddenly hastned Now because God has appointed a time that the World shall stand for Gospel ends and to shew forth the Grace of the Gospel that mercy may rejoice and triumph over judgment therefore he does restrain the lusts of men that the fulness of the sin of the World may be filled up by degrees 2. It does exceedingly exalt the Gospel and the Grace thereof that it does make such a use of the Law as is unto man fallen above the nature of the Law and contrary to the use that sin does make of the Law 1 It is above the power of the Law unto man a sinner for the Law is become weak through the flesh Rom. 8.4 as we see they that know the Law yet pour out themselves to all excess of riot and give themselves over unto all manner of abominations He that says thou shalt not commit adultery doth himself commit adultery c. All this shews that the Law of it self is weak it can forbid sin indeed but it cannot restrain it as it can require duty but it cannot enable a man thereunto but as Bernard has observed It commands without grace and it punishes without mercy Restraining Grace in respect of sin and assisting Grace in respect of duty comes not from the Law but from the Spirit that is given in the Gospel working with it 2 It is contrary to the use that sin makes of the Law for sin takes occasion by the Commandment and the Law is so far from being a means of restraining lust that by the Commandment corruptions are improved and increased Rom. 7.8 11. the flood rises the higher by the damm that is made against it and there is this devillishness in sin that it does take occasion by the Commandment to deceive a man that is it does work in a man a greater apprehension of the sweetness of it and a greater desire to it and longing after it because it is in the Commandment forbidden and from the very prohibition does arise the strength of the temptation a man should never have had his heart so much carried out after it if the Lord had not forbidden it and then a man says Stollen waters are sweet and the bread of deceit is pleasant Now when Satan and sin shall take occasion by the Commandment to improve corruption and to draw it forth that the Spirit of Christ in the Gospel should make a quite contrary use of it to restrain it and bind it up it does much exalt the power of the Gospel and the spirit of the Gospel which works with this Law 3. Restraining Grace which the Spirit of God does work in a man by the Law is of great use and does mightily exalt the Grace of the Gospel in preserving from open violences and immoralities 1 In reference unto the Saints that they are not destroyed for they are sheep in the midst of wolves their souls are amongst lions and therefore it is a wonder that they are not destroyed it is God that lays a restraint upon their enemies lust sometimes and they desire it not and sometimes upon their acts and they cannot effect it Abimelechs lust was restrained in reference to Abraham I kept thee that thou shouldst not touch her And as to Laban God laid a charge upon his spirit and so it was with Herod in reference unto John the Baptist and it is by this restraint laid upon the hearts of wicked men that the lives and liberties of the people of God are preserved and this is every day as great a miracle in some respect as to set bounds to the Sea that it do not overflow and as to stop the Lions mouths or to hinder and restrain actum secundum the second act of the Fire in the Babylonish Furnace that it did not burn so much as the garments of the three Children and that your peace and prosperity and that the progress of the Gospel is not interrupted that the Devil does not cast some of you into prison and seek your blood as in time past it is not that he is not as truly the Destroyer still as in times past but the Lord restrains the lusts of men that he cannot act them and draw them forth as he has done formerly 2 In reference unto wicked and ungodly men that live in their sins and perish in them Though it is true while the corrupt will prevails and a mans enmity to God remains so long is a man a sinner before God in every thing because he is in his habitual frame of heart an enemy unto all righteousness Austins Epist 144. But it is a great common mercy that wicked men have by the Gospel that their lusts are not let out to the uttermost and the greatest judgment that men can be given over to is to be given up to their own hearts lusts delivered over unto the power of sin and to be acted by Satan to the highest and the utmost as Judas the Devil entred into him it was but a higher degree of acting of him in a way of wickedness The restraint that is acted upon them lessens the guilt and does not spread so much in the defilement the act of sin does intend the habit Nor is it so dangerous and infectious unto others for sinners in their actions are corrupters and by their example taint many with evil ways and words the more their restraints are the less will their judgement and condemnation be and
the great and the wise and the noble and make choice of babes and the foolish things of this world that have nothing in them that should commend them but free-grace made the difference and it is this that raiseth them up above their brethren He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and he gives a commission to his loving kindness to take hold of such a soul and he hears a voice behind him when he is posting with his back upon God and his face towards Hell and there is a voice that he hears that other men do not therefore it is said Act. 9.22 That they saw the light but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me they were with him and yet there was a voice came to Paul a noise and a sound of it they did hear but to hear so as to have it made effectual to their souls that proceeds only from peculiar love 4. That in this Covenant 1 Our persons should be taken into the same Covenant with the Son of God is the highest advancement as the greatest and lowest abasement of Christ was Gal. 4.4 to be made under our Covenant to be made under the Law and so under the curse thereof being made sin so the highest advancement of man is to come under Christs Covenant and thereby we have an interest in his Righteousness and Sonship and by this there is the nearest relation between God and us for it is a Matrimonial Covenant the nearest and the sweetest Union and it is a Covenant of Friendship wherein there is the fullest communion beyond that of the Angels themselves for we are betrothed unto the Lord in mercies and loving kindness Hos 2.18 19. 2 In respect of our services it is by the Covenant that they have a reference unto a reward there is not the meanest services of the Saints that shall lose their reward not a cup of cold water therefore Luther says The whole world has not a reward good enough for the least service of a Saint and professes he had rather be the author of the meanest work of the Saints than of the most glorious acts of Alexander or of Caesar And this reference unto a reward riseth from this Covenant for Psal 16.3 Christ saith Our goodness extends not unto God There was in Christ a merit but it was only ex pacto Heb. 10. it is by his will they are sanctified and through his acceptation had not he made a Covenant with the Lord it had been free with God the Father to accept the righteousness of Christ or not and therefore there is the Grace of Union and of Unction and even the Merit of Christ the ground of it is free-grace by vertue of the Covenant that passed between the Father and the Son and therefore much more that our works or any thing we do should have any relation to a reward from God especially as to Eternal Life § 2. But did not Christ purchase this Covenant or else by his entreaty obtain it for Christ is the Mediator of the new Covenant and therefore it may be at his request the Lord did make this Covenant with us and not singly out of his own love to us I answer No Christ did not merit the Grace of the Covenant there is a difference to be carefully put between the Covenant it self and the benefits and fruits of the Covenant all the fruits of the Covenant are dispensed by Christ and are part of his purchase as Heaven Grace and Glory the very being of a Church God has purchased it with his own blood but as for the Covenant it self it is that in which Christ is promised and all the Merits of Christ and all our acceptation with God through him and it is part of the Covenant that God makes with us I will give you my Son and one of the grand promises thereof and when he did resolve to enter into Covenant with man then Christ becomes his servant and his chosen he being to be the second Adam and Person into whose hand all the transactions of this Covenant should be committed And to exalt this free-grace in him that is the Prince of the Covenant and that we may see all things are of God 2 Cor. 5.18 Who has reconciled us to himself in Christ and all things that do appertain to the Kingdom of Christ He that built all things is God Heb. 3.4 it is spoken in reference to his House that is his Church and not in reference to the general works of Creation so that though it is Christ that is the builder of his House and as a Lord in his own House yet in Christ it is God that is the builder of it all things are originally of him and this Grace of God in Christ as the Prince of the Covenant will appear in these Particulars 1. There is free-grace in designation for he is the Elect of God Isa 42.1 and Prov. 8.22 He is the beginning of the ways of God the first-born among many brethren one first in the womb of Gods Decree and therefore had therein the preheminence he was first elected and we in him And as our Election was an act of free-grace He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy so was Christs also an act of the same grace and therefore Heb. 1.3 He is the brightness of his glory the express image of his person As he is God so all the acts of the Father are acts of nature as his generation is from God naturally and therefore necessarily But as he is the Head of the Church and the Prince of the Covenant of Grace as God-man so he comes under the acts of the will of God and it was free with God whether he would have chosen him to this Office and put this honour upon him or no and therefore as in the one he is haeres natus a born heir so in the other he is constitutus a constituted heir So that even in Christ all is of Gods free-grace he did not honour himself he did not appoint himself but it was the Lord that did call him and design him to this service and wrote his name in the volume of his book so some expound that place Heb. 10.7 the first page of it he being the beginning of all Gods going forth towards the Creature 2. There is free-grace in the Fathers qualification and preparing and fitting of Christ for this great work it is true that Christ was God and had a power equal with his Father and therefore thought it no robbery to be so yet the Scripture doth attribute all unto the free-grace of the Father 1 It was God the Father that prepared him a body he that doth give unto every one of us a body as it pleased him he also did give the Lord Christ a body and did fashion it according to his good pleasure even a humane nature Heb. 10.5 the Holy Ghost did overshadow the Virgin that she should
consist of Promises they are many Promises of this life and of the life to come Promises absolute and conditional Promises of Grace and to Grace and they are therefore called better Promises and so because in respect of the Fathers their good things were even wholly contained in Promises as the Ceremonial Law was contained in Ordinances and they saw nothing in the one but in the Type and nothing in the other but in the Promises they did salute them afar off and imbracing them died in the faith of them but they never received the thing promised Heb. 11. Joh. 8.57 only as Abraham desired to see my days says Christ and he saw it and was glad And it is sometimes called the promise because they are all one in Christ being in him all yea and amen as lines in a Center are one follow any promise to its Original as rivers unto the head and rise of them and they will all lead you unto Christ and yet they are Promises in themselves many as the lines are in the Circumference though but one in the Center Ephes 2.12 the Apostle Paul useth a quite different expression Strangers unto the Covenants of promise he doth as it were make the promise but one for substance and the Covenants many the Covenants are many because of their manifold delivery being severally renewed and yet in all these in several ages the promises the same as if but one promise 2. How and in what order is Abraham to be considered in this Covenant and in receiving this promise In this Covenant Abraham stands as a publick person as a common root Rom. 11. or as a common Parent unto all the faithful unto the worlds end as one that did receive the Promise not only for himself but for all those that should after his example believe in Christ and become his Children and therefore he is said to be the father of the faithful Rom. 4.16 and they that do believe are Abrahams seed and also heirs of the Promise For as Austin hath observed there are three sorts of Fathers and of Sons some are according to nature and others are secundum Doctrinam according to Doctrine so Paul was father to Timothy having begotten him by the Gospel others secundum imitationem according to imitation as filii Abrahami nos sumus cujus fidem imitamur we are Abrahams children if we imitate his faith And this the Lord doth for a double end 1 To put an honour upon his servant as a great reward of his faith and therefore he changed his name calling him the Father of many Nations as one that was the root and first in the Covenant and they all coming in at second hand under Abrahams Covenant and therefore Mic. 7.20 it is mercy to Abraham Mic. 7.20 and truth to Jacob because in Abraham after a sort the Covenant did begin not that to him the Covenant of Grace was first revealed for it was made known unto Adam and Abel was justified by faith Heb. 11.3 but because unto Abraham was the clearest discovery of the Covenant and the Lord did in the most solemn manner enter into Covenant with him therefore it is mercy to Abraham that being the foundation of making the Covenant as his truth and faithfulness is of keeping the Covenant 2 The Lord does it thereby to make Abraham as it were a Type of Christ that it may be continued unto posterity that the way by which God intended to dispense the Grace of the Covenant was from one common head or root as the first Covenant to the first Aam and all his posterity so the second Covenant with the second Aam of whom first Abraham and afterwards David were the fullest Types and resemblances Thus that the Lord might honour Abraham his friend with the highest honour as the root of all the Faithful and that this manner of conveyance of the Grace of the Covenant from one common root might be made known and thereby mans heart led unto Christ the root and Prince of the Covenant therefore it was made with Abraham as a publick person and the father of us all 3. What is meant by Christ here the seed of Abraham not seeds as of many Here Interpreters are divided There is a twofold seed of Abraham to which they have an eye according unto these two promises In thy seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed Gen. 22.18 Christus in individuo Christus in aggregato and Gen. 17.7 I will be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee and answerably unto these they observe in Scripture a twofold Christ Christ Personal and Christ Mystical so 1 Cor. 12.12 the whole Church is called Christ and the sufferings of the Church are called the sufferings of Christ Ephes 1.23 and the fulness of the Church the fulness of Christ as Col. 1.18 Here some say is to be understood Christ personal for two reasons 1 The person to whom the promise is made is the same in whom all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed but this is by Abraham in reference to this seed It 's true all the faithful as they are the seed of Abraham they are blessed with faithful Abraham but they are not that seed in whom all the Nations of the world shall be blessed Rutherf Triumph of Faith p. 51. Gen. 22.18 that is in Abraham as this seed should come out of his loins and it refers us only to the person of Christ which cannot be understood of Christ Mystical therefore Ambrose saith of this promise Impletum est in Christo ideoque non in multis sed in uno firmata est promissio 2 Because it is said verse the 17. the Covenant was made before of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 erga Christum or ad Christum in or to Christ speaking of the same seed that he had spoken of in the verse before now this promise and Covenant was not confirmed in Christ Mystical but Christ Personal in whom all the promises of God are Yea and Amen And hence Pareus and divers others do conclude it to be understood Individuè de uno Christo ex quo omnis spiritualis benedictio in fidelem diffluit c. Individually of Christ from whom all spiritual benediction flows Others do conceive it is to be understood of Christ Mystical 1 From the order that is here mentioned the promise is made first unto Abraham and then unto his seed therefore the seed here spoken of must be such a seed as comes to have a right to the promise as second Bulkley of the Gospel-Covenant p. 37. in order unto Abraham but this cannot be Christ Personal for he has not a right unto the Promise from Abraham but Abraham from him and therefore it must be understood of Christ Mystical who are to look upon Abraham as the root and themselves as branches 2 They argue from the Apostles scope in this place which is to prove that
Heaven we shall but enter into our Masters joy Thus every thing that concerns the Covenant belongs first unto him and then unto us and therefore we may safely conclude that the Covenant made with the Saints of Christ it is with Christ primarily and principally and with us at second hand 7. Lastly the great and principal respect that God hath in this Covenant is to him alone and unto us only as we are in him in all the transactions of the Covenant 1 In all the service that we tender unto God by vertue of this Covenant God doth not primarily respect it as it comes from us but as it comes from Christ as fruit in him Joh. 15.2 1 Pet. 2.5 as the Lord doth not meerly make that a ground for Christ says I do not say that I will pray the father for you Jo. 16.27 for the father himself loves you he would thereby pitch their faith upon another ground to assure them that the prayers he makes in our behalf are answered and that it is the love of the Father as well as the mediation of the Son but he loves them in him also and therefore respects their prayers principally as they do proceed out of the Angels hand 2 In all the mercies of the Covenant the primary respect is unto him and it is bestowed upon you only for his sake For thine own sake and for thy words sake 2 Sam. 7.21 Which Glassius and some others do apply unto Christ that Word of the Father though it may be meant as others do expound it for his own promise sake respecting his truth Mic. 7. last therefore Zach. 1.14 though they pray never so long Seventy years yet it is never accomplished till Christ prays and then the Lord answers the Angel with good words and comfortable words he is by and by zealous for Jerusalem And therefore Daniel says Dan. 9.17 Hear the prayer of thy servant cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate for the Lords sake Now if all things that concern the Covenant be in this manner made unto Christ primarily and unto us only as we are in him to him for his own sake and unto us only for his this doth plainly show that the Covenant of Grace though it be made with the Saints yet it is primarily and principally made with Christ § 2. Now we come to the Grounds why this Covenant must be made with Christ first and with us only as we are members of Christ and in him 1. Because the Covenant of Grace is a transcript of the eternal purpose of God in election and doth fully set forth the way how the ends of Gods electing love should be effected Now the ends of Gods electing love are 1 The praise of the glory of his Grace 2 The glory of his Son 3 The holiness and happiness of the Saints These ends are suitably accomplished by this Covenant Ephes 1.3 4 5. Ephes 1.3 4 5. He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ according as he has chosen us in him Here three things are observable 1 It is spoken of Christ as Mediator as God-man for in him we are blessed in him we are chosen but our blessings proceed from Christ as Mediator 2 The order of the election we are chosen in him that is in him as the head and therefore he is first elected as he is first beloved In whom I am well pleased well pleased with his people Matt. 3.17 all the members of Christ but first with Christ and with them only as they are in him and one with him 3 According to this order so are all the blessings of the Covenant of Grace dispensed for he hath blessed us in him as he hath chosen us in him according to the order of election such is the order also of benediction Now the blessing of the Covenant of Grace being only in pursuance of the Election of God the Order of God therein must be answerable to the Election which is first of Christ and afterwards of all the Saints of God in him It 's true there is but one Election as there is but one Covenant but yet there is an Order in Election as well as there is in the Covenant first Christ is elected and we in him as the Lord entred into Covenant first with him and with us in him as a head Here consider 1 that the great and the highest end of the counsel of God in Election next unto his own glory was the glory of his Son for this is the Order of God that the Father may be glorified in his Son and the Son glorified in the Saints and in the last day Christ shall be admired in them that believe 2 Thes 2.10 and that in the glory of Christ God the Father may be glorified and that God may be all in all when the Son also is subject to him Therefore they that make Christ to be chosen only in remedium peccati 1 Cor. 15. and bring him in only by accident for the reparation and restitution of man fallen I think entertain an opinion dishonourable to Christ and far below that great plot of God in Christs Election He is said to be the first-born of every creature Col. 1.15 which I conceive not to be spoken simply of Christ as God but as Mediator it is said before that he is the image of the invisible God If it be spoken of him as God then he is equally invisible with the Father but as Mediator in whom all the glorious Attributes of God do shine forth so he is the Image of God and so I conceive it to refer to the Election of Christ as being Jesus the first-born in the womb of Election the like unto that is Prov. 8.23 c. and in the first going forth in his Decrees towards the creature therefore Christ was first elected and the highest ends of God in the counsels of Election next unto the glory of himself was the glory of his Son 2 This glory of the Son he doth intend to accomplish two ways 1 He will in the fullest manner communicate himself to the Son he will in the highest way delight in him there could not be towards any creature the fullest communication and communion because all communion is founded in union and the higher the union the more glorious the communication Now between God and the creature there was a natural union as between the cause and the effect and there was a voluntary union by Covenant and answerable to these was the communication of God to the creature either ordine naturae or gratiae but yet there being a higher union this must make way for a higher communication and therefore God intending to communicate himself to his Son in the highest way he doth first in order priviledge him to be personally united to a created nature and in this nature he can take full delight which he could not do
