The Puritans

The Covenant of Life Opened by Samuel Rutherford (Part 2)

 The Covenant of Life Opened

Part 2

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suffer satisfactory punishment for these same sins done against the Law: And as strange that Christ should die for any, and not die for their sinnes, since the Scripture useth the word of dying for sinnes, Rom. 4.25 delivered from our sinnes, Christ is a propitiation for our sinnes, and (the same way) not for ours only, but for the sinnes of the whole world; he died for sinners, Heb. 2.17. that he might make reconciliation for the sinnes of the people: that is, for the sinfull people, or sinners, Heb. 9.28. so Christ was once offered to bear the sinnes of many: That is to bear the sins of the sinfull many that he died for, Heb. 10.12. But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sin, sat down on the right hand of God: that is, after he had offered a sacrifice for sinners. 1 Pet. 3. 18. Christ once suffered for sin, that is, for sinners, 1 Cor. 15.3. I delivered unto you how Christ died for our sinnes, that is, for the persons of us sinners. 1 Joh. 3.5. He was manifested to take away our sinnes. 1 Joh. 4.10. Herein is lovethat he sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sinnes. Rev. 1.5. To him that loved us, and washed us from our sinnesbe glory. Gal. 1. 4.He gave himself for our sinnes. Now it must not be asserted, but proven that in all these places where he is said to be a propitiation for the sins of the world; and hath taken away our sinnes speaking (as these Authors say) of the whole visible Church, and not of the elect onlie that Christ hath died and by his death hath taken away some sinnes, and hath suffered for some sinnes, and not for all sinnes, not for the finall unbeleef of sinners, if it be said, that we cannot teach that Christ suffered for finall unbeleef, we grant it: But then we say that Christ suffered not for finall unbeleevers and for the other sins of finall unbeleevers, since suffering for sins and for persons that are sinners, to bring them to God, 1 Pet. 3. 18. are conjoined. And God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them,2 Cor. 5. 19. Therefore there must be a pardoned and a justified world, and so  truely blessed world, as Paul and David teach, Psal. 32. 1,2. Rom. 4. and so a loved, John. 3.16. and chosen world followed with the separating love of God to man which saves some foolish ones and serving diverse lusts, and saves not others; and so there must be a love and mercy of predestination, amor [foreign], not common

 

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to all the world; as is clear, Tit. 3.3,4,5. Eph. 2.1,2,3,4,5. We seek a warrand of Gods not imputing to this loved world their trespasses against the Law, and of his imputing to the same world the trespasses of rebellion and finall unbelief: And how Christs blood, shed for persons, both reconciles them to God, and leaves them in wrath, imputes not their trespasses to them, and makes them blessed, as David sayes, Ps. 32. 1. and imputes their finall unbelief to them, and leaves them under a curse: Nor shall it help the mater to say that finall unbelief may be considered as both against the Law, and as only forbidden in the Gospel. And in the former respect Christ hath suffered for it, not in the latter. For if the [foreign], the contrariety between finall unbelief and the first Command, as it is a rebellion against God manifested in the flesh, be satisfied for by Christ on the crosse; How can it condemn the person, as sure it doth? Joh. 3.18,36. Joh. 8.21,24. It cannot be said that Christ died for finall unbeleef, so we beleeve.

  1. What speciall [foreign] and repugnancie to the Law of Godis there in finall unbelief, that is not a repugnancie to the Covenant of Works and Grace both? And what repugnancie to the Covenant of Grace which is not also contrair to the Law? This I grant (which I desire the Reader carefully to observe) the Law and the Covenant of Grace do not one and the same way command faith, and forbid unbelief. I speak now of the Covenant of Works and of the Covenant of Grace as they are two Covenants specifically and formally different.