sure rather than to bring in Christ in this Covenant but as our surety and servant barely to supply our defects Object § 3. The Covenant is chiefly seen in the promises of it and is therefore called The covenant of promise and preferred before the old Covenant because stablished upon better promises and therefore that which in this verse is called the promise made to Abraham and his seed is verse 17. called the Covenant so that the nature of the Covenant is chiefly seen in the promises thereof the Covenant being nothing else but a confluence and collection of promises as the Sea is of Waters and all the promises meet in the Covenant as the beams in the Sun or lines in the Center Now there are many promises in this Covenant that cannot be made first unto Christ and then to us for there are some promises made unto Christ alone and cannot belong unto us but unto him only virtute muneris by virtue of his office namely that he should see no corruption that he should by his knowledge and righteousness justifie many that he should see of the travail of his soul and should dye as a grain that he might not abide alone So there are many promises that belong to his members only and cannot be made to Christ as the promise of giving Christ yea Gen. 3.15 even the promise of Christ himself is but part of this Covenant and the very bestowing of Christ is a fruit of the Covenant How then can the Covenant be made first with Christ when it is by this Covenant that Christ is given And there are some promises that cannot be applied to Christ without dishonour to him the promise of pardon of sin giving repentance taking away the heart of stone healing backsliding and pouring upon them clean water that they shall be cleansed from their filthiness now to say that those promises are made to Christ which suppose corruption and imply imperfection were very dishonourable to Christ who hath no sin to be pardoned no corruption to be purged no backsliding to be healed no grace to be perfected But he hath a fullness in him and that fontis of a fountain for himself and to overflow upon all his members How can these promises be looked upon as made unto Christ the head of the Covenant Answ 1. In the Covenant made with Christ God the Father's giving him is to be considered two ways 1 As it is an honour unto him 2 As it is an act of special grace and mercy unto us 1 As it is an honour done to him and so the first promise of giving Christ is made to Christ Isa 42.6 the Lord doth promise to give him as a Covenant to the Nations For the Lords intention was from eternity to glorifie his Son and to exalt him as the Prince of the second Covenant for Gods intention was to glorifie himself in Christ two ways 1 In a way of meer grace by conferring upon his humane nature the highest honour and excellency that a created nature was capable of by the personal union with the Godhead which Divines commonly call gratia unionis the grace of Union that thereby there might be the fullest communication of the Godhead upon him and the highest complacency and delight in him 2 In a way of reward Phil. 2.7 8. 1 As a reward of his own obedience unto the will of his Father therefore God hath highly exalted him 2 As a reward of his sufferings for his members for by the acceptation of the righteousness of Christ for them and imputing it unto them Christ is rewarded by whom they have access with boldness to the throne of Grace which though it be justice unto Christ yet it is mercy unto us And thus will the Lord make Christ the fountain of all good unto his elect and this is as you have heard first promised unto him that the Lord will prepare him a body give him a humane nature take him into personal Union with himself and in that nature give him unto man with a Covenant and an Image and so the giving of Christ is by promise first made unto him and his coming in the flesh is but the fulfilling and the accomplishment of this promise 2 We may consider it as an act of special grace and mercy unto us and so to us Isa 9.6 a son is born and to us a child is given So he is the promised seed unto the Saints that promise which all the Saints of old lived in expectation of that waited for the consolation of Israel so the giving of Christ unto the World is by promise made unto the Saints and so the giving of Christ unto the Saints hath its foundation laid in a promise made unto Christ to give him as an head with a Covenant and an Image and having promised this unto Christ now he adds a promise unto the Saints that he would give him so unto them as the work of vocation in bringing of souls home unto Christ It is not so properly and formally a promise made to us as it is to Christ That God would let him see his seed and prolong his days upon earth and give him the heathen for his inheritance c. and all in pursuance of that antient Covenant between the Father and the Son when he did agree with him for all the elect and chuse them in him as their head and all that is done in time is the fulfilling of what the Father did promise the Son and they come unto us only at second hand as we are looked upon as one with Christ and so the Lord giving us unto Christ and Christ unto us and we being apprehended of him he gives us faith to apprehend him again So it is in this but so that the very giving of Christ is by promise made first unto Christ and then unto us as the other great promises are I will be thy God he is first Christs God and then our God and he is his God as Mediatour no way but by Covenant and our God in him And I will send my spirit he hath the promise first made to him to receive it in its fullness and dispense it and it is conveyed unto us only as we are one with him our head So the promise of Christ also is made unto him first as a point of special honour and unto us as a special favour 2. For the other sort of promises of pardoning of sin giving grace and repentance they are made first unto Christ as the price of his blood and part of his purchase and of that reward that the Lord did intend to bestow upon him for God gives no souls to Christ but those that he hath purchased and bestows no grace upon them but it is done unto Christ as a reward of his purchase and service and as a perfecting of his mystical body till they come unto the fulness of the age of the stature of Christ for the Church it self is a
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
by living in any sin destroy your own prayers And take not only the example of the Angels but the example of our Lord Christ the rule and pattern of holiness for you to walk by he is your Prince your Leader c. all manner of terms that note out exemplariness and require imitation and he was faithful in the Covenant made with God he doth for the active part of his obedience fulfill all righteousness and for the passive part he paid the utmost farthing though the Lord did hide his face and his enemies did rage and triumph over him it was the hour of the power of darkness and if the flesh did desire its own preservation yet the will of nature did give way unto the will of duty and He did drink up the Brook in the way Psal 110. ult that Torrent of Curses and wrath that lay between us and glory and therefore did lift up his head and he is now in Heaven as Gods servant and so shall be till the last day that he shall give up the Kingdom unto God the Father he is performing the remaining acts of his Office there and by his Spirit on Earth and by his presence and intercession in glory and all is that he might be a faithful High-Priest and able to save to the uttermost those that come unto him But we have yet a higher pattern and that is God the Father himself he is alwayes mindful of his Covenant Psal 111.5 Psal 9.34 Mic. 7.20 Ezech. 16.61 My Covenant I will not break for he is a faithful God and he will perform his truth to Jacob and his mercy unto Abraham as he has sworn in the days of old And the faithfulness of God is infinitely seen in this that the unfaithfulness of man cannot make the faithfulness of God of none effect Says the Lord I will give thee thy Sisters thy elder and thy younger Sister unto thee as Daughters but not by thy Covenant it is a promise that though they had by doing more wickedly justified the Gentile nations and he instances in Sodom and Samaria and therefore worse judgements should come upon them yet the time would come that the Lord would remember his Covenant that he had made with their Fathers and he would make them the Mother-Church and all the Gentile Churches and Nations should flow unto her and it shall come to pass that ten men out of all the Nations under Heaven should lay hold on the skirt of a Jew Zac. 8.23 but all this shall not be by thy Covenant sic non desciverant ut Deus esset liber Cal. and therefore it was not in reference to their keeping Covenant with God but in remembrance of Gods Covenant with them and therefore he refers them unto his faithfulness and not to theirs and therefore when they should see it they should be ashamed and put their mouths in the dust to think that the Lord should continue faithful unto those that had been so unfaithful every way to him as they had been 4. The people of God in this life do miss of many of the Promises of the second Covenant that they are not accomplished unto them because they do not walk exactly according to the rules of this Covenant therefore Psal 25.10 But the wayes of the Lord are mercy and truth unto them that keep his Covenant The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting unto them that fear him Psal 103.18 to such as keep his Covenant and think upon his Commandments to do them but else though they shall not fail of eternal mercy Christ is the surety that the Covenant shall not be broken yet there be many promises of the Covenant that in this life they shall never have accomplished to them 1 Sam. 2.29 saies the Lord I said thy House and the House of thy Fathers should stand before me for ever but now that be far from me saies the Lord for they that honour me I will honour and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed The promises of God are of two sorts 1 Some are absolute which God hath undertaken to perform of his own free grace not only citra meritum but also citra conditionem not only without merit but without all supposed or prerequired conditions in us As I will be your God I will give you my Son I will pour out my Spirit I will pardon your sins c. I will take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh these are absolute promises 2 There are conditional promises which shew what God will do upon such duties performed by the creature which are such as without Gods special grace he is never able to perform and these are made for the encouragement of men in a way of obedience but they do not alwaies promise the purpose of God to give the condition of the reward for as it is in Judgements there are some conditional threatnings which upon a change in the creature never come to pass Jer. 18.7 At what time saies God I speak against a nation to pluck up and destroy if that nation turn from their evil I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them and if I speak of a Nation or a Kingdom to build and plant it if it do evil in my sight I will repent of the good I would do unto them so it is in the conditional promises Novit Deus mutare decretum si tu non noveris em ndare delictum God knows how to change his declared promise if thou know not how to change thy sin which I conceive to be the meaning of all those places where God is said to break Covenant with his people Numb 14.34 You shall bear your iniquity even forty years and you shall know my breach of promise that is by woful experience you shall find what a misery it is to have such glorious promises made unto you but by reason of your unfaithfulness on your part they being conditional shall never be performed and so the Psalmist has it Psal 89.39 Thou hast made void the Covenant of thy servant all his posterity were cut off from this mercy and promise in this life because they disobeyed the word of the Lord and walked not in his Covenant c. and so Zach. 11.10 I will break my Covenant with them it is spoken of a national Covenant and casting off the Nations from being a Church or people unto himself wherein even the Saints must needs be deprived of many temporal promises of the Covenant because they did not walk stedfastly with God therein And if a man shall consider the example of the sufferings of many of the Saints as of Eli David Sampson and Solomon though they were beloved of God and in Covenant with him yet by their unfaithfulness in the Covenant how many temporal promises of the Covenant did they miss Faith is the condion of the Covenant Foederis pacti
promise now mercies that are the fruit and birth of the promises are the sweetest for they are children of the promise that are children of the Covenant Zeph. 2.2 and the promise of God doth as well travel with mercy as the threatnings of God travel with judgement seek the Lord before the decree bring forth it is not to be understood de decreto Dei occulto sed promulgato of the secret decree but of the sentence declared in Gods word as Calv. observes and so do the promises bring forth also now a man that is an heir of promise should walk in the expectation of it that his heart may be fit to receive it continually Jer. 11.4 5. and that God may perform unto him all that he hath spoken obey my voice do all that I command you that I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your Fathers The true reason why we many times fail of the mercy is because we are not prepared for it and our heart is not in a frame for Covenant-mercies and therefore doth the Lord defer them and wait to be gracious Esay 30. for mercy is like unto cordials given unto foul stomachs which do but increase the peccant humour sometimes Deus non exaudit propitius God doth not hear in mercy and sometimes exaudit iratus he hears in wrath c. it will not be given in mercy but in judgement if unto a heart unprepared for then duty becomes duty to us when our hearts are prepared to receive the command and a man can say O Lord my heart is ready and then mercy doth become mercy when the heart is prepared to receive it before the mercy come and the mercy of the Covenant doth consist in both giving the mercy and preparing the heart to receive it fitting the vessel and then filling it Now a frame of heart fit to receive mercies consists in these particulars 1. A believing heart relying upon the grace of the Covenant notwithstanding all seeming impossibilities and so Abraham though his body was dry and Sarahs womb dead yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did not dispute and reason the case pro and con and looked not at the probability of the thing but at the grace of the Covenant Psal 118. and the love and power of God therein so David many bulls are come about me they compass me in on every side but they are extinct as the fire among thorns for in the name of the Lord I will destroy them c. and I shall not dye but live and declare the works of the Lord. As Luther when all the world was up in arms against him as it were odium impetum totius orbis sustinuit yet he saith vincet mea audacia in Christo ultimum illorum jam pallentem furorem brevi efficiam ut anathema sit esse papistam My confidence in Christ shall overcome their fury they be men that are fit to enter into Canaan and to receive the promise of the Covenant that can say of the sons of Anak and the Cities walled up to Heaven we can overcome them they be bread for us their defence is departed from them their Rock is not as our Rock c. 2. When a soul is kept watchful and in a continual expectation of the promise I watch for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning he did expect God should come Psal and therefore though he did tarry yet he would watch for him and he doth set himself upon his watch tower Luke 12.35 and this is for a man to stand having his loyns girt and his lamp burning as one that expects the return of his Lord from the marriage and he opens to him immediately Surely it is such a soul that God will pour out the mercies of the Covenant upon he will make him sit down to meat and gird himself and serve him c. Whereas we go without mercies many times because mercy is offered and we are not ready to receive it the Lord knocks and goes away again the soul doth not open a man cannot say my heart is prepared Cant. 5. looking for and hastning to the coming of the day of the Lord 2 Pet. 3.13 3. When a mans heart though in expectation of the mercy yet is weaned from it and resigns it unto the will of God whether he will bestow it or no whether in this life he shall have the mercy he desires or whether he will pay him all in the life to come if he have the mercy now he does not look upon it as his portion but only as solatium a solace a viatick for his way as if he be deprived of them fit exercitium justi injusti supplicium Prosper de vit contempl He has the exercise of the just and punishment of the unjust And so David was in expectation of the Kingdom for it was one of the sure mercies of David yet it is said Psal 131.1 2. His heart was as a weaned child to prepare him for that mercy God had weaned him from it before ever he should injoy it and it is a noble frame of heart to be always in a readiness to resign a mercy before a man has the possession of it and to be contented to let God take as well as give what his soul waits upon him for 4 When a man desires a mercy no further than it may make him holy for the Covenant of God is a holy Covenant Luk. 1.72 and the mercies of the Covenant are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 13.34 which is the word that the Septuagint doth use Esay 55.3 and Luke renders it according to the translation and not according to the Hebrew that which in the Hebrew is mercies they render holy things and indeed mercies they cannot be unless they tend to promoting holiness in the soul and when a man with Agur fears mercies lest they should draw away his heart Prov. 30. give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with food convenient he feared the snare that is in prosperity the hook that is in the bait with which many a man is taken and thereby drawn away from the things of God and few are as Jehosophat who had Silver and Gold in abundance and his heart was lifted up in the wayes of the Lord 2 Chro. 17.6 his heart was incouraged the more in a way of holiness and when a man desires mercies quae nos ornare possunt pariter munire which may as well fortifie as adorn us Prosper The soul of a child of God desires he may have mercies that may be his defence as well as his ornament there are mercies that do adorn men but they do also insnare them and betray them to the enemy nay such a soul desires Heaven not so much for the perfection of his happiness as for the perfection of his holiness which nothing can perfect but the beatifical vision when he shall appear we shall
easier for the Mountains to remove out of their place and to stay the Sun in its course to change the Ordinances of Heaven than for the Covenant of peace to be broken with his people 2 Unto the surety of the Covenant for though we fail yet he does not fail he did undertake under the first Covenant to pay all the debt we owe and it is his righteousness alone by which we stand righteous before God and in the second Covenant he hath undertaken to present us without spot and to make all our services acceptable and well pleasing in his sight and the argument is a good one that Moses uses in behalf of the people of Israel pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of thy mercy as thou hast forgiven them from Egypt even until now for the sins of men cannot make void the faithfulness of God 3. Rejoyce in the Covenant and make it the matter of your delight even Covenant-mercies for 2 Sam. 23.5 This is all my salvation and all my delight that the Lord hath made an everlasting Covenant with me in all things ordered and sure the sweetness doth not lie so much in the mercy as in the tenure by which we hold it it is in the Covenant and this is the only true ground of all a Christians joy it is his whole salvation and therefore should be all his delight Exod. 24.7 8 9. the people of Israel did enter into Covenant with God Moses read the book of the Covenant to them and they consented and said all that the Lord hath said we will do and then the glory of the Lord appeared and they â—aw the God of Israel not as we shall see him in Heaven face to face but some visible manifestation of his presence amongst them there was and he laid not his hands upon them that is he did not destroy them but they saw God and did eat and drink that is they rejoyced in the Covenant that they had made with God and they saw that God did manifest unto them the signes of acceptance in this Covenant and therefore they kept a holy feast and did rejoyce exceedingly before the Lord and when they entred into Covenant â—n the time of Asa 2 Chron. 15.15 all the people rejoyced at the oath for they had sworn with all their heart and they sought God with their whole desire and he was found of them it is that which the Lord expects that men should glory in him and make their â—oast of him that he is pleased to be confederate with them 4. Plead your interest in Covenant mercies for it is in the Covenant that the power of all your prayers does lie God is not indebted unto any men in the world but the children of the Covenant or not so much unto them as to his own promise Austin Conf. dignaris eis quibus â—mnia debita dimittis etiam promissionibus tuis debitor fieri and therefore the Lord saith â—ut me in remembrance plead thou Esay 43.26 Psal 74.20 c. you that are the Lords remembrancers keep not siâ—ence have respect unto the Covenant for all the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty there is all manner of cruelty executed and yet men hide it under â—ir and specious pretences and these latibula impiorum lurking places of wicked men are â—alled the dark places of the earth c. Now in such a time as this when there was nothing â—ut cruelty executed the enemies did roar in their Congregations and did triumph in their wickedness and the more spoil any of them could make upon the Temple the more famous he was it was when Jerusalem was taken now what have the poor people of God to look upon nothing but put God in remembrance of his Covenant have respect unto thy Covenant and so should all the Saints do in their prayers go to God and plead the uprightness of thy heart in the middle of all thy failings Lord though thou hast smitten us in the place of Dragons and covered us with the shadow of death yet have we not gone back from thee and so doth Hezekiah when he comes to die remember Lord that I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and it is this that is the condition that thou hast made of the Covenant of Grace not a perfect way but a heart perfect with God and therefore men in Covenant are said to plead with God for themselves and for the Churches because they only have an interest in him and they can by grace claim mercies from God but other men cannot and so doth Christ manifest his desires to the Father according to the Covenant Zech. 1. And the Lord answered the Angel with good and comfortable words and so a poor soul shall find the Lord will do with him also in all his supplications to God and pleadings with God He will answer him according to his hearts desire 5. Expect that God shall deal with thee according unto this Covenant and so thou maist judge of all his wayes towards thee for God does always dispense himself unto a person according to the Covenant under which he stands and this is that which deceives most men in the Church because they hear of the Covenant of Grace and do live under the outward priviledges thereof though for the state of their persons they be under the Covenant of works yet they expect that Gods dealing should be to them according to the tenour of the second Covenant and therefore if they do sin and afterwards ask pardon they conclude that God will give pardon and grace and that what services they do find acceptance with him and shall have from him a reward It is true with them that are in the Covenant of grace it is so but this is the great deceit when a man doth transire de genere in genus and from the priviledges of the one Covenant apply them unto a person that is under the other Covenant If thou sin thou maist expect pardon and if thou do duty thou that art under the second Covenant maist expect acceptance and if thou be afflicted thou must look upon it as an act of the Fathers love whom I love I rebuke and chasten and if thou dost sin look that God should visit thy offences with a rod for God in faithfulness doth afflict his own children and if the frowardness of thy heart be not overcome by it he will put forth an almighty power of loving kindness to draw thy heart to him with the cords of thy love Esay 57. I have seen thy wayes and I will heal thee Some promises of the Covenant are absolute the immediate fruits of free grace and the soul may expect these without preparation or condition but some promises are only upon condition now in the Covenant thou hast no ground to expect them without the condition be performed Vse 4 § 4. Having given up