For 1. the Law as the Law commands 1. Faith in the superlative degree, as it doth all acts of obedience, and so doth it Gospel repentance. Because the Law commands all obedience most exact and perfect, and condemnes faith in the positive degree, though sincere and lively, as sinfully deficient. The Gospel doth only require sincere faith, and condemneth not for the want of the degrees of faith most perfect, though the Law of thankfulnesse to the Ransome-payer (which Law is common to both Covenants) require that we believe in the highest degree, because Christ hath expressed to us the greatest love, Joh. 3.16. Joh. 15. 13.

  1. The Law as the Law requires faith not finall only, but faith Immanuelfor ever, and that we be born with the Image of God

 

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that we beleeve at all times, under the pain of damnation. But, the Covenant of Grace, because it admits of repentance, and holds forth the meeknesse, forbearance, and longanimitie of Christ, is satisfied with faith at any time, or what hour of the day they shall be brought in.

  1. The Law requires faith, with the promise of Law-life: The Covenant of Grace requires faith, promises grace to beleeve, with promise of a Gospel-life.
  2. The Law requires not faith in Christwith sinners Covenantways as a work to be legally rewarded, for it finding all sinners, and all by nature, Covenant-breakers, cannot indent with them that have broken the Covenant, to promise life to them by tennor of the Covenant, which now ceaseth to be a Covenant of life, and cannot but condemn, and is now rendered impossible to justifie and save, by reason of the weaknesse of the flesh,Rom. 8.3. All the reprobate then are this way under the Covenant of Works, that they are (as it were) possible Covenanters lyable to suffer the vengeance of a broken Covenant, but not formally active Covenanters as Adam was. But if Christ suffer for finall unbeleef, as it is against the Law as the Law, how is it charged upon reprobates as a sin against the Gospel only? Since no wrong done to God Redeemer can be any thing but a sin against God, and a breach of the first Command. I deny not but finall unbeleef hath an aggravation that it is the nearest barre and iron gate between the sinner and the only Saviour of sinners, but yet the putting of such a barre is a sin against the Law. Neither can it be said that only finall unbeleef is the only meritorious cause of damnation to such as hear the Gospel. For beside final unbelief there is also a contrariety betwixt the murthers, Sodomies, &c. of professours and the Law for which they suffer in hell eternally, Rev. 21.8.c.18.7.

Quest. Whether doth the Lord Mediator as Mediator, command the same good works in the Covenant of Grace which are commanded in the Covenant of Works?

 

CHAP. XXI.

Ans. According to the matter of the thing commanded, quoad rem mandatam, he commands the same, and charges

 

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upon all and every one the morall duty even as Mediator, for he cannot loose the least of these Commandments, but simply they are not the same, quoad modum mandandi. It shall not be needfull to dispute whether they be commands differing in nature: For not only doth the Mediator command obedience upon his interposed Authority as Law-giver and Creator, but also as Lord Redeemer upon the motive of Gospel constraining love. In which notion he calls love the keeping of his Commandements (if they love him, Joh. 14.) the new Commandement of love.

  1. 2. Doth the Lord Mediator,in the Covenant of Grace, command the same good works to all, the same way?

Ans. Rom. 3. 19. The Lord, in the Law, must speak one way to these that are under the Law, that is, under the jurisdiction and condemning power of the Law: and a far other way to these that are not under the Law.

CHRIST speaks to reprobats in the Visible Church, even when the matter of the command is Evangelick, as to non confederates of grace in a Law way, and in a Law intention. For he cannot bid them obey upon any other ground then legislative authority, not upon the ground of Redemption-love bestowed on them, or that he died out of love to save all and every one: For we disclaim that ground; or because he died out of a speciall design to save them as his chosen ones. For there is no ground for that untill we beleeve. But they are to obey upon the ground of Redemption-love, so they first beleeve and fiducially rely upon Christ the Saviour of all. But he commands Law-obedience to his chosen even as Mediator. (1.) Upon a Gospel intention to chase them to Christ, Gal. 3.23. (2.) When they are come to hedge them in, with Law-threatning to adhere, in a Godly sear, more closely to Christ. But the Lord commands no beleever to believe hell in the event to be their reward, but to beleeve perseverance and life, but hell in the deserving. Hence that, 1 Tim. 1.9. The Law [foreign], is not made for the righteous (to condemn them: as if God thereby opened up to them their doom) but for the lawlesse, &c. to let them be damned and see their damnation.

 

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CHAP. XXII.

The differences in the promise of the Covenants.

Quest. WHat is the speciall difference of the promise of the two Covenants?

Ans. It is known that only life eternall is promised in the Law, if a right to the things of this life was promised to Adam, it is like he behoved to compleat his course of obedience, and merit a right legall to the herbs and fruit of the earth, beside the right he had by gift of Creation, ex dono Creatoris, non jure operum.

But 2. There was no promise made to Adam of perseverance, and so no promise made to him of influences to work in Adam to will and to do; so the influences by which he obeyed was, purum donum Creatoris, a meer gift of the Creator, not a gift of either the grace ofChrist, or a promised grace, though in a large sense, it may be called a grace, or donum gratis datum: For God gave that influence upon no obligation. Now that it was not a grace promised is evident by Adams fall: for God, who is true, fulfills his promises. 2. Augustine and our Divines teach, Dedit Deus posse ut vellet, non velle ut posset, a power to stand, but not the gift of actuall perseverance. If any say that the Lord promised to Adam perseverance conditionally (which in one sense is true, in another false) if he pleased, in that he gave to him all necessaries required for actuall standing. Ans. 1. This is to teach that perseverance was promised the same way, in the Covenant of Works, that Arminius saith it is promised in the Covenant of Grace, and that the free-will was absolute lord of standing and falling, and to deny God to be the nearest cause of our standing and persevering in either, the one or the other, and to bid us first and last sacrifice to our own free-will. 2. Willing perseverance actuall cannot be promised conditionally: for the question should be, Upon what condition doth the Lord promise to work in Adam actual perseverance, if he should be willing to persevere? But the question shall remain, whether that willingnesse to persevere, since it is the greatest part, if not whole perseverance, be promised or not; If it be not promised,

 

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the contrair where of they hold, if it be promised conditionally, the question shall recur, what shall be the condition, and another condition then the willingnesse of the will to persevere cannot be given, and so the argument shall rise against it self, and the issue must be,God give to Adam actuall perseverance, if he should be willing to persevere, that is, he gives to Adam perseverance, if he give him perseverance; for willingnesse to persevere is perseverance, or a very large part thereof.

  1. But persevering grace and so influence of grace to persevere is promised in the Covenant of Grace, Jer.31.35. that they shall continue in Covenant, more sure then the night and the day.Jer. 32.40. I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. The meaning cannot be, I will give them a power never to depart from me, if they will: For so nothing is more promised in Christ to the second Adams heirs, then to Adam and the Angels that fell, for the like, say they, was promised to them. And 2. If notwithstanding of that fear both promised and put in the heart, and in the will, yet lubrick free will may stand or fall and remain indifferent to either, then the sense shall be thus, I will make an everlasting Covenant, I will put my fear in their heart, by which they may either depart from me, and turn apostates, or not depart from me, but persevere: But so the Covenant, made with Adam and the fallen Angels, should be an everlasting Covenant, and yet it was broken. For the Image of God of it self inclined Adam and the fallen Angels never to depart from God: For sure, Adamssear, being a part of that Image, which sanctified his affections, inclined him (but not undeclinably and immutably) not to depart from God, and not to hearken to the lying Serpents suggestions. But it is not that new Covenant-fear promised and given in the second ADAM,Ier. 32. 39,40.
  2. That these influences were purchased by Christsdeath is clear, because they are the nearest causes of our actuall believing and coming to Christ,of faith and perseverance that are given freely, and repentance and faith are given of Christ, Acts. 5.31. Zech. 12.10. 2 Tim. 2.25. Phil. 1.29. Ephes. 2. 1,2,3. Ezek. 36.26,27. Eph. 1. 17,18,19,20. John 6. 44,45.
  3. So obedience to the Covenant of Works was Adamsown.