a Covenant with the Lord God of Israel that his fierce wrath may turn away from us The end of his making the Covenant was to divert the Judgement And so we read also in the Book of Nehemiah and thus gracious is the Lord Nehem. 9.38 that when he doth send judgement for sin he doth not continue the judgement but till he doth see an humiliation and reformation in act let there be but the serious purpose of reformation and let the Covenant be renewed to ingage the soul thereunto and the Lord doth remove the judgement and when the will is in his people he doth accept it for the deed as David Psal 32.5 I said I will confess my sin unto the Lord and the Lord forgave me my sin and the prodigal Son doth but say I will go to my father and while he was yet a great way off the father met him 3. In a time of publick reformation when the foundations have been destroyed and all things out of course and a great deal of difficulty appears and even impossibility in carrying on the work yet the people of God looking upon it as a duty have set upon it with full resolution and purpose of heart and have covenanted to go through with the work notwithstanding all opposition Jehoiada made a Covenant between the Lord and the King and the people that they should be the Lords people here Religion was corrupted and Dominion was usurped and the Lord put it into the heart of Jehoiada the Priest to endeavour the reformation of both and therefore he brought forth the Kings Son to whom the government did rightly belong and did set him up in the Throne and deposed Athalia the usurping Queen and he doth make a double Covenant 1 A Covenant between God and the King and the People and in this Covenant the King and the people do make up but one party and they ingage themselves to be Gods people and the King to rule for God as under him 2 There is also a Covenant between the King and the People that he ruling for God and under God they will for Conscience sake obey Now my Covenant with any Magistrate must be understood as being a second and subordinate Covenant I am so to keep Covenant with them that I must also keep my Covenant with the Lord. Wherefore after they had thus strengthened themselves by a Covenant in the next verse they set upon the work of reformation effectually for all the people of the land went into the house of Baal and brake it down And so did Josiah he made a Covenant with the Lord To walk after the Lord and keep his Commandments with all his heart 2 King 23.3 4. and then he commanded them to bring out of the Temple of the Lord all the Vessels that were made for Baal c. and wrought the most glorious reformation that ever ' was by any of the Kings of Judah having his heart and hands strengthened by a Covenant with the Lord. 4. As a testimony of a mans Thankfulness for any great mercy or special deliverance or as an argument of faith that a man is to use unto God when he doth pray for and expect from God any special mercy 1 As an argument that a man should use unto God to obtain mercy it is that artificial way of praying that the Lord himself teaches his people Hosea 14.2 Take away our iniquity and receive us graciously so will we render the calves of our lips Assur shall not save us we will not ride upon Horses neither will we say any more to the work of our hands Ye are our Gods for in thee the fatherless find mercy c. And so Jacob also Gen. 28.20 22. he begged a blessing in his journey and he doth follow the prayers he had put up with a vow if the Lord will be with me he shall be my God and if he bring me to my Fathers house this Stone shall be Gods House and if the Lord bless me with an estate I will surely return him of his own I will give the tenth unto thee so punctual is this holy man to restipulate or return something unto God answerable unto the mercy that he doth beg of God If Hezekiah may be delivered from death Esay 38.20 and David from guilt Psal 51.14 they promise to sing aloud of so great a mercy and to teach transgressors the way of God also the Fathers to the Children shall declare his truth When a man in desiring the mercy doth it with a spiritual eye and doth not ask amiss he is truly careful to perform the duty that such a mercy calls for that he may return as well as receive for quantum à praeceptis tantum ab auribus Dei sumus Tertullian When there is no obedience to God there must be expected no audience by God And therefore one special argument that the people of God do use in their prayers to obtain mercy is a renewing their Covenant 2 It is to be done in testimony of thankfulness for mercy received and then doth a man indeed make a right use of a mercy when he is bound the closer unto God by such cords of Love and the more the Lord doth ingage him the more he is willing to ingage himself to God A great army of Ethiopians came against the King of Judah with an host of a thousand thousand men and the Lord delivered them into his hand now at their return they came to Jerusalem to give God the glory of the victory and they offered unto him of the spoil which they had taken and now they enter into Covenant with the Lord to seek the Lord God of their Fathers with all their hearts and with all their souls and so the renewing of the Covenant is their return made unto God for the mercy And so the Jews at their return out of Babylon Jer. 50.4 5. They come with weeping and seek the way to Sion with their faces thitherward and they say Let us bind our selves unto the Lord by a perpetual Covenant never to be forgotten so that in receiving and attaining the mercy God calls for a Covenant as also in returning the mercy 5. When a man finds his heart bent to backsliding and he is unsteady and unstable in any good way Moses finding the people of Israel a very unsteady people and whose hearts were not stedfast with the Lord after that solemn Covenant with them upon Mount Sinai he renews it again a little before his death when they were come to the borders of the promised Land and inforceth it both with the wonders that God wrought upon Pharaoh and also the great miracles that he had wrought for them when he led them through the wilderness forty years And the same thing was the ground of Joshua's renewing his Covenant Josh 24. Josh 24. And Nehemiah finding that many of the Jews loved their strange Wives and the children that they had by them
thee and thy Seed after thee in their Generation for an everlasting Covenant to be a God to thee and thy Seed after thee SECT I. That Children are taken into their Parents Covenant § 1. THE subject we have in hand is the Doctrine of the Covenant of Grace the new and better Covenant and therein having shewed the Person that made the Covenant with man and spoken of the free Grace of God which was the Fountain from whence this Covenant of Grace did flow we came in the next place to consider the Persons with whom this Covenant was made and they are set down in a threefold subordination 1 First and immediately with Christ the second Adam 2 In him with all the Faithfull 3 In them with their Seed And this last is the head we are now to enter upon having laid these two grounds 1 That the Covenant that God made with Abraham is the same Covenant that all the Faithfull whether Jews or Gentiles stand under to the worlds end Rom. 4.16 therefore is Abraham called the Father of us all though of the Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is cognatio specialis quae coram Deo locum habet Deo nos gratos reddit Beza All Believers have a special Cognation to God by virtue of Abrahams Covenant and this is not barely by imitation of his Faith which the Apostle Paul asserts vers 12. of those that walk in the steps of the Faith of Abraham but there is â— blessed resultance from this that a man is thereby translated into the Covenant of Abraâ—am and there is no distinction of persons for there is neither Jew nor Greek Gal. 3.29 neither bond â—or free neither male nor female for ye are all one in Christ Jesus Ad jus adoptionis acquirendum vel minuendum nullum discrimen sancta est in Christo aequalitas quae unitas Par. Par. As to the right of Adoption there is no inequality all are in Christ equal All therefore that are Christs are Abrahams seed and heirs according to the Promise Gal. 4.28.31 we as Isaac are the children of Promise we are not the children of the bond-woman but of the free 2 Though in the manner of the Administration of this Covenant there be a great deal of difference from what it was in ancient times yet as to the substance of the Covenant the persons that are foederati in it are the same and taken in upon the same grounds and shall be so to the end of the world and therefore as the seed were taken into Covenant with their father the same way will the Lord dispense the Covenant to the end of the world that if he take the Parent into Covenant he will take the seed with him and therefore their children are called the Sons of the Covenant Act. 3.25 because it 's as a Birth-Priviledge and belongs unto them as they are taken into their Fathers Covenant And this the Lord says shall be the way in which he will dispense his Covenant for ever Act. 2.39 that no man may say this was a peculiar priviledge unto Abraham and his seed onely for Abraham is made the Father of many Nations Rom. 4.12 the Father of the Circumcision and of the Uncircumcision and the Promise is to you and your seed and unto them that are afar off as Gentiles unconverted are said to be that are yet strangers unto the Church of God Ephes 2.17 and the Priviledges thereof even to as many as in all ages the Lord shall call And these two grounds being laid this Covenant made with Abraham will give us ground to observe this point Doctrine That the Children of believing Parents in the Covenant of Grace are taken into the same Covenant with their Parents the Covenant is to them and to their seed and therefore their Posterity may well be stiled the Children or Sons of the Covenant A point it is of great concernment and therefore to be contended earnestly for 1. As that which doth exceedingly advance the Grace of God unto Parents and makes much for their Consolation that are Believers that not only the Lord doth extend mercy to them but to their seed as he did here extend it to Abrahams seed by which God exceedingly exalts his free Grace and so it 's made an argument of special Love unto Parents Deut. 4.37 Because he loved thy Parents therefore he chose their seed after them Mercy unto their Posterity is from the Love of God unto Parents Now as it is a special Grace of the second Covenant that wherever Believers come unto all people where they live they shall be a blessing Gen. 12.2 the word in the Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 esto benedictio so Montanus we render it according to the Septuagint Thou shalt be a blessing but as Aynsworth has well observed this manner of speaking in the Hebrew is very vehement and emphatical noting Gods commanding the blessing according to the Expression Psal 133.3 For there the Lord commanded the Blessing even life for evermore c. And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as dew from the Lord c. They shall be as dew the cause of a Nations flourishing and to a decaying Nation they shall be the root and support the holy seed shall be the substance thereof Isa 16.13 how much more shall the Grace of the Covenant be exalted in reference to their Posterity for their consolation in that they are nearer and dearer to them than any other can be and therefore they shall be a blessing to them and this will be much heightned unto them by this that while they were under the Covenant of Works while unstranslated they did convey unto them the Curse of the first Covenant and the Lord doth threaten that he will visit the iniquity of the Parents upon the Children Now it were a great terrour to a man that while he is under the first Covenant his iniquity shall be visited upon his Children if when he is translated into the second Covenant the grace of the Covenant should no way extend unto them and â—â—range it were that all the creatures coming under the Covenant of the Saints are by tâ—â—s means preserved in their being and attain many benefits that by reason of the curse of the first Covenant they should never have attained if amongst all the rest their children should have no benefit by their fathers Covenant and they which are nearest to them should only be excluded 2. This is one of the great Arguments that the Scripture useth to draw men in to Believe because not only they shall have benefit by it but their Posterity there is a double use that I find the Apostle makes of that argument 1 To the Children as a means to bring them in repent ye therefore and be converted for you are the children of the Covenant which God made with your fathers there is mercy in
Church with them when the Lord shall make the Church of the Jews the Mother-Church and should give them unto the Jews fâ—â— daughters c. so in Abraham and his Posterity and that they might still lay claim unto the Covenant and the Promise made unto their Fathers being born the Sons of the Covenant To have any particular office prescribed by God in a Family is look'd upon and promised as a great mercy to have a Priesthood continued in the Family of Aaron and afterwards of Phineas as a reward of that great act of his in being zealous for the Lord in executing Judgement for the Lord gave him an everlasting Priesthood and to have the Kingdom continued unto David and his Posterity as he takes notice Thou hast spoken of my house for a great while to come there shall not want a man of his loyns to sit upon the Throne of Israel and it 's look'd upon as a great Judgment for a Family and a Posterity to be disinherited as for the family of Esau to be cast out of the Priesthood and the Family of Saul to be cast out of the Kingdom how much more then is it a mercy to have the visible Church of God continued in any mans Posterity for all blessings descend according unto this as it appears in the Sons of Noah there is a blessing upon Shem and Japhet and their Posterity but it is in reference to a Church-state but there is no blessing upon Cham but cursed be Canan God would never take a Church out of his loyns it should never be continued in his posterity There shall not be a Cananite in the house of the Lord for ever Zac. 14. ult and therefore a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren the curse and blessing is answerable unto the respect men have to a Church-state 4. It 's the greatest wrath that God doth pour out upon men in this life to cast them out of external Church-priviledges The Jews as when they were taken into covenant it was for themselves and their posterity that God would owne their seed as his and would avouch them to be his people so when God did cast them out and gave them a bill of divorce called them Loammi and did remove the Candlestick he did cast them out and their seed the natural branches were broken off if it be not a blessing to injoy it surely it 's no great judgment to be deprived of it but the Apostle saith Wrath iâ— come upon them to the uttermost or to the end therefore it the wrath be so great in a casting out surely there is a great deal of mercy shewed in the taking in 5. The Apostle speaks even of an interest in the external priviledges of the covenant as a very great matter having shewed that all men by nature are in the same condition and in a mans spiritual estate outward and Church-priviledges make no difference he doth demand Then what advantage a man hath by Church-priviledges and what good there is in them Rom. 3.22 if they make not men to differ what excellency hath the Jew above any other men or any other people The Apostle says Much every way therefore though they may not differ in reference to a spiritual state yet there is a great excellency and advantage and the Apostle speaking of the grafting in of the Gentiles into the same Church-covenant them and the posterity when the Jews were disinherited he says Rom. 11.17 Privilegia beneficia foederis in Ecclesia patrum deposita Par. That they did partake of the root and the fatness of the olive-tree therefore in Scripture it 's commended as a great advantage and priviledge unto a man to be brought into the external rights and to have an interest in outward priviledges of the Church of God 2. But what are those priviledges and those particular benefits that come upon a person and his posterity thereby 1 Many of them shall be saved elected and converted to God for the Lord doth take the number of his Elect out of the loyns of his own the Church of the first-born whose names are written in Heaven is hid in the visible Church here as wheat in a heap of chaff 2 It 's the only ground of hope that parents have for the salvation of their children dying in their infancy David did hope it though he might say with Austin Ego in illo puero nihil habui praeter delictum yet he saith I shall go to him and his heart was quieted concerning his eternal state by virtue of the Covenant made with him We have no other promise but this I will be thy God and the God of thy seed and this is Gospel a man is as truly bound to lay hold of the promise and cast himself upon it for his seed as for himself 3 There is no ordinary way of salvation but it is amongst them that are taken into Covenant salvation is of the Jews Joh. 4. there was in an ordinary way salvation to be had no where else and therefore by being taken into the outward priviledges of the Church a man is brought into the ordinary way of salvation Esa 5.7 Exod. 15.5 Gen. 6.2 4 It 's a special honour to be the vineyard of the Lord the garden of the Lord hedged in from the rest of the world his wall a wine press a garden inclosed a fountain sealed to be called the Sons of God the people of God and the Lord to avouch them such publickly before all the world to be his peculiar treasure the Lord to be their God and they his people above all people of the earth theirs is the Adoption it 's spoken of this federal external sonship Rom. 9.4 Esa 22.1 29.1 Rom. 3.2 5 By this you have special priviledges Jerusalem is the valley of Vision and Jesuron the seeing people it is Ariel the Altar of the Lord chiefly to them are committed the Oracles of God which they are to keep and to transmit unto posterity it 's a depositum laid up and concredited to them In Judah is God known his name is great in Israel Psal 147. ult he hath not dealt so with other nations they are a people near unto him and the Lord hath promised that he will give them his special presence I will dwell in the midst of them Zac. 8.3 2 Cor. 6. Christ walks in the middle of the golden Candlesticks though he be in glory 6 By coming under the outward priviledges of this Covenant they have very glorious operations mighty works upon them that other men have never experience of and all this even in them that perish and they have this as a fruit of their external interest for Hos 6.5 there is hewing and slaying there is sowing and planting when the rest of the common fields lye untilled Mat. 13.3 1 Cor. 12.8 and there are great gifts bestowed such as the Lord doth not bestow on any
fruitfulness And that it 's not spoken of the invisible Church the Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven is plain for these two reasons 1 Because the Jews are said to be the natural branches of the good Olive-tree and the Gentiles are said to be branches of the Olive-tree that is wild by nature and were grafted in contrary to nature Now to Jews and Gentiles grace and regeneration are alike contrary by nature so that there are no natural branches neither is there any grace derived from parents unto children Saving grace flows not from any company of men no not from the invisible Church they are only Christs and he only can communicate them but Church-ordinances and priviledges are properly the Churches and by the Church are derived unto all the members thereof whether they be Elect or Reprobate Mic. 3. ult We are born again not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man Joh. 1.13 for amongst Jews and Gentiles there is no difference All men have sinned and come short of the glory of God Rom. 3. but this is spoken of a birth-right priviledge which doth descend and come upon a man as he grows upon such a root therefore this is meant only of a visible Church-state 2 It 's spoken of an Olive-tree which hath two sorts of branches some remain in their own Olive-tree and are never broken off but some there are that are broken off for as Christ spreading himself as a Vine into a visible Church hath both fruitful and unfruitful branches some are in him that bear no fruit Joh. 15.2 so hath the Church of God as an Olive-tree some branches that abide and some that are broken off Now in the invisible Church there are no branches to be broken off for ex solis constat electis it 's the Church of the first-born whose names are written in Heaven therefore this Olive-tree is a visible Church and the branches growing in it are visible members they that are grafted in are taken into visible membership and they that are broken off are cast out from a visible membership the root of this Olive-tree is Abraham the father of the Faithful with whom as it were the Church-covenant did begin for there was not a covenant made with him only for himself That the Lord would be his God but also the God of his seed and therefore it 's mercy to Abraham but it 's truth to Jacob and the benefit of their grafting in is this they partake of the root and of the fatness of the Olive-tree the root is Abraham and that in reference unto the Church-covenant made with him and his seed wherefore they are the children of Abraham and of the Israel of God and they partake of the fatness of Church-blessings priviledges and ordinances for that must be meant for it 's such a fatness that the Jews did partake of that were broken off and such a fatness from which they also might be cut off vers 22. if they continued not in his goodness therefore it must be meant of Church-ordinances and priviledges only and not of the saving graces of the Spirit which flow immediately from Christ and not from the Olive-tree the Church 2. It is made a special mercy to the Jews when they shall be grafted in again into their own Olive-tree that is become a Church of God and be taken into Abrahams Church-covenant and be made partakers of Church-priviledges and ordinances and this shall be the new Jerusalem that is to come down from God out of Heaven Rev. 1.2 and this Church shall injoy communion by outward priviledges and ordinances as the Churches of the Gentiles do for there shall be a gathering of men to the Lord by them Esa 66.19 there shall fishers in abundance stand upon the waters and the fish which is the persons that shall be taken and converted by them shall be as the fish of the great sea exceeding many Ezech. 47.10 for the great harvest of the Church is reserved for the latter days and the Ministry must continue so long as there are any of the body to be gathered in or to be perfected till we come to the unity of the faith Eph. 4.13 and to be perfect men and there shall be Church-censures administred in their glory and in the highest majesty and authority there shall no unclean thing enter there Rev. 22.11 without shall be dogs and every one that loves and makes a lye and it 's that this Church shall bewail as the great want in those rising Gentiles we have a little sister and she hath no breasts Cant. 8.8 by breasts she means the ordinances and the ministry of the word wherein milk for babes is laid up therefore this Church that she complains had no breasts was the Gentiles as afterwards the Gentile Churches do with joy and triumph relate of themselves vers 10. That their breasts were like towers c. and as formerly the children of the Jews were taken into the Church-covenant with their parents and made members of the visible Church which no man can deny so it shall be with them again as they were broken off with their parents so with their parents they shall be grafted in and those promises made good unto them their children were Church-members and so shall they again be Esa 65.23 they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord and their off-spring with them the promise is Ezech. 16.20 21. Jer. 30.20 Cant. 7.2 Their children shall be as afore-time and their congregation shall be established before me which latter words do refer unto their Church-state they shall be sons of the Church as they were in former times and the Lord says that the ordinance of Baptism shall be very fruitful even unto those infants of the Church and very efficacious though now it 's dark and we find little benefit by it being an ordinance of God appointed by him to convey secretly gracious influences tending unto infants spiritual welfare so some expound that place Cant. 7.2 Thy navel is like a round goblet c. The Church is here compared unto a mother conceiving and bringing forth now here is the way of nourishment for children in the womb not yet brought forth which is ministred by the navel as to children brought forth it is taken in by the mouth Now there being no ordinance of which children in the womb of the Church while infants are capable but Baptism therefore it 's conceived by some to be meant here by the navel of the Church and thus we see it shall be a special mercy to the Jews when they shall be ingrafted in again into the external form of a visible Church 2. To be cast out from being a visible member is the greatest judgment that can befal a person or a people in this life God doth then cut them up by the roots 1 Vpon a person 1 Cor. 5.5 such