 

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(2.) And came from his concreated self (the Image of God that was his own) by a common influence, and neither was the Image of God, nor the influences of God acts of free grace, or the purchase of grace properly so called.

(2.) Adam had a Law-claim to the Crown without sin, if he had continued in obedience, and did merite ex pacto life eternall, our new Covenant obedience in habituall and actuall performance is so a duty, that it is also promised and a benefite merited to us by the death of Christ, whereas Adams obedience was purum officium, non officium promissum, as our Gospel-obedience is.

  1. Hence in obedience distinguish two. 1. The nature of obe-ence. 2. The worth and excellencie of obedience. The more the obedience be from our selves, the more it partakes of the nature of obedience. Hence four kinds of obedience are to be considered. 1. Christs obedience was the most legall obedience, and also the most perfect, for he obeyed most of his own, of any, from his own will purely, Joh.10.18. Mat.26.39,42,44. His own blood, Hebr. 9.14. Rev. 1.5. My blood, saith he, Matth. 26.28. He gave his life a ransome,Matth. 20.28. He gave himself a ransome, 1 Tim. 2.6. By himself he purged our sins, Heb. 1.3. Gave himself for his Church, Eph. 5.25. Offered himself, Heb. 9.14. And therefore the satisfaction that he made was properly his own. Its true the life, flesh and blood which he offered toGod, as common to the three Persons, was equally the life, flesh, blood of God by way of Creation and efficiency: For God as God created His Man-hood, and gave him a body, but that Man-hood, in abstracto, was not the offering, but all these, in concreto, and the self,including the value and the dignitie, was not the Fathers, not the Spirits, but most properly his own, and the Sons only by way of personall termination and subsistence. 1. There are contradictory tearms affirmed of this holy self the Son, and of the Spirit and the Father. The Son was God incarnate. 2. The son offered himself, his own life, his own blood to God for our sins. Neither the Father nor the Spirit at all is God incarnate, neither Father nor Spirit offered his own life, his own blood to God; Neither the Father nor the Spirit hath (to speak so) a personall or terminative dominion

 

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over the flesh and blood of Christ. 2. Christ was in no sort oblidged to empty himself, and cannot be under a jus or obligation to the Creator or the creature. Of free love and his own will he became Mediator God Man, and being created man, and having said (here am I to do thy will) having stricken hands with God as Surety of the Covenant, none more oblidged, being holy and true; And therefore though Christ-Man was most strictly tyed to give the Father obedience, yet he was not oblidged to give him such and such obedience, so noble, so excellent, from a personall Union: for Christ God cannot properly come under any obligation. Hence the obedience of Christ is most meritorious, because maxime indebita, in regard of the God head most undebtfull, and yet obedience most debtfull in regard of the ManChrist. 3. Most from his own will personally considered, the affection, love, the bended will, highest delight to obey, lay personally near to the heart and holy will of Christ God: With desire have I desired to eat this Passeover. He went foremost in the journey to Jerusalem,when he was to suffer. Much of the internall propension of the will makes much and (as it were) heightens and intends the nature of obedience, so that Christs and our obedience have scarce an univocall definition. 4. He gave and restored more glory to offended justice, by such a noble, incomparably excellent death, then Adam and all his Sons took of glory from God: therefore against impure Socinus it is a most reall satisfaction and compensation, where glory by obeying and suffering is restored in liew of the glory taken away. All thatSocinians say, that God cannot be a loser, and needs not glory, and nothing can be taken from him, and nothing can be given to him, proves nothing but that it is not such a satisfaction as one creature performs to another, nor is it a satisfaction that brings profite to God: For can a man be profitable to the Almightie? Nor such a satisfaction as eases a disquieted minde; Which proves not Christ to be a Saviour painted in a meer coppy to us, and only a godly Martyr who saveth onely by preaching and witnessing, and not by a most reall and eminently clear satisfaction.

  1. The Elect Angelsnext to Christgave obedience in their Law course, but not so properly of their own as Christ, for some

 

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discriminating and strengthning grace they had from Christ Mediator their head, Col. 2.10. that they should not fall, and something from the Election of Grace, which do not necessarily agree to the Covenant of Works, which they performed without sin, and the more extrinsecall help from grace, the lesse merit, so farre is grace from being, as Jesuites say, the essentiall requisite of merit, that the work is lesse ours, and so the lesse meritorious, that it hath grace. Let not any say then Christs obedience that came from the fulnesse of the Spirit without measure [foreign], must so be lesse meritorious, which is absurd, for the reason why grace in Angels, and men who are meer creatures diminishes the nature of merit, is, because grace is not their own, nor their proper due, but supernaturall or preternaturall, and so hurts the nature of the merit, but to the meriting person Christ-God Man nothing is supernaturall, nothing extrinsecall, nothing not his own: Grace is his own as it were by a sort of personall dominion, not to say that the Man Christ as man did not merit, yet as man he was born sinless and with the full Image of God.

  1. Adamgave more faintly obedience, more indeed of his own, but it was lesse obedience, and lesse will in it, then the obedience of Angels, and had he continued, his obedience had been proper obedience; but this is to be observed, none did ever, actu secundo, and by the only help of simple nature attain Justification and Salvation by the simple Covenant of Works, but men and evill Angels fell under both, though that was a possible Covenant and holy and spirituall, yet God set it up to be an inlet to pure Justice in the reprobate Angels, and so to free grace in elect men.
  2. The obedience of faith, or Gospel-obedience, in the fourth place, hath lesse of the nature of obedience, then that of Adam,or of the Elect Angels, or that of Christs.Its true we are called obedient Children, and they are called the Commandements of Christ, and Christ hath taken the Morall Law and made use of it in an Evangelick way, yet we are more (as it were) patients, in obeying Gospel Commands, not that we are meer patients, as Libertines teach, for grace makes us willing, but we have both supernaturall habits and influences of grace furnished to us from the Grace of Christ, who hath merited both to us, and so in Gospel-obedience

 

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we offer more of the Lords own, and lesse of our own, because he both commands, and gives us grace to obey. And so to the elect beleever the Law is turned in Gospel, he by his Grace fulfilling (as it were) the righteousnesse of the Law in us by begun new obedience, Rom.8.4. and to the reprobate the Law remains the Law, and the Gospel is turned in the Law, for all conditionall promises to the Reprobate, though in terms Evangelick, yet are law to them (if Cain do well he shall be saved) (if Judas beleeve he shall be saved) because God by Grace fulfills not the promise in them. Obj. 1. Then shall Gospel obedience be of lesse worth then Law-obedience, which floweth not from Grace, which Christ hath merited by his death? Ans. Its not denyed, but it is obedience, so the Scripture, Heb. 5.9. Rom. 1.5. Rom. 6.17.Rom. 16.19. 2 Cor. 10.5. 1 Pet. 15. Act. 6.9. Act. 5.32,37. But (2.) It hath lesse of the nature of obedience, but more excellency. Who would say Peter labouring in the Vineyard of John for wages, does properly obey, if we suppon that Peter hath from John, not only soul, will, body, arms, and legs, but the inward infused principle of willingnesse, the habite and art of dressing Vines, the nearest propension and determination of will to work, so have we in the Gospel, but in the Law, though the Lord who gives being, does also give his Image to Adam, and his influence to obey, yet the Image of God is concreated, and Adams own, grace especially merited by Christ is supervenient and a meer stranger to us, and the influence, though it did predetermine Adams will, yet it is connaturall as it were, naturæ debita, not merited by Christs death, and so we give more of our own, when we give the fruit of Creation which God hath bestowed on the Pismire and the Worm, then when we give the obedience of Grace. 2. The obedience of Adam though rationall and perswasive, there being a lamp of light in the mind, yet came from the feared authority of the Law-giver under the pain of damnation, the Gospel-obedience is by the word, Act. 2.37. is by way of perswasion: Christ saith not, Peter, thou art afraid of hell, seed my Lambs, but, Peter, loves thou me, feed my Lambs: For a Law-obeyer is not to beleeve life eternall but in so far as he shall keep the Law perfectly, the Gospel obeyer so obeyes as he beleeves deliverance from wrath