a man is delivered to Satan left under his power and kingdom a man without the Church is under the care and inspection of the Church no more but even left to the Devil to hurry him into all manner of wickedness or despair as he did endeavour to do the incestuous person and there was none of the Saints that might bear the burden with him 1 Cor. 16.22 such a person is said to be Anathema maranatha a man delivered by the Church of God as incorrigible until the coming of the Lord we can do no more with him and therefore hereby he is bound over to answer it before the Judgment-seat of Christ 2 It 's the highest degree of temporal wrath upon a people Hos 1.7 Hos 1.7 there is a pedigree of judgments set down but yet the highest is Loammi and this breaking off of the Jews the natural branches Hos 2.2 and saying of your mother she is not my wife is wrath that comes upon them to the uttermost and then a people may be truly said to be utterly destroyed or brought unto an end 1 Joh. 2.18 1 Pet. 4.7 this is the last hour the end of all things is at hand the end of your Worship and Temple and Ordinances and Services and so the end of your Church and Common-wealth doth now draw near it 's not meant of the end of the world and that 's the end that Christ speaks of Luk. 21.9 Luk. 21.9 Ye shall hear of wars and commotions but the end is not by and by Therefore when the Lord doth once unchurch a people the end of all things is at hand with them there is nothing but utter destruction remaining for such I say when the Lord doth thus he doth cut them off by the root as we see in the Churches of Asia What a miserable condition have they been in ever since the Lord removed the Candlestick from them and of all the enemies of God the Antichristian Church is the greatest and is reserved unto the greatest judgments and though it is true it doth fall by degrees yet as soon as it became a mystery Babylon the great the mother of Harlots and spiritual Egypt and Sodom ever since the Lord hath been pouring out vials of wrath upon her by degrees which will at last sink her as a mill-stone into the Sea and her plagues shall come upon her in one day suddenly and irresistibly and the Lord will deal with her as a Harlot and one to whom he hath given a bill of divorce to the amazement of all the Christian Churches and it will be easier for her by all her art to weigh the fire to measure the winds to call back the day that 's past and to restore the verdure of the withered grass than to reverse the sentence that 's written against Babylon She is fallen is fallen it is become a habitation of devils and a cage of all unclean and hateful birds 2. Now the particulars wherein this great Priviledge consists are many 1. They have by this means the offers of the highest mercies they are the children of the Kingdom and the guests that were first invited unto the wedding and therefore it was necessary Act. 13.46 says the Apostle that the word of God should be first preached unto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was a double priviledge that the Jews had before Christs coming they were soli alone there was a partition-wall between them and all other people but this being taken away yet being the people of God to whom belonged the adoption it 's necessary that they should be primi the first to whom the Gospel was offered And the great mercies of our lives be offers of grace and they are such as being neglected all the world cannot redeem and these many an ungodly man hath in a glorious manner made unto him that he doth never accept but doth as the Jews did put it from him and thereby judge himself unworthy of eternal life and the grace that is offered him in such offers of the Gospel 2. They have the most glorious presence of God of any people in the earth they are a people near to God the Tabernacle of God is with men and he dwells with them he has promised Rev. 21.3 Ezech. ult ult I will dwell in them and walk amongst them the Lord walks in the middle of the golden Candlesticks he goes down to the gardens to gather lilies Jehovah Shammah Jer. 13. Even as a girdle doth cleave to the loyns of a man so have I caused this people to cleave unto me even the whole house of Israel the Lord is in the middle of her Christ sits there upon a glorious Throne and they are all gathered together round about him after the manner of their pitching in the Wilderness where all the Tribes did pitch and incamp round about the Tabernacle and therefore they are said to incompass the Lord about 3. They have the most glorious influences it 's true that Christ as Mediator hath a providential Kingdom as well as a spiritual a Kingdom of Providence as well as of Grace Ezech. 1.10 and both are administred by the Spirit They have quieted my Spirit Zac. 6.8 but he hath a spiritual Kingdom in the Church which is therefore called the Kingdom of Heaven and all the members of it whether they be regenerate or unregenerate are called Children of the Kingdom and upon those the Spirit of Christ hath great works for the foolish Virgins have oil as well as the wise and they have many excellent gifts Mat. 12.43 44. the unclean Spirit goes out of the man when he returns he finds the house swept and garnished for there is a great diversity of gifts but the same Spirit and what is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those gifts only the Church 1 Cor. 12. for they are all for the body and therefore they fall from them when they depart this life as Elijahs mantle did when he went to Heaven for then Prophecy shall cease and knowledge shall vanish away and they have glorious common graces restraining sin and are Virgins that have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Christ and the house is swept and the Devil is gone out and thereby men are restrained from those lusts which they dearly love and forced to an external conformity when they have no inward principles to support them and common graces elevating improving and sublimating nature as we see Heb. 6.7 Heb. 6.7 The ground that drinks in the rain that comes oft upon it there is a rain of Influences as well as Ordinances and by this means nature is strangely raised and improved and yet the man continues in a state of unregeneracy still and is nearer to cursing for it in the end 4. They have very great temporal blessings when Israel was taken into a marriage-covenant with God the Lord says I entred into covenant
case Nobis minimè dubium est quin soboles ex sanctis piis atavis progenita quamvis apostatae fuerint avi parentes ad Ecclesiae tamen corpus pertineant Calv. Epist pag. 442. Calv. epist pag. 174 175. There was one of the Church had married her daughter to a Papist and the Grandmother desired that their child might be baptized which Mr. Farell refused Ego respondi non admittendum quòd in foedere non sit cùm neuter parens sit fidelis and this caused some difference between him and his Collegue or Fellow-labourer in the work of the Ministry And to decide this controversie he writes to Mr. Calvin and in answer to it he laid down two positions 1 That it 's unlawful for us to baptize the children of Papists Absurdum est ut eos baptizemus qui corporis nostri membra censeri nequeunt cùm in hoc ordine sint Papistarum liberi quomodo baptismum illis administrare liceat non videmus c. 2 The Grandmother desires it and there 's the difficulty upon that he answers Cùm Dominus gratiam suam in multas aetates extendat eam astringere non est nostrum c. Calv. Epist pag. 174 175. And it 's the ordinary answer of our Divines That the infant is not to be debarred from the priviledges of the Covenant for the sins of the immediate parents for those that descended from Abraham and David had a right to Circumcision and were within the Covenant though the immediate parents for some foregoing generations were wicked as Psal 106.35 they were mixed among the Heathen and had learned their works and served their Idols yet he regarded their affliction when he heard their cry and remembred for them his Covenant vers 44. even the Covenant that he made with Abraham c. The promise is to you and your children and yet it 's clear Acts 2.39 that their immediate parents were a wicked generation that had killed the Prophets as they themselves had a hand in crucifying the Lord of glory concerning the Gospel it 's said of the Jews That they are enemies for your sakes Rom. 11.28 but as touching the election they are beloved for their fathers sake their immediate fathers were wicked and enemies to the Gospel and yet is there a holiness that comes from Abraham the root unto the Jews when they shall be converted for God shews mercy unto them that love him to a thousand generations and Joshua had little reason to have circumcised the people at Gilgal for the holiness of their immediate parents whose carkasses fell in the Wilderness and yet he did circumcise them there as being within the Covenant and did thereby roll away from them the reproach of Egypt and hence they do say Mortons Appeal l. 4. c. 6. §. 1. Rutherford the due right of Presbyt pag. 2. c. 4. §. 6. p. 259. that the children of Papists and excommunicated Protestants born within the visible Church are to be baptized if any of their forefathers have been found in the faith And I could gladly have rested in this so received a judgment of godly and learned men but that some considerations have put me upon a further inquiry for I find in the administration of the seals of the Covenant as well as in the application of the promises of the Covenant that they are to be administred with judgment in the parties that do administer them and that there is a great trust and a special charge committed to them therein Mat. 7. Give not that which is holy unto dogs It 's a dangerous evil for a man either wittingly or negligently to dispense the Ordinances of God and the priviledges of the Covenant to those unto whom God did never intend them as it is to deny them unto those whose right they are As to apply the promises unto wicked men and make glad the souls of the unrighteous and to sew a pillow under every arm-hole and provide a kerchief for every head is as bad as it is to deny the promises unto men whose right they are so to make glad the souls of the wicked by applying the seals to their seed is as bad as to make sad the souls of the righteous by denying them It was that Chrysostom stood much upon in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper he would rather suffer his own blood to be poured out than to give the blood of Christ to be profaned by an unworthy receiver and surely if so much care and diligence be to be used in Church-Officers in dispensing of one Sacrament the other is not to be so carelesly and promiscuously administred as it is and therefore it was the great offence that Mr. Farell took at the Collegue joyned with him in the Ministry Quòd omnia profanare improbissimos velle admittere non-vereretur That he feared not to profane all things and admit the most wicked These thoughts have put me upon farther inquiry concerning the persons unto whom the Sacrament of Baptism is to be administred and to whom the priviledges of the Covenant do belong and the apprehensions that I have of it out of the word I shall desire with all submission to propose to you 1 I 'le lay down in several propositions what I conceive to be the truth 2 I shall answer the objections that are commonly made against them and so I hope the truth may be cleared or at least hereby an occasion given to them that are better able to judge of further inquiry Reasons why federal right comes to children from their immediate parents only 1. I conceive that federal right comes to the children only from the immediate parents and the Reasons that induce me to conceive so are these 1. In Scripture I find that when God took parents into Covenant he also took in their children with them and whensoever God cast parents out the immediate parents he did cast out their children also When he took the Jews into Covenant he made this Covenant also with their seed and because the root was holy from thence came also an holiness upon the branches and when he did cast off the immediate parents and called them Lo-ammi he did also cast off their seed and it would have been in vain to the Jews to have said We have Abraham for our father and therefore have still a federal right when God had given unto their immediate parents a bill of divorce and looked upon them as a people in Covenant with him no more as therefore though none of their predecessors were holy and in Covenant yet the faith of the immediate parents and their interest in the Covenant does make the children holy and brings them under the priviledges of the Covenant so though many of their predecessors were holy yet if the immediate parents reject and cast off the Covenant and be rejected of God the children also are cast out with them there is the same reason of
mercy to thousands in them that love him and keep his commandments Thus God extends Covenant-mercy not only to parents but to their children also and that to succeeding generations and we must not limit the grace of God for that were to limit the holy One of Israel For Answer hereto 1 if the meaning here be of the priviledges of the Covenant which are conveyed by the parents unto the child then if any of them were godly from the beginning of the world this Scripture will intail Church-priviledges upon them by a lineal descent unto the end of the world for it 's likely there shall not be a thousand generations from the beginning of the world to the end thereof because these are called the latter times wherefore this is but a certain for an uncertain number and therefore in this case we must know where to stop there must be a period put that a man may be able to say none of them was holy in the second third or fourth generation and therefore now the federal holiness that was this mans or this childs is expired 2 If it should be understood of Church-priviledges and a federal holiness that descends upon the child from the parents then how shall this promise and threatning be both made good for it may be some of the Ancestors have been godly but the immediate parents are wicked and profane why may we not as well and much rather say that God will visit the iniquity of the immediate parents upon the children as that he will shew mercy unto the children for the grace and holiness of their remote parents 3 Of what mercy soever it 's thus understood whether of saving mercies or of outward blessings it 's plain that it 's only unto those children which walk in the same ways of holiness with their parents for God will visit the iniquity of the parents upon the children and if his hatred to children to the third and fourth generation be of them that walk in the ways and wickedness of the fathers then his mercy to thousands is upon them that walk in the ways of their fathers obedience So much I conceive the last words imply vers 6. Shewing mercy to them that love me and that keep my commandments if this be the meaning it will be easily granted that the children of godly parents who walk in the same ways of holiness with their parents shall obtain mercy from God unto many succeeding generations but that is nothing to the thing in hand which does suppose children to grow wicked and to degenerate from the holiness of their parents and yet men would infer that their fathers priviledges do unto many generations descend unto them which I conceive is far from the scope and intent of the Holy Ghost Object 2 But the Israelites were circumcised though their immediate parents were wicked of which the instances before given are many and therefore our children should be baptized though the immediate parents be wicked and if the profaneness of a Jew did not prejudice the childs right why then should the profaneness of a Christian take away the childs title are not our priviledges as large as theirs In answer hereto Answ 1 of Circumcision there was no set Officer appointed by God to administer it and therefore commonly the parents did it and it 's plain by those that write their stories that women did it commonly now there being no set Officer to administer it there was no set Officer to suspend it But in the Christians Baptism it 's not so there is a set Officer who is to administer it with judgment and as he is to deny it to none to whom it belongs so he is to dispense it to none but such to whom it belongs 2 The Lord took the whole Nation of the Jews into a Church-covenant and they became a peculiar people unto him and whoever was born of that Nation was therefore born a Church-member and had right unto the priviledges of the Church it is not so with any other people under Heaven there is something more required to make a man a Church-member than barely to be born of such a Nation and therefore while they continued Church-members though they were never so profane and wicked this could not prejudice the priviledge of the Church And though such deserve to be cast out yet as long as the Church doth through negligence or connivence continue such in a state of membership they cannot deny them the priviledge of members but yet it doth appear that now under the Gospel many men that live in the Church are not true members of the Church or if they be cast out then they and their children are justly deprived of the priviledges of members because it doth not belong unto them and though the posterity of Ismael and Esau did use Circumcision after they were separated from the Church of God yet it was unto them only a vain and an empty sign and no Church-ordinance neither was it unto them a Church-priviledge any longer than they continued Church-members 3 This seems to be demonstrative that none are to be looked upon as within the Covenant and to have right unto the seals but Church-members and that the Church-membership of children is a priviledge that they receive from their immediate parents only and that it 's not barely a parents being baptized and making a profession of Christ that doth de jure give him a right to membership and therefore if parents profess Christ and yet are not to be looked upon as members of the Church then Calvins rule I think will hold He that is not a Church-member himself cannot convey a right of membership unto his children Here are three things to be proved 1. That none have a right to the seals of the Covenant but those that are members of the Church This Calvin in an Epistle to Mr. Knox clearly asserts Semper attentè cavendum est ne profanetur hujus mysterii sanctitas quod fieri certum est si promiscuè alicui conceditur vel quispiam recipitur qui inter legitimos Ecclesiae cives numerari nequeat Therefore they that are baptized must be Cives Ecclesiae those that have a title to membership for the Ordinance of Baptisme is profaned if it be applied unto any other and the clear grounds of it are these The scals are the priviledges of Church-members only and if they be administred unto any whose priviledge they are not they are certainly profaned for Christ admitted none but Disciples Act. 2. and his Disciples afterward admitted none but Disciples They that believed were of one heart and they continued in breaking of bread and prayer c. and afterwards when the Church grew more corrupt and more remiss that such were admitted who did manifest they had no right unto this priviledge they were looked upon as spots in their feasts and it was judged a dishonour unto that Church And for this cause in the primitive times
nisi quod traditum yet conceiving it after my best examination to be a truth of God for I did desire to believe before I spake I could not but speak what I apprehended to be the mind of God therein I should not desire to obtrude any thing upon you without examination if it be upon tryal but hay and stubble I shall be content that it shall burn but if it be a truth of God it will abide the tryal and though such a truth as this is may receive some prejudice by the weakness of the instrument yet if it be a truth the Lord Jesus will certainly raise up such instruments as shall be able to carry it through against all opposition I come now to answer the former Objection I do acknowledge that there is no way for the Gentiles to come under Abrahams covenant but by faith they cannot claim a title from Abraham begetting that belongs to the Jews only who are therefore called by the Apostle the natural Branches Rom. 11.24 and the Gentiles are said to be ingrafted contrary unto nature and therefore the Gentiles can claim no interest in Abrahams covenant but from believing Abraham and yet I deny that the faith which shall give a man any kind of right or title must be true saving and justifying faith And to clear this I must give you a threefold distinction 1. Of Abraham as a father and it 's plain that the Scripture speaks of a threefold paternity of Abraham 1 Abraham is a natural father and so to the Jews only for they are his posterity according to the flesh the natural branches that grow out of this root and this is the paternity that the Jews did glory in We have Abraham to our father Mat. 3.9 Joh. 8.39 2 Abraham is a spiritual father unto all true Believers who walk in the steps of the faith of Abraham whether they be of the Jews or of the Gentiles and they shall be blessed with faithful Abraham Rom. 4.11 12. for which cause I suppose it is that Heaven is called Abrahams bosom Luk. 16.22 Luk. 16.22 Abraham being the father of all the Faithful they shall be received into the same happiness with himself and he will shew unto them special love and tenderness Infantes in parentum sinu gestati amorem benevolentiam intimam experiuntur and so to be gathered to the Saints our fathers is a special mercy because we shall have an experience of the highest love of the Saints even Abraham himself the father of us all will owne us for his sons and receive us into his bosom Others take it as a Metaphor from the custom of the Jews in conviviis in their feasts where they did alter in alterius sinu occumbere lye down one in the others bosom Joh. 13.23 answerable unto that Mat. 8.11 They shall sit down with Abraham Isaac Joh. 13.23 Mat. 8.11 and Jacob in the kingdom of God which doth very fitly suit unto the Parable in hand Lazarus stands at the door of the rich man and was not admitted to taste of his meat much less to sit down at his table but he shall sit down in Heaven at the supper of the Lamb with Abraham Isaac and Jacob he shall there lean upon Abrahams bosom 3 Abraham is also an Ecclesiastical or a Church-father Rom. 11.16 as it appears Rom 11.16 he is the root upon which the Churches of the Jews did grow and into which the Churches of the Gentiles are ingrafted many of the Jews were not spiritually his seed and yet they are said to be broken off not from being Abrahams natural seed that they could never be deprived of they were the posterity of Abraham according to the flesh and so they do remain even after their breaking off but they are only broken off from a Church-relation and so they are the seed of Abraham no more and the Gentiles are grafted not into Abraham as a natural father a natural root for they never can be the posterity of Abraham according to nature and many of them are not from him as a spiritual father for many of them believe not and therefore are in danger of being cut off as the Jews were broken off whence they grow upon Abraham and are ingrafted into him as an Ecclesiastical or Church-father So then the answer is there is not a sufficient enumeration of Abrahams paternities It 's confessed the Gentiles cannot become the posterity of Abraham as a natural father or as a spiritual father for so many of the Gentiles are not of the seed of Abraham as do not walk in the steps of his faith but yet Abraham is an Ecclesiastical father unto the Gentiles as well as he was to the Jews that believed not for the Gentiles are ingrafted into the same root out of which the natural branches were broken off which cannot be spoken of his faith and grace that 's never broken off therefore it is of his Ecclesiastical or Church respect it must be meant 2. In the Covenant of Abraham there are two parts the one spiritual consisting in the inward graces and priviledges the other external consisting in outward priviledges only and this doth plainly appear in Isaac who was the child of the free woman and unto whom the Covenant descended according to the spiritual graces and priviledges thereof and in Ismael who was the son of the bond-woman born after the flesh and taken into covenant only in reference to the external priviledges thereof Deut. 29.10 12 13 14. Rom. 9.4 and thus were all the Jews taken into covenant with God as it appears Ezech. 16.8 and yet with many of them God was not well pleased they never had an interest in the saving graces and the spiritual priviledges of the Covenant for Rom. 9.6 They are not all Israel that are of Israel they were all inchurch'd Israel but they were not all of elected Israel for as there is an external calling Mat. 22.14 and sanctification Mat. 22.14 Joh. 15.2 Heb. 10.29 and an external being in Christ so there is also an external being in Covenant with God or being taken into the Covenant of Abraham for Abraham is the root of the Covenant into which the Gentiles also are ingrafted Rom. 11.17 there is a fatness that is from the Olive-tree communicated to the branches even to such branches as were broken off in whose places the Gentiles were grafted in Now the saving graces of the Covenant are not communicated from any Company of men in the world no not from the invisible Church but from Christ only who is therefore said to be the Root of David Rev. 22.16 and the fountain of the Gardens Cant. 3.15 but Ordinances and outward Priviledges are properly the Churches and from the Church are communicated to others as members whether they be elect or reprobate the Gentiles therefore may have an interest in Abrahams Covenant in reference to the outward Priviledges and Ordinances thereof though
to the Jews and their children but also to the Gentiles for that is meant by afar off Eph. 2.17 all that shall be converted and take hold of the Covenant for themselves their posterity shall be taken into their Covenant-right also and that 's the inducement and the argument used Act. 2.39 The great plague of sin lies in this that a man does not only undo himself but his posterity as it was in Adam and the great comfort in grace is that a man shall do good to his posterity as it was promised to Christ Psal 89.29 filiabitur nomen ejus his name shall be continued amongst his posterity in the Church Now for God to give a man a name in his posterity to owne them it 's a great mercy to speak of a mans house a great while for to come and it 's exceedingly heightned by this Adams sin was imputed to his posterity as well as his grace now the priviledges of the Fathers Covenant shall be entailed but the sins of the parents are personal and shall never be imputed unto the children It 's true that the sin of Adam is imputed but the sin of the immediate parents is not imputed unto the children and though God doth visit the iniquity of the parents upon the children yet it is as true that the children do not bear the iniquities of the fathers so that the fathers priviledges are the childrens but the fathers sins are his own for every man now sins as a private person for himself not as a publick person as a representative head as Adam did for himself and his posterity 3 The Lord would engage their children to himself above all the Families and Posterities of the Earth Ezech. 16. and therefore he calls them the children born unto him thou hast taken my sons and my daughters that thou hast born to me and they shall have the Priviledge that none upon Earth have that thereby they may be engaged to God and if they be wicked they may be the more left without excuse as Nazianzen says in Orat. 40. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are persons given up and dedicated to God in their infancy and from the womb there is written upon them holiness to the Lord and if outward and temporal mercies be such great Obligations upon the Soul what are spiritual and church-Church-mercies and therefore the condemnation of the children of the Kingdom shall be greater than of the children of this world because their mercies and priviledges and opportunities are greater the Lord would bind them unto himself by higher cords of love than he does the rest of the world he does make the Sun to shine and the rain to fall upon other men filling their hearts with food and gladness There are temporal mercies that God dispenses to all men but they are not like unto the mercies of spiritual and Church-priviledges that 's beyond what other men injoy the Lord would bind them that are his Covenant-people unto himself by this cord beyond the rest of the world 4 To shew forth the goodness and overflowing mercy of Christ under the second Covenant unto unregenerate men who for the state of their persons are under the Covenant of Works and are enemies unto the Covenant of Grace and yet they shall injoy many priviledges and benefits thereby and this the Lord does bestow upon them either as preparatives and as means to fit them for services or as priviledges and rewards of services for all the creatures are now given into the hands of Christ and all men in the Church belong to him they all come under him either as servants or as sons they that are sons partake in the graces of the Covenant but the servants also partake in the priviledges of it for they abide in the house though not for ever and while they are in the house they have bread enough and to spare they partake of the root and fatness of the good Olive-tree they have Church-ordinances that fit them for service and they receive Church priviledges as temporal rewards of service 5 For the Elects sake there are some upon whom the grace of the Covenant is bestowed and unto whom the Priviledges of the Covenant do chiefly belong and they are the Elect of God but because they are bound up in the same bundle with the rest of mankind and men cannot distinguish for it is electing Love that puts the difference therefore as Ordinances are continued unto all for the Elects sake so Priviledges are bestowed upon all but the primary intention of them is for the Saints the Elect of God that they might partake in them for whom they were specially purchased and intended As the preaching of the Gospel was primarily intended for the Elect of God that they might partake in it and for the gathering in of Souls unto him but because the Elect of God are amongst the wicked of the world therefore if men be to dispense Ordinances they must do it in common and wait upon God in the use of them and the grace of God will fall upon the Elect unto Conversion and so it does accidentally come upon ungodly men but primarily and intentionally it is given only for the Elects sake as appears by this that when the Lord has finished and gather'd in the number of the Elect he will continue Ordinances and Church-priviledges unto unregenerate men no longer therefore as Ordinances being dispensed by men must be in common for the Elects sake so must priviledges dispensed by men be also as the World stands for the Saints and yet ungodly men enjoy much of the comforts of the world that a man would think it were all for their sakes so Church-priviledges are vouchsafed to ungodly men as a great part of the Church that a man would think all were for their sakes and yet it is with a special respect and primary intention to the Saints that both the one and the other are continued in the world wicked men shall share with the Saints in the external priviledges rather than the Saints of God be wholly deprived of them And upon these grounds I conceive it mainly is that the Covenant is entailed from father to son for the outward priviledges but not for the inward graces thereof § 9. How far Arguments drawn from Circumcision Quest 9 being an Ordinance of the Old Testament can by way of Rule determin any of the Essentials of Baptism which is an Ordinance of the New Testament that is how far this argument has force in it to say The Children of the Jews being infants came under their fathers Covenant and therefore were by Gods command initiated and sealed by Circumcision which was the Seal of the Covenant therefore under the New Testament the children of Christians while infants are taken into Covenant with their Parents and so ought to be initiated and sealed by Baptism which is the Seal of the Covenant under the new Administration as Circumcision was under the old
the invisible God Joh. 5.22 All the glorious Attributes of God do shew forth themselves in Christ he it is that acts them all the love of God to the Saints is exercised by Christ and all the grace of God is dispensed by Christ and the wrath of God against his enemies is executed by Christ and therefore we read of the wrath of the Lamb for it 's he that shall give every one of them their portion Now if it be so that all the Attributes be in the hand of Christ to exercise and act then the Lord raigne therefore let the earth rejoyce Christ Jesus exerciseth all the Attributes of God for his people in another way than ever they could else have been acted by God immediately Now if we be in Christ and by a mystical union make up one body with him then as he doth exercise and act all the Attributes of God as the Soveraignty of God is given to him and he sits upon the Throne of God in the administration of all things so they shall be all laid out for us for the Church which is the body of Christ and the fulness of him that fills all in all 3. Though all the Attributes be made over unto us in this manner yet it 's after a certain order in the Attributes the Attribute that the soul doth first close with is the mercy and the free grace and love of God and by that a man comes to have an interest in all the rest and the Attribute that is ingaged for all is the faithfulness and truth of God 1 The attribute that the soul first closes with is his love and mercy and free grace which are the attributes that the Lord doth mainly exalt in this life and has most gloriously set forth and therefore 't is called riches of mercy and the glory of God the knowledge of the glory of God It 's this attribute in which the Lord doth mainly glory 2 Cor. 4.6 and therefore it 's called his glory and it 's said that mercy rejoyceth over judgment for in the time of this life under the offers of the Covenant of grace the attribute that God doth mainly exerercise in the Gospel is free grace that God is in Christ reconciling the world and has sent abroad the ministry of reconciliation and God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son This is the great Load-stone that doth draw in the heart unto God 1 Tim. 1.14 God who is rich in mercy out of his abundant love c. Now the soul being thus drawn in with a cord of love the Lord giving a command unto loving kindness to fetch in such a wandring soul unto himself hence the soul at first coming unto God grounded upon his mercy by closing with him in this is made partaker of all the attributes of God and has an interest in them all but so as the soul doth close with mercy first and with free grace As it is in the offices of Christ the soul doth close with them all and has an interest in them all but yet so as it doth take Christ as he is offered him by the Father and that is first as a Priest as a surety for sinners and as one set forth to be a propitiation for sin and the soul having in this manner closed with Christ as a Priest and having a title to the Priestly Office now he has taken whole Christ and submits to him as his Prophet and King also thus as the immediate object of faith that justifies is Christ dying and rising and as made sin and as made a curse for us c. and then the soul having closed with Christ it has an interest in whole Christ with all his Offices so it 's here also though all the attributes of God are gloriously displayed in the second Covenant yet the attribute that mainly the Lord delights to honour is mercy and free grace and the soul first closes with this and so comes to have a title and an interest in all that is in God in every attribute 2 As his love is the first attribute that the soul closes with and so comes to have an interest in them all so it 's his faithfulness that is ingaged for the exercise of them all and therefore all our forgiveness is put upon his faithfulness He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins Isa 49.7 How do we know that the pardoning mercy of God shall be exercised towards us when we have sinned God is faithful who has promised 1 Joh. 1.2 and he hath wholly made over himself unto us in every attribute and the promise and the oath of God are both grounded in his faithfulness for the performance thereof so that the faithfulness of God doth not only assure us that all creatures shall work for us shall all work together for our good Rom. 8.29 but that all the attributes of God shall work for us in their season and in their order as it is said That the stars in their courses fought against Sisera so there is an order for the working of all the attributes and every one of them in their courses work for the Saints the faithfulness of God is ingaged for them so to do § 4. What are the ends for which God has in Covenant made over the Attributes unto his people They are many and we shall best discover them by the use that the people of God have of all the attributes in the Scripture 1. That they may be all discovered and made known unto the Saints there is in all men a blindness of heart and that specially in reference unto God from whom they are estranged through the ignorance that is in them Eph. 4.18 19. Now they having an interest in them all the Lord will proclaim his name and cause his mercy and goodness to pass before them though not in that visible manner as he did unto Moses Exod. 33.19 yet in a more spiritual way they do behold the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus 2 Cor. 4.6 and therefore the great aim of God in all his works is the discovery of his attributes unto the Saints and all his great works are done to that very end and therefore he gives them a Law that he may manifest his Holiness To shew his power he has made a world to manifest his love he has given Christ to declare his grace he doth pardon sin and to shew his justice and wrath he has made Hell and laid the foundations of the bottomless pit and this is the first end why God has made over his attributes unto his people it is that they may know them and therefore the great thing the Saints look at in all Gods works and his goings forth is what attributes are discovered I would see thy power and thy glory in the Sanctuary Psal 63.2 Psal 10.6 8. He saved them for his name sake that he
appear from the union of a Saint with all the Persons in the Trinity The Scripture speaks distinctly 1 Cor. 6.17 not only of a union with Christ but with the Spirit he that is joyned unto the Lord is one spirit i. e. not only makes up one spiritual body with him but also is one with the Spirit that dwells in him and therefore Joh. 17.21 Christs prayer is That they may be one Pater Filius sunt unum per naturam nostra unio per gratiam Athan. De 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritualis piorum in Deo unitatis in vitae hujus infirmitate pluribus disserere non possumus sed mysterium hoc reverenter adoramus unitatis hujus participes fieri optamus as we are one not only one amongst themselves but one with us also according unto that glorious and unspeakable union that is between the persons amongst themselves of which this is but a shadow and a resemblance God is said to dwell in the Saints and they are the habitation of God through the Spirit 2 Cor. 6.16 and they are said to dwell in God Joh 1.4 16. and 1 Thess 1.1 which is in God the Father c. and to work in God Joh. 3.21 And our Divines do commonly say that in glory our union with God shall be perfected and they say that the soul is capable of an union with God as it does appear in its union with the Son for the mystical union is not only unto Christ as Man but unto the Godhead as well as unto the Manhood of Christ for we are made one with whole Christ both God and Man Now by this means there being but one Essence there must follow a glorious union with all the Persons and if this be perfected as some make that to be the intent of Christs prayer Joh. 17.21 That they may be one with us as thou Father art in me if there be a perfection of their union hereafter then surely there is an union that is begun in this life with all the persons in the Godhead and so much also our particular union with them does imply for all communion is grounded in union 3. It will appear from the distinct Communion of the Saints with them all Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ 1 Joh. 1.3 And there is a fellowship of the Spirit also Joh. 14.21 1 Cor. 13.14 1 There are distinct manifestations Christ says I will manifest my self to him and there is a distinct Love He that loves me shall be loved of my Father I do not say that I will pray the Father for the Father himself loves you and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father also and therefore there is the love of the Son discovered and the love of the Father also Sometimes the love and good will of the one is let into the Soul and sometimes of another and the soul is drawn out and ravished sometimes with the love of the one and sometimes with the love of another and we honour them distinctly and believe in them distinctly honour the Son as they honour the Father and believe in God believe also in me Joh. 14.1 Answerable unto the manifestations and discoveries that are made such are the apprehensions and the affections of the Saints Some are mightily at first conversion taken up with the love of the Father and they see that Christ was but his servant in that work and the fountain of free grace was in the Father and the plot to redeem was his and it was his will that Christ came to perform and therefore their hearts and faith are mainly drawn out towards God the Father Others there be that have the love of Christ set on upon their hearts who though he were God and in the form of God and thought it no robbery to be equal with God yet he did empty himself and humbled himself unto death even the death of the Cross and he came off freely upon the motion of the Father which was so much the more because all the acts of the Father though they are acts of Love yet are acts of Majesty also and there was no dishonour or condescension in the Father but the acts of Christ were acts of ministery and of humiliation and that even unto the death of the Cross that he should be made sin and made a curse and the Love of Christ is discovered unto them as passing knowledge There are distinct manifestations of them all and therein is the ground of their communion with them all 2 There are distinct communications the Father opens his bosom and he reveals his counsels There is a book in the right hand of him that sits upon the Throne he reveals his mind unto Christ Joh. 1.18 Joh. 6.46 and by him unto his Saints and therefore he is said to come out of the bosom of the Father and therefore man is said to hear and learn of the Father and the Son communicates his righteousness his graces his victories his priviledges his inheritance and the Spirit doth convey unto the soul his right and his warmth for the Spirit is as fire his holiness and his comforts for he is the oyl of gladness his communion doth consist in giving and receiving and returning Now there is something that all the Saints do receive from each of the persons and there is a peculiar glory that they do return unto them all answerable unto the mercies that they do receive and by this means proportionable unto the mercies they receive such is the communion that the Saints have sometimes with one person and sometimes with another they know that he that has communion with the Father has communion with the Son and with the Holy Ghost because they are one but my meaning is that person which a mans heart is at the present affected with and drawn out unto in a more special manner that he has a special communion with which is something of the Love of the Father and the manifestation and communication of the Father sometimes of the Son and sometimes of the Spirit and answerable unto these our communion is said to be with each of them 4. It will appear by these distinct acts of office which they have for the good of the Saints undertaken for though opera ad extrà sunt indivisa and we cannot say that one works but the other works also and therefore we cannot call them opera propria proper works yet they are appropriata appropriated in the Scripture they are more specially attributed some unto one and some to another Eph. 1.2 3. Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world and blessed us with all spiritual mercies in Christ and for Christ we have Redemption through his blood c. and as for the Spirit Eph. 1.13 14. After you believed you were sealed with the holy Spirit
not the holy Spirit by whom you are sealed to the day of redemption do not resist the Holy Ghost do not tempt him lest he forsake you and say I will strive with you no more A man should fear the evil aspect of any word of God and the estrangement of any promise of God that he should be in such a condition that he cannot go to it with boldness and comfort and be kept off from an Ordinance of God that he cannot eat the Passover with the people of God in the season of it how much more when a man shall look up upon the Father Son and Spirit and sees any of these estranged from him for they seek the glory one of another and delight to have each other honoured in the hearts of the Saints and if thou walk unworthily towards any of them they are all of them provoked and displeased thereby § 3. Let us now take a view of the particulars how and in what respect each person doth make over himself unto the Saints in the second Covenant that we may see how they have an interest in them all 1. God the Father makes over himself in Covenant unto the Saints as he is the Father Joh. 20. therefore Christ calls him My Father and your Father my God and your God The Saints also call him our Father 2 Thess 1.1 In God our Father c. Christ is his Son by nature as he is God and as Mediator he is taken into the same Sonship by the grace of personal Vnion Luke 1.35 That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God And we are also taken into the same Sonship by the grace of Adoption by virtue of the mystical Union even as the Manhood of Christ is by the personal Union Now what is it to have an interest in him as a Father that we can call him Abba Father The sweetness of that relation is very great unto the Saints for he is the Father of mercies and he is the Father of lights 2 Cor. 1.3 Jam. 1.17 by which Majesty Holiness and Perfection is intimated for so much Light doth signifie 1 Joh. 1.5 and therefore he is said to dwell in light and Heaven to be an inheritance in light and he is the Fountain and Father of all Light whether it be lumen fidei or lumen gloriae Col. 1.12 the light of faith or the light of glory and from hence Saints looking upon God the Father making over himself unto them are greatly affected considering 1 they have the honour of such a relation and truly the highest honour of the Saints is that of Sonship as it was the highest honour of Christ in his relation that he was the Son of the Father and we count it a high honour to stand in relation unto a Prince as David said Is it a small matter to be Son-in-law to a King It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a priviledge or prerogative to be called the Sons of God Behold what manner of love the Father has shewed us Joh. 1.12 13. that we should be called the sons of God! Now we are the sons of God in this life we have this title of honour put upon us though it is true our condition doth not seem answerable unto such a relation adoptionis fructus nondum apparet c. 1 Joh. 3.2 2 We may be sure to be acquainted with his secrets and see all his actings for the Father loves the Son and shews him all that he himself does he did so to Christ and in your measure he will deal so with you also for the Son is in the bosom of the Father and therefore he knows his mind and his purpose The secrets of the Lord are with them that fear him Joh. 1. â—8 i. e. the secrets of his counsel with them and the secret of his providence over them his Law is in their hearts 3 He loves you as a Father My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And we know the bowels of a father to his son by Abrahams to Ismael for his everlasting state his love did rise so high though we are begotten not of the will of man but of God And though Absolom were a disobedient son yet David doth love him so that his heart went out to him even when he rebelled against him there is an efficacy in love 4 As a Father he 'l hear your prayers Father I thank thee that thou hast heard me I know thou hearest me always whatever you ask of the Father he will give it you also that are his children It is by our sonship that we prevail with God in prayer at any time we have an Advocate in the Father The Father himself loves you saith Christ and therefore whatever you ask the Father be sure you shall speed and Christ argues the case with us Why should you doubt this If you know how to give good gifts to your children that are evil how much more shall your heavenly Father give to them that ask 5 He will as a Father give you a supply for all your wants The Father loves the Son and has committed all things into his hand all judgment is committed to the Son so he will give you as a Father the greatest gifts he gives his Son his Spirit he will give the Holy Ghost to them that ask him he will give grace and glory he doth not think Heaven too dear for them because they are sons and his own Essence he will make their portion and happiness 6 He rejoyceth in your prosperity here in your well-doing when wisdom is justified of her children he rejoyceth in their well-doing a wise son maketh a glad father he loves to see them prosper to see their graces grow and their souls thrive that they may have all good things both here and hereafter 7 He spares them in their services as a father spares his son that serves him though they be weak he doth not reject their offerings and he doth accept the will for the deed does not deal with us as an enemy that watches for our halting but as a father we do not stand without as the rest of the world do but we come into the inner Court. 8 Lastly they have an interest in him for correction Whom I love I chastise says God and in all their afflictions he doth pity them as a father Eph. 3.12 he doth correct in judgment not in fury but in measure c. it is for their profit that they may say it was good for them c. But more particularly this must be premised How and in what respect each of the Persons have made over themselves to the Saints under the second Covenant that under the first Covenant all the persons had an equal hand in the same things and there were not opera propria but what the Father is said to do that the Son and Spirit also are said to do so
spreads the dung of their sacrifices upon their faces Mal. 3.3 It doth imply two things 1. That the Lord doth reject their Sacrifices with indignation as if they had offered dung in their solemn feasts 2. Summo dedecore eos afficiam I will spread the highest reproach on them so Mercer as you do unto a man when you cast dung in his face the Lord will reject their services and instead of honouring them in them he will cast shame upon them also whereas the services of the Saints are 1 accepted ordine supernaturali as flowing from a heavenly and supernatural principle and 2 ad vitam aeternam ordinata services appointed unto an eternal reward Other mens services are not thus accepted but as they come from a principle of nature so they shall have no higher reward they shall rise no higher than the head of the spring from whence they flow 6. There is a Communion also that the people of God have with the Father 1 Joh. 1.3 Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ There is a communion that the Saints of God have distinctly with all the persons when they receive mercy from them all and rejoyce in the love of them all and they do return to them again all the glory of the grace of them all as faith is distinctly to be exercised upon all the persons so the soul should strive to have a distinct fellowship and communion with all the persons 1 A man should pray to the Father for saith Christ Your Father knows that you have need of all these things 2 You are to give thanks to the Father who has blessed you with all spiritual blessings 3 You are to rejoyce in his love says Christ I will love him Eph. 1.3 Joh. 14.21 23. and he shall be loved of my Father I say not that I will pray the Father for you for the Father himself loves you you are in his bosom receive all gifts from him as from a Father and come to him as to a Father as one that has communion with him and access to him as unto a Father 4 Glory in the witness of the Father Joh. 5.7 for there are three that do bear witness in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these three are one you are not only to have the Spirits testimony and seal upon your evidences but the Fathers also bearing witness in your souls testifying unto you the adoption of sons There is a glorious communion that the Father gives unto his people as Christ had with the Father so may you also in and through him SECT III. The Relations undertaken by the Father and Christ in this Covenant § 1. THE Father having in this manner made over himself in Covenant to his people they have an interest in all the relations of the Father for we are not only related unto Christ but by him to the Father and as we are to exercise faith upon Christ under all relations so we are also upon the Father and these relations are both honourable and comfortable also to the Saints 1. God the Father is our Father says Christ I ascend unto my Father and your Father Joh. 20.17 Mat. 5.16 to my God and your God that they may glorifie your Father which is in heaven Be you merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful and therefore says the Apostle Rom. 1.7 Grace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ c. Now what is there in such a relation as this is unto God the Father We shall see what it was unto Christ the only begotten Son of the Father and see how in all things he is a Father to us as he is unto Christ though it be in a lower way for Christ in all things must have the preheminence 1 It is the great honour that is put upon Christ as Mediator Joh. 1.14 Luk. 1.35 that he is the Son of God we saw his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth That holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God and in this he is exalted above the Angels Heb. 1.5 Vnto which of the Angels said he at any time Thou art my Son and I will be unto him a Father Bernard and he shall be unto me a Son c. Altissimi Filius ac proinde co-altissimus ipse ejusdem penitùs altitudinis dignitatis And in this manner the Saints do partake pro modulo it is the greatest priviledge of the Saints that they do receive from union with the Son and that in which they are exalted above the Angels That as they do stand before God in a higher righteousness in their justification for though the righteousness of Angels be perfect in its kind yet it 's but the righteousness of a meer creature but the righteousness of Christ is called the Righteousness of God 2 Cor. 5.21 which though it were wrought in the humane nature and therefore was not the essential righteousness of God for that could not be imputed yet it was that which being wrought by him that was God and man the Godhead had an influence into it and gave it an excellence and efficacy so they have a higher sonship in their adoption that is it 's founded on a higher right than that of the Angels even in the Sonship of the second person in the Trinity for Christ as Mediator was not a Son by adoption but by generation his humane nature being taken into the same person did by virtue of that grace of union partake of the same Sonship for there was not a double Sonship of Christ one as he was God and the other as he was man for subjectum filiationis est suppositum the subject of filiation is a person as the School-men speak Now as Christ had great glory from other things in relation to the Angels Dan. 9.24 for he is the Head of Principalities and Powers and to the Saints he is the King of Saints the holy of holies and from all the creatures for he is the beginning of the creation of God and is the head over all things to the Church yea in reference to God himself for he is Gods King I will set my King and the man Gods fellow but there is none that is a term of so high an honour unto Christ as this that he is the Son and it 's this that the Lord doth publish to the world as the ground of all the rest Isa 4.5 Psal 2.7 I will declare the decree the Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son c. so it is with the Saints they are called the glory and the first-fruits of all the creatures the excellent ones Kings and Priests unto God to whom the Angels are but servants and ministring Spirits but yet there is no title of honour like unto this that they are called the Sons of God Men do glory