 

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and life eternall, but his beleeving is not reckoned to him [forxeign], of Law-debt, but of love and Grace debt: See Rom. 4.4. Matth. 6.12. these promises, 1 Tim. 4.8. Luk. 12.31. Matth. 19.29. are exponed by the promises made to the overcomer, Rev. 2. Rev. 3. which is by faith, 1 Joh. 5.4 5. 3. But it is most true, Gospel-obedience hath these excellencies. 1. It is a plant of a more noble Vine coming from the merit of blood, yet is not our obedience comparable to Christs; for a work of Law or Gospel Grace hath a necessary reference to no wages of its own nature, but only by the interveening of the free pleasure of God. But Christs obedience intrinsecally from the excellent dignity of the person hath a meriting vertue. 2. It works more eminently then nature: It is a pillar to support sowning nature, and acts in more excellent subjects, in CHRIST, in the Elect Angels, in the Redeemed ones and makes them stones of another nature, and this is the handle-work of CHRIST, Isai. 54. 11. I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with Saphires. v. 12. I will make thy windows of Agats,  and thy gates of Carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones: What do morall men that work on clay and make clay pots all their life and know nothing of the actings of saving Grace. Fairest civility is but roustie iron the basest of Mettals: and they sweat and hammer upon Law-works being strangers to Christ, and his gold. O! what a difference between praying and hearing out of discretion, and by necessity of the office, and praying in the Holy Ghost, and hearing in faith.

 

CHAP. XXIII.

  1. What sort of doing the Law requireth?

The Scripture is clear, that consumate, and continued in doing to the end is required by the Law. Paul interpreting Moses, Deut. 26.27. Gal. 3. 10. Cursed be every one, [foreign] who continueth not in all that are written in the Law to do them. Deut. 26.27. Cursed is be who shall not confirm. It is a word they use in inacting of Laws, when we say, Be it statuted and ordained: the word in Piel is three times in th$ Book of $sther, to ordain by a Law: Which clearly saith that

 

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the Covenant of Works was a work of justice and such a time God set to Adam, so as to the end he was to run it out, but how long he was a viator or traveller in his course of obedience no man knows

 

CHAP. XXIII.

Whether faith as lively and true, or faith as continuing to the end, be the condition of the Covenant of Grace?

These, who in all points, as in this, make this new Covenant a Covenant of Works, contend that faith as enduring to the end, must be the condition of the new Covenant. 1. Because the promise of the reward. 2. The reward is given to him that endures to the end. And this faith (say they) is the adequat and compleat condition of the Covenant of Grace as full and consumate obedience to the end in degrees and parts.

  1. But faith as lively and sincere is the condition of the Covenant, the nature and essence of this faith is to continue to the end, but continuance to the end is an accidentall condition of this onely essentiall condition of the Covenant, faith quæ,which endures to the end, but not quâ aut quatenus,as it endures to the end is that which saves us and justifies us as the condition of the Covenant. 1. Faith as lively units us to Christ and justifies whether it be come to the full perfection or not. Otherwise 1. no man should be ingrafted in Christ as branches in the Vine Tree, no man partakers of the Divine nature, no man quickened, but he that dies in finall beleeving: Whereas, Joh. 5.24. he that beleeveth before his finall continuance to the end, [foreign], hath passed from death to life and shall never come to condemnation. And in this is the difference of the condition of the Covenant of Works, that Adam had no right to life by one or two the most sincere acts and highest in measure, except he continue, [foreign] (as the Law saith, Deut. 26.27. Gal. 3.10.) to the end, otherwise at the first act of