caecitatem veluti quodam velo diffusam ignorance and blindness diffused as by a certain veil there is a double veil and God will take both away a veil upon the truth and a veil upon the heart also and both shall be swallowed up that is shall be utterly removed and there shall come a time that the Sea of glass that is now mingled with fire shall be clear as crystal again and the Temple shall be opened so that a man may see into the Ark of the Testimony which formerly had a veil before it Rev. 11.19 that it could not be seen it was in the secret of the Pavilion of God but then the most secret mysteries shall be exposed unto the common view of the Saints but it shall be when the Kingdoms of the Earth shall be given to the Lord Jesus Christ and he shall reign for ever and ever 4. The Father is pleased in Christ his Son he delights in him and so he did before the world he was the delight of God the Father from all Eternity I was his delight daily Prov. 8.30 this is my beloved Son Mat. 3. ult and therefore even amongst men children are called the desire of their parents eyes and that upon which they set their mind their hearts do go out unto them Ezech. 24.25 so in your measure you that are Saints are the delight of God the Father from day to day he loves you as well with a love of complacence as with a love of benevolence and therefore he calls the name of the Church Esay 62. Hephziba my delight is in her the Lord takes pleasure in his people his delight is in them that fear him Psal 147.11 149.4 and them that hope in his mercy Therefore the carrying on of the work of Redemption to the full accomplishment of all the gracious intentions of the Father is called the pleasure of the Lord Isa 53.10 which was to prosper in the hands of Christ it being of all the works of God that in which he doth most delight as when a man sets his greatest love upon any thing or person in that he has the greatest delight to see it prosper and thrive and succeed never did an earthly father take so much delight and full satisfaction in the prosperity of a child and yet we know that a wise Son makes a glad father as the Lord does to see the souls of his people prosper and the ways of his grace to be fully magnified towards them because all the love of the creature is but a drop unto the love of the Father which is in Heaven as the Lord has more delight in Christ than he has in all the Saints so he has more delight in one Saint than he has in all the creatures besides because he bears unto them a greater love and hath from them a far greater glory There is joy in heaven says Christ over one sinner that repents and so there is amongst the Angels why because theirs is a joy in the Lord himself and it 's the happiness of the Saints that they can joy in God and we may well make God our Father our delight when he does make us his delight he that has the Son and the Saints and Angels in glory to delight in that yet he should declare that his delight should be with the sons of men here below what an amazing condescension is this of our God how does it ingage us to delight in him only 5. Jesus Christ as he was the Son had a glorious and a sweet communion with the Father so Christ saith Joh. 14.10 I am in the Father and the Father in me and he dwells in me it notes that constant communion that he as Mediator had with the Father Joh. 16.32 Ye shall leave me alone and yet I am not alone but the Father is with me and therefore upon all occasions he did retire himself unto the Father as his great support in the days of his pilgrimage Joh. 1.3 and so have the Saints also our fellowship is with the Father they have access by one Spirit unto the Father Eph. 2.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he leads us by the hand and by our sonship we have boldness with him Pater nomen pietatis potestatis est Father is a name of piety and power Tertul. Oh the infinite sweetness that is for the soul to walk before God the Father in ways of holiness that in these ways he may enjoy fellowship and communion with himself There is a great deal of sweetness in a communion of Saints our Brethren but much more in communion with Christ our Husband but most of all in communion with God our Father he is to be taken as well for a pattern of the one as of the other 6. As God is the Father of Christ so he doth hear the prayers of Christ and therefore Christ says Father I thank thee that thou hast heard me and I know thou hearest me always Joh. 11.41 And though his satisfaction be always referred unto his Godhead Heb. 9.41 yet his Intercession refers unto his Sonship Act. 20.28 Heb. 7. ult the word of the Oath makes the Son who is consecrated for evermore men that know how powerful the name of a father is and what bowels it moves may well assure themselves that it is much more in him who is the Father of mercies as well as our Father and therefore if we know how to give good gifts to our children and will give them suitable to their necessities surely so will he much more and such a man must acknowledge that our Father is Saints may assure themselves that they have not only an Advocate without them which is Christ with the Father and an Advocate within them unto the Father for the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used of both Joh. 16.27 but they have an Advocate in the Father also and it 's that which Christ puts them upon not only to look upon his Intercession as that which doth prevail only but to the Fathers love and the bowels that are in himself the Father himself loves you 7. As a Father he gives Christ an inheritance Thou art my Son Psal 2.7 8. I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance He has appointed him heir of all things Heb. 1.3 and all that are the sons of God are heirs Rom. 8.16 17. yea all that are sons of God are first-born Heb. 12.23 1 Cor. 3.22 and therefore they have a double portion All things are yours and Rev. 21.7 He that overcomes shall inherit all things c. And it 's such an inheritance as none else have in the creatures for it is one thing to hold it by right of a servant by providence and another by the right of a son 1 Pet. 1.5 for the son abides in the house always and 't is an inheritance in promises of grace and of glory which no other men in the world
a nearer union with the Father and with the Spirit also and herein lyes the greatest exaltation 2 There is more in union with the persons than there is in all other benefits whatsoever and all other interests as there is more in the person of Christ than there is in all the benefits of Christ so there is more in giving of the person of Christ than in giving of all the benefits that he bestows Thus there is more in our title to the persons than in all other interests whatsoever whether we have an interest in promises in creatures in ordinances nay it is more in some respect than an interest in Attributes for under the first Covenant the Attributes were after a sort made over to Adam that they should all work for him they were his portion but under the second Covenant it is that the interest in the persons comes in for if Adam had stood he had had an interest in God in common whatever was in the Nature of God all the Attributes of his Nature should have been his but it is the second Covenant that brings in union with the Son of God that gives us a distinct union with the Father and with the Spirit and therefore it is a personal interest that is the great mercy and glory of the new Covenant 3 It is our title unto the person that gives us a title unto all the benefits as it is in our union with Christ 1 Joh. 5.12 He that has the Son has life it 's our union with the Son that gives us a title unto life for him for the Covenant is matrimonial and it is the union with the person only that intitles the woman to her husbands honour and estate so it 's in this also having an interest in all the persons gives a man a title unto all the promises and unto all the priviledges of the Saints and therefore the jus haereditarium of the Saints unto all other good things from God lyes in this that they have an union with all the persons for they that are not intitled unto the persons do in vain hope to intitle themselves to the benefits 4 This gives a man a threefold title and interest 1 in all the Attributes 2 in the Divine Nature 3 in their actings for as they are all made over unto the Saints so they know that all these attributes are to be found in all the persons There is in the Father infinite wisdom and infinite power and infinite mercy and infinite grace c. so there is in the Son also for the attributes of the nature are in common to them all they having all of them but one and the same simple and undivided Essence and it is glorious to a Saint to see all the attributes in them all and thereby he is assured that in all the actings of the Father he will improve all the attributes and so it is in all the actings of the Son and the Spirit also and so they become ours in the actings of them by reason of our interest in all the three persons 5 This is the proper ground of our communion with God wherein lyes the sweetness of a Christians life here but mainly in that fellowship that he hath with God that he walks with God and that he is not alone but the Father is with him c Now all communion is personal and is a mutual intercourse between persons 1 Joh. 1.5 Our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ And there is a fellowship of the Spirit 2 Cor. 13.14 It 's true we have an inheritance in attributes and in promises but we cannot properly be said to have fellowship with him but in regard of the persons Adam had in his creation an inheritance in all the creatures but yet he could not have communion with them there was none meet for fellowship with him but Eve so it 's here there is nothing but a person that a man can have communion with It 's true our communion is in things as we have communion with Christ in his righteousness and in his priviledges in his graces in his victories that is we have a share together with him in them all and they are as truly ours as they are his according unto our necessity but yet remember our communion is with the person of Christ not with the benefits so it is in this also we have a communion with Father Son and Spirit in the attributes of the Nature so that they are as truly ours according to the tenour and for the ends of the new Covenant as they are his but still our union and communion is with the persons in them therein doth properly the foundation lye as if a husband marry a wife she shall have a communion with him that is a common share in his honour and in his estate in whatever is his but yet the communion that she hath is with the person of her husband 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now man being a sociable creature we know what sweetness there is in fellowship with the persons of men to have the communion of those he takes most delight in as nature doth inable a man to taste the sweetness of that fellowship so doth grace being a Divine nature and fitting the soul for communion it doth inable a man to taste the sweetness that is in fellowship with the Divine nature with all the persons in whom only there is all fulness and joy unspeakable and full of glory 2. If there be such an interest in the persons to be had then let every man examine himself whether he have such a title unto the persons or no. In all other titles we do use to try because we would not be deceived and upon the tryal of a title a man doth conclude it is good illud certum quod ex dubio certum that is certain which out of doubtful is made certain Let us therefore examine our title which we have so much the greater cause to do because there is this vanity in the heart of a man that it 's very apt to suppose a title here without trying and this is the overthrow of many a soul the foolish Virgins did suppose that they had been espoused unto Christ and should have gone unto the marriage with him as well as the wise c. as men do in the benefits of Christ they are willing to suppose that their sins are pardoned and their persons are accepted and so they deceive their own souls there is a fallacy when a man disputes ex falsis suppositis from false suppositions and then all the conclusions that he doth build upon them are unsound and that 's the very condition of most Christians they argue ex falsis suppositis from false suppositions all their life time Jam. 1.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that 's the fallacy spoken of Jam. 1.22 But be you doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own souls
The soul is to rest upon all the promises that in Scripture are made concerning these persons there are promises that have a peculiar respect unto them all 1 There are promises that specially concern the Father which though they be formally made unto the Son yet it is with special respect unto the Saints as the promise of giving Christ unto their souls and nourishment and life by him for he says Joh. 6.32 Moses gave you not the bread that came down from heaven my Father gives you the true bread promises of justification by him Esa 53.11 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many that is as much as to say as many as believe in him shall receive remission of sins and a promise of guidance Exod. 23.20 Behold I send my Angel before you They were in a strait for they were in the wilderness where there was no way now the Father doth promise the Son should undertake their guidance and it is not a promise that is peculiar unto those times only though there was something peculiar in it And there is a promise of gifts Acts 1.4 Wait for the promise of the Father The extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost that were to be poured out to fit men for office in those times it 's called the promise of the Father and the promise also of preservation and perseverance My Father that gave them me is greater than all Joh. 10.29 and no man can pluck them out of my Fathers hand 2 There are some promises that do more especially belong unto the Son as that of grace and a continual supply he shall go in and out and find pasture and says Christ I am come that they may have life and have it more abundantly and a promise of a constant presence I will dwell in them and walk amongst them Joh. 10.9 10. what concord hath Christ with Belial I am with you to the end of the world that he will beautifie his Church and sanctifie it and cleanse it that he may present it unto himself a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing Eph. 6.26 27. and that he will subdue our enemies Esay 63.3 4. I will take them in my arms and keep them from their enemies fury their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments and I will stain all my raiment for the day of vengeance is in mine heart and the year of my redeemed is come he shall be cloathed with a garment d pt in blood and his name shall be called the word of God Rev. 19.13 3 There are some promises that in a more special manner respect the holy Spirit he has promised them a spirit of sanctification and he will purge the filth of the daughter of Sion by a spirit of burning Esa 4.4 promises of direction The Spirit shall lead you into all truth Joh. 16.13 he shall undertake to be the guide of your way and you shall hear a voice crying behind you This is the way walk in it a spirit of liberty also you shall have 2 Cor. 3.17 for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and a spirit of victory Esa 59.19 when the enemy doth break in as a floud the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him so that they shall conquer not by might nor by power but by my Spirit Zac. 4 6. Now all these lead a man unto the person of the Spirit and his interest in him as so many lines into a centre for as all the promises do lead a man to union with Christ by which means he becomes an heir of promise so do all the promises lead a man to an interest in his person without which he can lay no claim unto the promise that is made by any of the persons for they are not universal and made unto all but as the promises of Christ belong unto those that are one with him so all the promises of the persons belong only unto those that have an interest in them and therefore we are to cast our selves upon the persons for the accomplishment of the promises 3 Faith is to rest upon the love of them all for though they are essentially one and therefore have but one will yet as they are personally distinguished so they are three and have distinct wills and distinct loves and therefore Christ distinguishes between his will and the Fathers will I am come not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me not my will but thy will be done essentially his will and the Fathers are one but they are personally distinguished so they have essentially one love but if we look upon them as persons so they have each of them his own proper and peculiar love He that loves me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him if any man love me my Father will love him Joh. 14.21 c. so that faith is not only to close with the love of God in general as it is an Attribute of the Divine Nature as his Wisdom and Holiness Mercy and Power are but faith is also to close with the love of each of the persons as they are relatively distinguished one from another the love of the Father and the love of the Son and Spirit and as it is the love of God essentially that is the ground of all that God has wrought for us it was his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 3.4 and though Esau was Jacobs brother yet I loved Jacob Mal. 1.2 so it is the personal love of all the persons that is the ground of all those workings of the persons for us and therefore you are to take in that love also as an object of your faith 4 Faith should rest upon the appropriated acts of each of these persons and rely upon them for the performance of them We have formerly heard that each person hath undertaken some special and peculiar acts for mens salvation as 1 the work of Vocation Adoption Justification Preservation Glorification for it is your Fathers pleasure to give you the Kingdom they are all of them undertaken by God the Father And 2 the work of Satisfaction Presentation Oblation Intercession Conquest Judgment all these the Son has undertaken 3 The work of Sanctification Direction Consolation Supplication they are all of them undertaken by the Spirit Now we are not only to rely upon the essential faithfulness of God for the performance of it Heb. 6.17 but upon the personal faithfulness of each of these undertakers for they are all of them ingaged in it and here is a farther and higher consideration to be taken in the acts of the persons and they are of two sorts 1 Acts ad intrà internal acts and they are acts of nature which are acts one towards another as the generation of the Father in respect of the Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost as from them both 2 There are acts ad
but this and 't is as well as I could wish for my self though I have nothing of the things below 2 In the Saints and because their condition in this life is commonly set forth by the state of the people of Israel in Egypt let that be the instance to express it unto us when they were come out of Egypt they were in a barren and howling wilderness death did a thousand ways present it self to them and under as many shapes they had neither bread nor water nor provision nor protection but what they had from God immediately and yet having God in Covenant they had enough because they were interessed in the alsufficiency of God and therefore if they want bread he gives them Manna and if water he doth cause the Rock to yield it if protection if direction he is a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night in allusion to which the Prophet speaks Esa 4.4 5. Now we shall see this set forth by Moses who was an eye-witness of it and a Leader of the people through the wilderness Deut. 33.27 for their provision it 's true that he has a land of corn and wine and the Heavens drop down dew but it is from the fountain of Jacob it 's commonly expounded the posterity of Jacob and so haply it may be understood Qui à Jacobo instar fontis perennis ortum ducunt but there is yet a spiritual meaning in it and so Cocceius observes Fons Jacobi dicitur quòd est fons salutis Psal 68.27 The fountain of Jacob is the fountain of salvation So that all these mercies they had from him that was the Father and the Fountain of mercy he was the Fountain of Israel and for protection the eternal God is thy refuge in danger you need flye to no other Asylum but to him alone Esa 26.20 Come my people enter into your chambers and shut the door about you it is the Attributes of God and his alsufficiency that are the chambers into which the Saints are called to hide themselves and therefore it is to preserve them from dangers that if they fall at any time they may never fall to the ground for under them are the everlasting arms which notes two things 1 Potentiae sustentationem sustentation by his power 2 Gratiae amplexum the embracement of his grace he doth carry them in his arms and though they fall yet still his arms are under them and who is this that is in this manner all unto them it is he that is alsufficient he that is thy God in Covenant the God of Jeshuron for a habitation they and thy fathers wandred up and down having no setled dwelling place incertis sedibus but thou Lord Psal 90.1 hast been our habitation in all generations and when they wanted Ordinances in the Captivity they had neither Tabernacle nor Temple but he was a Sanctuary to them Ezech. 11.16 he did supply the want of publick Ordinances in himself and for their guidance and Deut. 32.10 12. The Lord alone led them and there was no strange God with him he did all by himself alone he led them and he fed them and there was none other joyned with him in the work he was alsufficient to them But to come to the reasons and grounds of all this Reas 1 1. The first and great ground of all this is his own love it was only his love that brought him into Covenant with them because the Lord loved thee and made thee to be his people it was looking upon them in the time of love and this love is the womb in which the Covenant and all the mercies of the Covenant were bred now the nature of love is bountiful nescit nimium it knows no excess The Father loved the Son Joh. 3.3 5. 2 Thess 2.16 and has given all things into his hand the Father hath loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace The great thing that God aims at in the second Covenant is his own glory manifestative glory now he cannot receive manifestative glory but according to the measure of love manifested unto the creature and his love therefore being the highest he must find out an expression that is suitable to the manifestation of such a love the gift must be such as may express the height and depth and breadth of his love and therefore it must be in giving the greatest blessing or else it could not have been an expression of the greatest love if there had been any thing greater or better to have been bestowed that is in point of consolation he would have given it Heb. 6.13 If there had been a greater he would have sworn by it so he doth in point of affection also if there had been a greater he would have given that gift but a greater than himself in his alsufficiency God had not to bestow 2. It was necessary from the insufficiency of all things else to supply our wants there is an insufficiency in all the creatures and therefore a continual restlesness in the soul while it is bottomed upon the creatures they are but broken cisterns Jer. 2.13 that can hold no water when once man departed from God and forsook him the Fountain of living water he sought a sufficiency in the creatures alone they immediately became vanity they have not a vanity in themselves but it is the sin of man that fills the creature with vanity if the Lord should give a man as he has done the Devil the dominion of the world for he is not only the Prince of the air but he is the god of this world yet all this would but leave a man in the Devils condition and his soul would never be satisfied with it there is still something wanting that all the creatures cannot supply so that the soul saith as Austin Quicquid nobis adest praeter Deum nostrum dulce non est nolumus omnia quae dedit si non dat seipsum qui dedit omnia 3. Because the Lord would have the happiness of the creatures to concenter in him alone which could never be if he were not an alsufficient God Esa 26.3 Trust in the Lord for ever 1 Pet. 1.13 trust perfectly in the grace that is revealed unto us by Jesus Christ if there were any thing wanting in him to be supplied and fetched in elsewhere the soul could never trust in him alone but he will have them have no other god therefore surely there is no need of any other he hath all good things in him the happiness of the soul lies in the rest of it Psal 116.7 and therefore when a man comes to Heaven he is said to enter into his rest Now God is the resting place of the soul return unto thy rest O my soul wherefore if there were not an alsufficiency but something wanting in God the soul must needs be restless till it know whither to go for a supply but he being
over to his people that are in Covenant with him and if it be made over to them as you have demonstrated what use have they of it when it doth neither bestow upon them good things nor protect them from evil Answ 1. The Lord doth it that their sufficiency may be in him alone and that they may trust perfectly in him Zeph. 1.12 we read of men setled on their lees therefore God empties his people from vessel to vessel that so he may take them off from the lees of the creatures or sins upon which they are apt to settle men do think there is some sufficiency in God or else they would not seek him at all Now if they would look upon him as alsufficient then they would be content with him alone and could say to God Take all things else from me so thou give me thy self and it 's enough here therefore is the trial when the Lord shall deal with a man as he did with Abraham he promised to give him the land of Canaan for a portion but he gave him not a hand-breadth in it but only a burying place God will have him to trust him without a pawn so he will have thee to live by pure faith and that is when a man hath nothing of sight but his dependence is upon God alone and he hath nothing of the creature to look upon It 's a disposition that is apt to creep upon the best men to serve God in the abundance of all things but not in want It 's an ordinary accusation that the Accuser of the brethren hath Rev. 12. and he doth accuse them before God day and night and there is as much danger of Satan as to his accusations as there is in his temptations he doth commonly object Doth he serve God for nought Therefore to clear the sincerity of his servants the Lord doth as he did to Job take all away from them whatever riches they have here of this worlds goods and give them himself and they live upon him and thereby he doth silence the wicked one and by this means they have in their consciences a trial of their own sincerity with the Lord. 2. The Lord doth it that they may be made partakers of the sufferings of Christ the Lord did from Eternity ordain us to a conformity unto Christ Rom. 8.29 that as he was so should we be in this world There is a double image we are to conform to 1 Of God and that is laid up in the Mediator 2 Of Christ the Son of God and our happiness is in being conformed unto both these images Rom. 8.29 1 Joh. 1.3 and by this means having communion with both when we come to Heaven we shall have the fruition of both Now in this he did leave us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an exemplar 1 Pet. 2.21 there is a fellowship of his Suffering as well as of his Resurrection and we must have a share in the one as well as in the other in his sufferings as well as in his graces and his victories Phil. 3.10 Now we know Christ was a man of sorrows and one that had trial of all sorts of afflictions the Lord took all from him that are the comforts of mankind in this life though he were Lord of all yet he did lay down all Joh. 17.5 for he that laid down his glory that he had with the Father before the world was it was not much unto him to lay down all things else that though the Earth were the Lords to dispose of yet his blessed Son had not so much of it as to set the soal of his foot upon in the earth and by this was the Prince of your Salvation made perfect Heb. 2.10 for there is not only active but passive obedience required of us and we must come to perfection the same way that Christ himself did and if it lead us to perfection it 's no great matter though we be deprived here of what the world counts our perfection and we may glory in the Cross being it is the direct way to the Crown 3. God is alsufficient to them in the loss of all things and in the want of all things and it is better for any soul that their sufficiency be in him than in themselves and they would chuse it rather and therefore 2 Cor. 6.10 it is said As having nothing and yet possessing all things He was alsufficient to the three Children in the fiery Furnace and to Daniel in the Den of Lions therefore the people of God are compared unto fatherless children With thee the fatherless find mercy Hos 14.3 It hath been the manner of men to provide Hospitals for children that are cast forth and forsaken by their parents and so it was with David When my father and mother forsook me then the Lord took me up In what a sad condition is a child an infant cast forth and forsaken by the parents that hath â—â—ne to take care of him and to provide for him c. but the more perfectly they are fatherless the greater assurance they have of provision from him he is a most merciful Father and therefore he must be compassionate to his children in misery and the mercies we need are better in his hand than ours he knows how to do it when our wisdoms are non-plust and we cry out We know not what to do but our eyes are unto thee he knows how to deliver the just out of temptation though they are often in such straits that they know not how they should be delivered but grope as blind men they are utterly devoid of counsel to direct themselves and he knows not only how but when to do it the season of mercy is much to be considered as well as the season of duty the one makes it acceptable to God and the other sweet to us the Lord is a God of judgment Isa 30.18 Joel 2.23 and therefore blessed are those that wait for him as Gods way is best so is Gods time best Joel 2.23 He will give you the former and the latter rain pluviam justitiae the rain of righteousness that is largam copiosam a large and copiose rain and so Drusius expounds it as Christ is called the Sun of Righteousness but others understand justitiam justice to be as much as in a just proportion so much as shall be needful and for your good and no more there shall not be excessive rain and he will give you this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in primo that is as some render it in the first month but the word signifies not only primus ordine sed dignitate that which shall be the choicest and the fittest for them pluviam tempestivam a seasonable rain in the fittest season it 's a great mercy to be in the hand of God for the timing of mercy for our hearts are hasty and we would have them too soon and so they would be unseasonable
and prove a curse and not a blessing 4. Because it is very sweet to God when we follow him through a wilderness and see nothing but an alsufficiency in him through a land not sown Jer. 2.2 then you shew your love to him and he looks upon it as the day of your espousals Hos 9.10 I found Israel as grapes in the wilderness it is a proverbial speech when you have none to look to but God Drusius when you are in a land of drought it is never so pleasing unto God as when we are brought into a wilderness and yet there to follow him and the Lord doth never speak so sweetly to us as when he doth deprive us of these outward things that our hearts may stay upon him alone and therefore Hos 2.14 he says I will allure her into the wilderness what was there in the wilderness that might allure her The wilderness has a double consideration 1 It was a place of affliction and so there was nothing to allure for no affliction for the present is joyous but grievous 2 The wilderness was a place of manifestation where God did shew himself in his Ordinances and in his mighty works and if the wilderness be so there is an alluring in it and then saith God will I speak to her heart O when God brings into the wilderness and gives discoveries of himself there are the greatest comforts and the sweetest speakings unto the souls of his Saints the Lord doth not fail them in their time of need 5. Gods great glory is to manifest his Attributes in the sufferings of his people and it is the great work that he doth in the world and the greatest comfort that the Saints have is to see the Attributes of God drawn forth and to work for them Jer. 2.31 Have I been a wilderness to Israel It 's true says the Lord I brought them into a wilderness and did allure them thither but when they were there I was not a wilderness unto them they found all in me though the earth afforded them nothing yet there was nothing wanting from Heaven it was not a wilderness when they were in the wilderness See an instance of it Jer. 29.22 there were two false Prophets that did strive to make provision for themselves and they pleased the people Jer. 2.29 and said The King of Babylon should not carry them away captive they spoke lies in the name of the Lord and we see what became of them but Jeremiah that made no provision for himself did not as Baruck seek great things for himself we see how he is provided for even in the enemies hand Jer. 39.11 12. Look well to him do him no harm but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee how good is it to look up to God for all our supplies and not to distrust his goodness and power in any danger or strait that we may be exposed to 6. As our supplies do come from God so also there is a special token of love and interest discovered in his sufficiency and that is sweeter than the mercy it self the Lord loves to give unto his people every mercy that they need and as it is lined with love so it shall be faced with love that the mercy shall come in according unto the promise and he can look upon it as the birth of the promises as a pledge and a fruit of interest in the alsufficiency of God it 's a great thing and is much more than the blessing it self if it were a thousand times multiplied that all the promises lead a man to Christ the foundation of them all 2 Cor. 1.20 they do lead a man as beams to the Sun so when the mercy leads a man to his interest in the alsufficiency of God that 's more than the mercy it self when a mâ—n sees it 's given in to the bargain when he seeks first the Kingdom of Heaven all things in this world shall be added to him Psal 6.33 though they are in themselves but small yet they are magni amoris indicium there is a great deal of difference between a kiss and a reward though there may be a greater bounty in the one but there is more love in the other and so far as the people of God taste that the Lord is gracious so far they taste his love is sweeter than all unto them for if there were not love in the gift there were no relish in it we use to despise the gifts only of enemies and indeed the hearts of all the Saints do so far undervalue them as Luther that they can tell God Let thy gifts of this worlds goods only be to another but let me have a smile from thy face one kiss of thy mouth and it shall chear me more than corn or wine and oil as for all other things they are but as Luther said of the Turkish Empire mica canibus projecta a mite cast to the dogs because there was no love in it therefore a little that the righteous hath is better than the riches of many wicked as a little that the righteous doth is better than the pompous services of many wicked persons because there is love in the one and none in the other and without this all is as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal Object 2 You say that none have an interest in the alsufficiency of God but his Covenant-people But we see that the men of the world have great sufficiency Psal 73.7 they have more than heart can wish they enjoy all manner of abundance that one would think the alsufficiency of God were made over to them rather than to the Saints one would have thought it to have been the portion of Dives rather than Lazarus For the wicked fare deliciously every day c. Answ It 's true indeed that many wicked men who are strangers to God and his Covenant have great sufficiency in outward things but yet 1 though it be from the alsufficiency of God for he it is that is the Fountain of common mercies he doth cause the Sun to rise upon the unjust c. he opens his hand and fills every living thing it is he therefore that is said to fill their bellies with his hid treasure Psal 17.14 but yet it is not from their interest in his alsufficiency they have all from God but they have no interest in God it 's one thing to receive mercy from God ex largitate from an overflowing of his goodness and another thing to receive it ex proprietate from an interest in his goodness There are some benefits by Christ that wicked men have that have no interest in Christ there are many works that the Sun doth effect in the earth when it never shines and so it 's with Christ he vouchsafeth good things to many a soul in whose Horizon he doth never rise there is a great difference in the manner of conveyance 2 A sufficiency they have
the creatures Thou art my father and they have their help in them there is no mercy for them in the Lord in an evil day the creature then shall be so far from assisting that it shall distress them for the Lord rejects carnal confidence 2 Kings 16.5 8. Jer. 48.13 Isa 31.2 3. and he says Thou shalt be ashamed of Bethel thy confidence and ashamed of Egypt as thou wast of Assyria c. for it doth engage God not only against the evil doers themselves but against their helpers and therefore the way for a people to find mercy from God is to put away all carnal confidences and dependences whatsoever and say as they did Hos 14.3 Assur shall not save us neither will we ride upon horses this is the way to mercy Jer. 17.5 Cursed be the man that makes flesh his arm and his heart departs from the Lord he shall be like the heath in the desart and shall not see when good comes he shall inhabit the parched places of the wilderness c. But blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord whose hope the Lord only is he shall be as a tree planted by the waters that spreads out its roots by the river and shall not see when heat comes nor be careful in the year of drought There is no man in a worse condition in an evil time than he that has had his heart resting upon creature-comforts and his spirit has gone out to them and not to the Lord who then will send him to the gods whom he had chosen to himself and there is not only the first and original curse upon the creature as the fall of man left it but also there is a more particular and immediate curse upon the creature by reason of the confidence of men and that sets God against it and blasts it before its time which is like unto the curse of Christ upon the fig-tree if it had stood it would in time have decayed by reason of the first curse that came upon all the creatures and so it would have withered away but now Christ comes with a more particular curse immediately and it is dried up by the roots and so it is with all the creatures that the vain confidence of man puts into the place of God Isa 30.12 13. and expects a supply and assistance from says the Prophet Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perversness and stay thereon therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall swelling out in a high wall whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant and he shall break it as the breaking of a potters vessel that is broken so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sheard to take fire from the hearth or to take water withal out of the pit Vse 2 § 2. As it is a just reproof unto all the Saints that place their sufficiency in the creature so it is also unto them that do place any sufficiency in themselves it is well observed by Aquinas that there are two roots upon which all sin in a man grows and from which they have their continual support and supply ex parte aversionis à bono incommutabili superbia ex parte conversionis ad bonum commutabile avaritia the first thing in 〈◊〉 is aversion from God and then the soul turns it self unto something else Jam. 1.14 and the thing that was next in order was self and so men are turned unto themselves and so self taking upon it self a Deity it must have also a sufficiency The first sin was pride now pride is nothing else but an overweening apprehension of a mans own excellency when a man doth think of himself above what he ought and from thence there follows in the soul self-admiration self-sufficiency self-dependence and a contempt of others undervaluing all in comparison of it self one that has enough within himself he needs not go out unto any other and there is nothing more ordinary than for men to do it for they are ready to place their sufficiency in any thing rather than in God Now there is a twofold self-sufficience that the heart of man is apt to go out unto 1 In respect of gifts and inward abilities either acquired or infused and this the Apostle doth give a charge against Rom. 12.3 That no man do think of himself above what he ought but according as God hath given to every man the measure of faith per fidem intelligit dona spiritualia Glass Now when men have received a spiritual gift immediately they have a dependence thereupon and place a sufficiency in themselves and they are as if they had all knowledge in themselves and think they need go out of themselves for nothing and so the wise man glories in his wisdom and the strong man in his strength all such glorying is a fruit of pride and self-sufficiency so we see how far Samson trusted in his strength and Solomon in his wisdom and their own sufficiency proved their snares And that 's the common use that the Devil makes of all abilities either infused or acquired that they may as we read in Ezech. 16. trust in their beauty and boast themselves of what they have received as if they had not received it 2 There is also a sufficiency in respect of grace received as we see in Peter Though all men forsake thee yet will not I though I should die with thee yet will not I deny thee having received a principle of grace he looked upon the acting of it in his own power as if he had no more dependence upon Christ the Fountain of his grace but could go out in his own strength against the temptation and this makes men trust in themselves for all self-confidence depends and is grounded upon a self-sufficiency and this the Apostle denies to be in themselves 2 Cor. 3.3 We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves all our sufficiency is of God for pride being an inordinate and high apprehension of a mans own excellency therefore the higher the excellency the greater is the pride and the more will Satan surely put a man upon a dependence thereupon that he that is able to do all things through Christ that strengthens him and by the power of God shall look upon himself as the fountain of his own sufficiency which was properly the Devils sin and it is the like Godhead that he strives to affect men withal that whereas the proper end of grace is to carry a man out of himself and to make him happy in another and so sufficient in another Satan perswades a man that having received grace he should place this in himself and in the grace that he has received which is properly a Torch from Hell 1 Joh. 5.19 which may and many times doth befal the heirs of Heaven that they that place truly their happiness in God yet may too far
c. But now consider for thy better tryal 1. He that hath an interest in the alsufficiency of God hath an interest in Christ for though the Attributes of God are his Essence God himself yet there is a threefold respect unto Christ that we are to have in them 1 It is by him that we are intitled to them for he is first in the Covenant and we in him and therefore in all the promises he hath a preheminence therefore the Lord is first his God Joh. 20.17 and then our God Joh. 20.17 it 's by our interest in Christ that we have an interest in God 2 In him all the Attributes of God are discovered and revealed and that in such a manner as we never could have seen them 2 Cor. 4.6 We behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ for he is the image of the invisible God Col. 1.15 which I cannot look upon as spoken of Christ as God for so he is the invisible God and equally invisible with the Father but as Mediator and so the glorious Attributes of God do shine and shew forth themselves in him 3 As all the Attributes of God are exercised and actuated by him so all the mercy of God and the wisdom of God and the judgments and severity of God it 's all in the hand of Christ to be executed by him for the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son Joh. 5.22 He raiseth the dead and he quickneth whom he will he bears up all things by the word of his power he hath the keys of Hell and of death he kills and he makes alive c. he hath committed all his works unto Christ and all his Attributes are acted by him for the ruling and ordering of these works and he hath committed unto Christ all the promises and all the Attributes of God are in his hand for the accomplishment of these promises c. it 's the foundation of all a Christians comfort when he doth see the promises of God in the hands of Christ to dispense and the providences of God in the hand of Christ to dispense and the Attributes of God in the hand of Christ to exercise and to actuate for both these There is a fourfold sight of faith in this life that is exceeding glorious to see God in Christ Christ in God to see Christ in us and we in him Joh. 14.20 2 Cor. 5.19 he therefore that hath an interest in Christ hath an interest in the alsufficiency of God and none else and we are to try our interest in Christ by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us for if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8.9 10. And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin and the Spirit is life because of righteousness 2. He that hath an interest in the alsufficiency of God doth chuse this for his portion to place his happiness in Josh 24.22 Josh 24.22 You have chosen the Lord to be your God no man hath an interest in God but by choice A man doth not only chuse his way some the broad and some the narrow way but men do also chuse their portion and the wisdom and folly of a man is much seen in his choice and in his esteem and as the first going forth of the love of God to us is in his election of us so the first going forth of our love to him is in our election of him also and he that doth chuse God aright doth chuse all that is in God as the mercy of God to pardon him and the grace of God to heal him and the power of God to defend him and the holiness of God to sanctifie him the wisdom of God to guide him and the alsufficiency of God to make provision for him and faith is seen in the electing as well as in the consenting act of the soul Josh 24.23 now as Josh 24.23 having chosen the Lord they must put away the strange gods that were amongst them and incline their hearts to the Lord God of Israel so you must cast away all sufficiency in any thing else all creature-sufficiency all self-sufficiency and look upon all as vanity and emptiness and as that which hath no sufficiency in it and as that wherein your sufficiency doth not consist And the word in the Hebrew doth signifie three things in the Scripture 1 Inclinavit for the bent of a mans heart to go out that way as Judg. 9.3 where there were two that contended for the supremacy it 's said That their hearts inclined after Abimeleck 1 King 2.28 Joab inclined after Adonijah though he turned not after Absolom a mans heart must go out in the bent of it this way 2 Reclinavit for a man to rest upon a thing Amos 2.8 You lye down upon cloaths laid to pledge c. and therefore the word signifies lectum a bed upon which men lye down or rest themselves and so it should be here the soul should rest and lean upon this alsufficiency of God as that which he hath chosen and in which he rests and therefore the word signifies baculum a staff to lean upon 3 Extendit expandit as Esa 4.22 He stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain c. so should a man do he should open his heart extend it and stretch it out enlarge it in all the desires and affections of it towards the alsufficiency of God and this will be the necessary and proper fruit of such a choice of God in his alsufficiency he therefore that hath an interest in the alsufficiency of God hath chosen him in his alsufficiency for his God and he that hath so done doth put away all other gods casts off all other sufficiencies and doth in the bent of his soul incline to God alone unto him he doth stretch out his soul in the latitude and utmost extent thereof and in and upon this he doth rest and sweetly repose himself in the middle of all difficulties and dangers whatsoever 3. He that hath an interest in the alsufficiency of God doth honour and exalt that Attribute in his heart for whatever we have the comfort of God must have the glory of as there is not a promise but if the soul sucks sweetness from it it is exalted in that soul and a man having tasted of it doth set a high price upon it and his soul goes out to it to live upon it all his life time Isa 38.10 and there is not a truth of God but by these things men live Esa 38.10 wherefore the price and the glory of them doth arise in the soul and he thinks he did never know how to value them before he knew not what they were worth but now he sees there is a value in them as Luther did in Rom. 1.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys As a man that hath found a medicine to relieve him when he was in great extremity
root be holy so are the branches and if the first-fruits be holy the lump is also holy the root is Abraham and the Fathers and they are said to be the first-fruits because they were first consecrated unto God and the branches were dedicated in their root 1 Cor. 7.14 and the lump in the first-fruits and so 1 Cor. 7.14 Else were your children unclean but now are they holy What 's the holiness that is here meant it's not a personal and inherent holiness that 's here spoken of for the branches that were thus holy were broken off which if they had been truly and spiritually holy they could never have been therefore it 's spoken only of a federal and derived holiness from their parents Covenant as Israel is called the holy nation Exod. 19.6 and the holy people Dan. 8.24.12.7 that is a people that God had separated to himself of all Nations under Heaven whom he would in a special manner owne and amongst whom he had set up his Ordinances and would dwell for federal holiness is nothing else but being separated from the world to become a member of the visible Church and thereby to have a right unto the ordinances and priviledges of a visible member though he be not truly converted or begotten unto God and this is called being a Jew outwardly that is a member of the visible Church and to whom the priviledges of a Church-member did belong but there is a Jew inwardly in whose heart there dwells converting grace Now how doth this holiness flow seeing that by nature all men are alike unholy and there is no more separation of one man unto God than another and one man hath no more right by nature unto visible and external priviledges than another for all are born in the same condition This is only by virtue of their being taken into their parents Covenant and because the first-fruits are holy so is the whole lump and because the root is holy so are the branches there is a holiness derived from one unto the other 5. We meet with very glorious promises that God has made to the posterity of the Saints Deut. 30.6 The Lord will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed Esa 59.21 fear not Jacob my servant and thou Jeshuron whom I have chosen I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thy off-spring and they shall spring up as the grass and as the willows c. My Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed henceforth and for ever Now though these promises shall not be made good unto every particular person in the Church yet it is the Church of God that is the proper subject unto whom they shall be made good and in an ordinary way they shall be acccomplished unto none else And by nature one man has no more right to a promise than another nor ground to expect it only the Covenant of God makes the difference they are all heirs of the promises as they are children of the Kingdom and Covenant Lastly This is Gospel and therefore to be believed and laid hold upon as well as any other part of the second Covenant for a Believer in the exercise of his faith is to take in the whole Covenant as in the obedience of faith he is to take in the whole Commandment A mans faith if it be sincere must be universal as well as his obedience that this is Gospel and a Gospel-promise I suppose that no man will deny I will be thy God and the God of thy seed Now how does the Lord become the God of the parents it's only by Covenant and so he is said to be the God of the Lord Jesus Christ he saith I ascend unto my God and your God and My God my God why hast thou forsaken me It 's spoken with reference unto the Covenant into which Christ had entred with the Lord now being the parents God in Covenant he says He will be the God of their seed that is theirs in Covenant also We may observe that God hath revealed this as Gospel and also that the people of God have believed it and exercised their faith upon it as Gospel in the behalf of their children 1. This God has revealed as Gospel and part of the second Covenant The first discovery that we have of the Gospel in Scripture is that Gen. 3.15 Gen. 3.15 where the woman being first in the transgression the Lord was pleased to enter into Covenant with her I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed Adam and Eve were a seminal visible Church for by them the Church as well as the world was to be built and at the same time when the Lord did reveal â—â—s grace unto her he joyns also her seed with her Now the combatants in that war and enemies Interpreters do observe to be three 1 Satan and the woman 2 The seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent 3 One principal seed the seed of the woman by way of eminence and that 's the Lord Christ the promised seed and that old Serpent the Devil So then in the first dawning of the Gospel the Lord took the seed of the woman into the same Covenant and made unto them the same promise as unto the woman The next mention of the Covenant that we read of is with Noah Gen. 6.18 and the Lord intending to bring a Floud upon the Earth renews this Covenant with him and this is twice renewed with him It 's true the Covenant here spoken of is the Covenant of grace but it 's but one particular branch of it namely a temporal deliverance for the Covenant of grace takes in temporal as well as spiritual and eternal promises Pareus est novi foederis appendix de promissione terrena 1 The Covenant was renewed in delivering Noah himself from the Floud that was then to come on the Earth and therein his seed also was taken in for so it runs with thee and thy sons c. and also after the Floud in reference to himself and his posterity that the Lord would not destroy them by a floud as he had done their forefathers Gen. 9.9 Gen. 9.9 I establish my covenant with you and your seed after you so that the covenant still runs in those terms the Lord never made a covenant with the parent but he took his seed into the same covenant expresly The next mention we read of the covenant was with Abraham when the Lord would take his family into covenant with himself wherefore the covenant is said after a sort to begin in him Mic. 7.20 Mercy to Abraham and truth unto Jacob and still it runs with thee and thy seed and not onely his immediate seed but also his seed in many succeeding generations from one age to
another unto the end of the world thy seed after thee in their generations and therefore Abraham is call'd the rock out of which they were hewed Isa 51.1 and the hole or the pit out of which they were digged and he is call'd Rom. 11. the root upon which they did grow and out of which they did spring not onely in their natural estate but also in their covenant state the covenant did as it were begin in him And the next person with whom the covenant of grace was eminently renewed was David 2 Sam. 7.14.19 Psal 89.28 29 30. the Lord did not only speak of David's person but of his house for a great while to come and when the Lord took a whole Nation into Covenant as he did the Nation of the Jews it was not made only with them that were present and then alive or men grown up but with their seed also so that their children were taken into the same covenant with their parents though they were not able to understand the nature of the covenant nor to restipulate and not only they that were present but Deut. 20.15 with him that is not here with us this day Deut. 29.11 13 14 15. who are they that are hereby meant their Posterity unto whom this covenant did alike belong there was a foundation laid for them to come into this covenant as soon as they should be born into the world Ipsos Deus anteverterat gratiâ suâ multis antequam nati essent seculis Calvin Meaning thereby their Posterity in all succeeding generations and therefore Eezek 16.18 I entred into covenant with thee and thou becamest mine and then vers 20. Thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters whom thou hast born unto me and hast sacrificed them to be devoured c. this is only spoken in reference to the covenant so they were children born unto God and so the Lord was their God Neither was this dispensation of the covenant of grace to the Jews only but also unto the Gentiles for Rom. 11. they were grafted in to be the seed of Abraham by vertue of the covenant of Abraham for he was the father of us all now as the natural branches were broken off so were the others grafted in but the Jews were broken off themselves and their Posterity disinherited for many generations therefore the Gentiles are grafted in they and their posterity and thence Act. 2.39 The promise is to you and your children and unto them that are afar off Ephes 2.17 i. e. the Gentiles also and their children the promise belongs to them whomsoever the Lord shall call it 's for themselves and for their seed after them Zacheus a Publican being converted Luk. 19.9 Christ tells him salvation is come to his house where by salvation coming to his house cannot be meant unto himself or his person but that his whole Family is taken into covenant with God thereby and the reason of it is given because that he himself is a son of Abraham that is he is brought under Abraham's Covenant the tenure of which Covenant is not only to a mans self but also unto his family and his seed Act. 16.31 c. and so Paul to the Jaylour Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved and thine house the meaning is not that all of them should be saved eternally as if one man could be saved by another mans faith but salvation is commonly put for the ordinary means of salvation Acts 28.28 Now this Covenant-way is the only ordinary means of salvation Heb. 2.3 and when the Jews shall be taken in in the latter days of the world though it 's said that the Lord will make a new Covenant with them in those days yet it s but the old Covenant renewed they shall be taken into the Covenant of their fathers for so Rom. 11.24 the natural branches that were cut off shall be grafted in again to their own Olive-tree as they were cast off Parents and children disinherited so shall their grafting in again be so that 't is a part of the Gospel and a gâ—orious doctrine of the covenant of grace that children are taken into the same Covenant with their Parents and there is never a Covenant made with the Parents in the Scripture but the children are expressely mention'd as coming under it and therefore our faith is to receive it and rely upon it 2. The People of God have believed it and exercised their faith upon it and that both Parents for their Children and the Children for themselves 1 Parents for their Children it was this that Adam did rejoyce in immediately after the revelation of the second Covenant in behalf of himself and his Posterity when he Gen. 3.20 called his wifes name Evah Gen. 3.20 because she was the mother of all living and this is conceived by Interpreters to have a threefold respect 1 As an Expression of his own Faith in the Promise to shew that the woman that should have brought Death into the world and was first in the transgression and should have been the mother of none but dead children now he saith That she should be the mother of all the living the Covenant of grace and life beginning in her for life and immortality never saw light till the Gospel 2 An expression of thankfulness for so great a mercy that he might keep the mercy in memory and that was the ancient manner to give names sometimes to places Jacob call'd the place Bethel the house of God as the Altar Jehovah Nissi c. and sometimes the Monument of his mercy preserved in a child Samuel one asked of God and here Adam continues the memory of his mercy in the name of his wife it 's spoken by way of gratitude Merc. ut vel ipso nomine beneficium tantum agnosceret Merc. The Name is a Memorial of the Mercy 3 An expression of consolation the woman being first in the transgression was much affected with the displeasure of God from which they fled and of the misery that she had brought upon her self and all her Posterity if the Lord should prolong her days that they should labour in the sweat of their brows till they were turn'd to the earth c. Adam now comforts her and tells her Be of good cheer there is a seed yet that shall come from thee that shall overcome death and him that had the power of death that is the Devil and therefore he doth not call himself the Father of all living but her the Mother of all living and thus Adam did comfort himself with the Promise made unto his Posterity in the Covenant as soon as it was revealed And so did Evah exercise faith this way first in Cain as some conceive Gen. 4.1 Gen. 4.1 she said I have gotten a man from the Lord the Septuagint render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Vulgar answerable per Dominum by the Lord Trem. adds Ã
their mercies taste the love of God and delight themselves in his goodness as Nehemiah acknowledged Gods goodness in all his favours from the King 2 A cistern will hold but a little when it 's put into it for it is of a narrow capacity there is a great deal of difference between the fulness in the cistern and in the fountain As it is with the Saints in point of grace so it is with the creatures in point of comfort the fountain can never be drawn dry nay the more it is drawn the quicker the springs are there is never the less and it is most true in God the more a man doth draw happiness from him the quicker the returns are and there is never the less in God for he doth communicate good as the Sun doth light emanativè by way of emanation and that must needs be without diminution c. but the creatures are but as the Moon Rev. 12.1 that has but a little light and that but borrowed and as soon as the Sun turns away its reflexion its light is darkned and the Moon is cloathed with sackcloth and its light doth not appear 3 Water in a cistern will dye and lose its vigour as we see it is in a standing pool Gen. 26.19 it 's said of the servants of Isaac that they digged a well of living water so water in the spring or fountain is called but it is not so with water in the cistern it will dye and putrifie and stink and grow noisom in the end creature-comforts will not be comforts always the good that is in them will not be always sweet let but the Lord change the mind of a man and that which was before sweet will be bitter even the water of gall take a man that is converted and the creature-comforts that before he delighted in are not now pleasant to him dulce est istis suis voluptatibus carere and it is so to ungodly men also when once they are converted the world passeth away and the lusts thereof sometimes the creature leaves a man but the comforts of it will certainly before a man dyes and let once the lust pass away a man has no desire to it and he finds then no satisfaction and contentment in it Prov. 25.27 The searching out of glory is not glory that is search it to the uttermost and there will never be a satiety it will be glory still but take the choicest and the sweetest contentments in this life and they will be so a man may eat honey till it will not be honey to him but prove loathsom and so a man may in the enjoyment of any creature be nauseated and his soul may loath that which before was dainty meat but in God it is not so the comforts that there are to be had in him are always fresh living and vigorous for they are in him as water is in a fountain 4 If God put into the creatures any comfort it is but into cisterns that are broken and they 'l leak out they cannot hold them long for sin hath made a crack in all the creatures that as fast as God puts comfort into them they do leak them out again Heb. 2.1 as it 's in reference to the Word of God we prove leaking vessels and let the things slip from us that we have heard so do the comforts also of the creatures that God gives us in reference to all the sweetness and comfort that is put into them by God If a man have an Estate he puts it into a bag with holes when a man hath gotten it all his care will not keep the comfort of it long for there is a vanity by sin come upon all the creatures they are blasted quickly It 's true that in the Creation they were but cisterns and it was but little that they could hold a mans great comfort and satisfaction came not in by them they were made to be his servants but not his portion to enjoy and therefore by sin there is a vanity put into the creatures that though they may satisfie a while yet their comfort will quickly be gone as they themselves will for the world passes away and the fashion of it and it is but a fashion and an outside and no more 3. If you place your happiness in any thing else you do but forsake God other things may be enjoyed in subordination to God yet so as your Heaven must be in him alone but they must not come in competition with God for he will be God alone When Parmenio made the motion to Alexander to accept the terms that Darius did offer and perswaded the King to it he told him the Heavens could have but one Sun and surely the heart of man can have but one God there can be but one last end one chief good Now as a man that doth not sell all cannot buy the Pearl for it is to be had at no other price as says Christ Luk. 14.33 He that forsakes not all that he has cannot be my Disciple all things are to be forsaken not only as an oblation but as a condition without which Christ is not to be had so it is also in this Jonah 2.8 he that will have his portion in God must have no other God they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy the word doth signifie to keep also as of Jacobs keeping of sheep taking care of them as his charge that none of them were lost or did miscarry and so men do keep lying vanities their great care is over them that they lose them not that their Idols be not taken away from them And so Prosper also says of all those things in which men place their happiness labore quaerunt cura servant anxiâ delectatione possident they seek them with labour keep them with care and possess them with anxious delectation And it 's used for the most heedful observation Psal 130. and thus it is with a great deal of heed care and industry that men preseve their Idols So all these things that we are so careful of they are but lying vanities or the vanity of a lye to shew the emptiness of them they are called vanities in the abstract in the Plural which is ordinary with the Hebrews to do though they are nothing but emptiness yet they are such vanities as carry that curse with them that they do raise a mans expectation and he believes great things from them and by that means they become a lye and therefore men of low degree are vanity Isa 44.20 and men of high degree are a lye he cannot say Is there not a lye in my right hâ—nd and Rev. 22. Every one that loves and makes a lye Now what is the misery of that man and his folly in it Quam Deus illis largissimè offert Drus why he doth by observing these but forsake his own mercy that is that mercy which is offered to them and might become
their own had not they neglected it by observing lying vanities it might have been truly their own whereas none of the things that they so observe could be for it is but this worlds goods if we are not faithful in that which is another mans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who shall give you that which is your own goods Now God may be a mans own but it cannot be said of any creature-comfort without God and therefore here is your folly to be observing these lying vanities and forsake your own mercies 4. God will set himself against all these things in which you do place your happiness apart from him and there is no such way to engage God against the choicest contentments as this is that thou shouldst place thy portion in them for thou makest that creature an Idol and the Lord will set himself against them in a special manner Esay 2.18 The Prophet Isaiah speaks of a Judgment that the Lord would bring against that people and the daughter of Sion should be left as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers and as a besieged city and what is that great inquisition that God makes at such a time it's only for the Idols and upon these he will suddenly stretch forth his hand the Idols he will utterly * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abolish he will utterly divide them or cut them in pieces The Lord said he would search Jerusalem with candles Zeph. 1.12 the meaning is that the Lord would make a diligent and a very exact search and therefore accensa lucerna quaerere is a Phrase for exactness in this kind and it notes not only things open that are discovered in the face of the Sun and may be seen by its light but the most secret things that are hid in the dark abstrusissima in tenebris latentia the Lord will in this manner search Jerusalem with candles and the great things that the Lord doth search for and discover are the Idols as appears in Ezech. 8. he doth shew the Prophet the things which are done in the dark in the chambers of their imagery and be sure if it become an Idol the Lord is engaged against it to destroy it for he will not give his glory to another nor his praise unto graven images 5. It 's a folly in this because there is no need of it for there is a sufficiency in Go◠you may be happy in him though you have nothing else for he is all-sufficient to himself and his happiness lies in himself he is God blessed for evermore and shall he not be sufficient unto thee He useth this as an argument to Abraham he will need no other Gen. 17.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rev. 21.6 I am the All-sufficient God walk before me and be thou perfect He will need no other he shall inherit all things I will be his God If a man can be happy that has all things then surely he may be whose God is the Lord he is the happiness of the Angels and of Christ himself and of all the Saints after this life when all the comforts of the creatures shall be no more and therefore can you seek happiness in any other As I may reason it with you concerning Christ have not you need of a Saviour and is there salvation in any other has the Lord any more sons in his bosom to bestow and is there any defect in this Christ can you look for a better do you expect one that shall be able to save you more perfectly than he who is able to save you to the uttermost will you go away whither will you go if you depart from Christ So I say also concerning God as your happiness have you n◠need of happiness You are neither the fountain of your own being or well being can it be had in any other but in God who is Lord of all and is there any defect in him that he cannot make thee happy in himself as well as he has done the Lord Jesus Christ who says Psal 16. ult With thee is the fountain of life and in thy light we shall see light It 's a great folly for a man to go far and labour hard for that which may be had near home and at an easie rate it 's the folly that the Lord did reprove in Judah Esay 30. They went down to Egypt for help and they sent their Ambassadors and they were at Zonan and Hanes and they were at great cost they sent their gold and silver on the back of Asses and the bunches of Camels c. and they did trim their way turn themselves into every fashion and every shape abased themselves unto the dust and all to attain the favour of man whereas it might have been had from Gods protection at an easier rate for your strength or security is to sit still and rest upon the Lord for ever for he is a Rock of Ages so it is in point of provision as well as of protection we knock at every door of the creature and with great weariness and pains labour in the fire * Hab. 1.13 To labour in the fire is cùm operis nullus sit fructus c. sed igne statim ut confectum est absumpto and so by labouring in the creatures in this manner a man doth sustain duplicem jacturam a double loss 1 Operae 2 Materiae both of labour and matter a man doth lose the creatures and his labour about them also for the Lord of Hosts doth in judgment make them labour in the fire and weary themselves for very vanity whereas all might be had in God easily and at a far better rate surely Nimis avarus est cui non sufficit Deus He is too avaritious whom God doth not suffice 6. There will come a time when you will have need of God who did offer himself unto you to be your portion and you have refused him and then you can expect no other but as you have rejected him so he should also reject you Israel would none of me Psal 81. so I gave them up c. There will be a time when the chanels of all the creatures shall be stopped and your portion in them shall be no more but it shall be said Son remember that in thy life time thou receivedst thy good things they were given thee but they were only for thy life-time and in them thou didst place thy happiness and thy portion and therefore they are called thy good things for that which a man doth chuse to himself to place his happiness in that is his good things and then the soul must return to God that gave it and at this time will the Lord send thee unto those things wherein thou placedst thy happiness and thy portion Go now unto the Gods that you have chosen and let them deliver you When we come unto God in the day of our distress he will say Go to the