 

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obedience perfect in degrees and parts, God behoved by Covenant (except the Lord should break the first Covenant himself, before man sin, which is blasphemous) to have given him confirming grace and the reward of life; but the condition of the Covenant of Grace is that, He that beleeves, Joh. 3.36. [foreign], is not condemned, yea is freed from all condemnation, Rom. 8.1. and [foreign] hath life being really united as the member to the head, as the branch to the tree, mystically, as the wife to the husband, legally, as the debter and the surety becomes one person in Law, the summe one and not two. 1 Joh. 5.11. And this is the witnesse that [foreign] he hath given us life eternall, and this is in the Son. 12. He that hath the Son hath life: He that beleeveth hath the Son dwelling in his heart by faith, Eph. 3.17.

  1. Faith, before it come to seed and full harvest brings solid peace and comfort and saveth: So Christto the blind man, Luke18.42. thy faith [foreign], hath saved thee, not a bare miraculous faith, but that which apprehends remission of sinnes, as he speaks to the woman who did wash his feet with tears, Luke 7. 50. and to the paralytick man, Mat. 9.2. seeing their faith, be of good cheer, go in peace, thy sins are forgiven. If they be but forgiven conditionally, so they beleeve to the end, whereas they may fall away. 1. What comfort and good cheer? 2. What peace being justified by faith, Rom. 5.1? 3. What glory in tribulation, Rom. 5. have they more then Judas the son of perdition? What Covenant of life and of peace are we in? What difference between our Religion and the Religion of Cicero, Seneca, and of allPagans, if Christ furnish not to us solid unshaken help and consolation? And what a trembling hope have they that they be, and are to fear they shall be in the condition of Apostate Angels to morrw! What saith then Christ, Mat. 9.22. Mark 5.34. Mark 10.52. Luk. 8.58. Luk.5. 20,24. Mark 5.34. Mark 9.24. yea and much more saith the Holy Ghost of our case, even of everlasting consolation, 2 Thessal. 2.16. strong consolation, Hebr. 6.18. all comfort, 2 Cor. 1.4. lively hope, 1 Pet. 1.4. Heb. 6. 18,19. then Heathens can say, Nay otherwise not so much, for they promise not so much. 3. Our lively faith is to believe our perseverance in lively faith as promised to us, Jer. 32. 39,40. Isai. 54.10. Isai. 59. 20,21.

 

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Joh. 10. 27,28. Joh. 4.14. 1 Pet. 1. 3,4,5. Joh. 11. 26,27. As we believe life eternall, and that purchased by the merite of Christs death, the one as well as the other, then faith as finall cannot be the condition; And who can think that God commands faith in God Immanuel in the Covenant of Works? But faith in God Immanuel to the end is not commanded in the Covenant of Works, but only in the Covenant of Grace. 4. Faith justifies and saves as sincere, be it great or small: but if it justifie not and save not, but as it endures to the end, then no man is compleatly justified and saved and united to Christ, untill he die.

Since faith (as all other graces in a child of God) is imperfect and still growing, 2 Pet. 3.18. and we are to pray, Lord increase our faith, none shall be justified and saved, but he that hath the greatest faith, if faith only, which endures to the end, be the condition of the Covenant, and such a faith as groweth and indures to the end: For take one who for twenty years believeth, the first two years he being united to Christ, hath right to Christ, Joh. 15. 1,2,3,4,5. Joh. 17.21,22. Joh. 14.16. Joh. 16. 7,8,13. Joh. 4.14. Joh. 7.37,38,39. he shall not be judged, not condemned, hath passed from death to life, shall never die, Joh. 3.36. 1 Joh. 5.11,12. Joh. 4.24. Joh. 11. 25,26. then should he die the end of the first year of his believing, by the Scripture, he must be saved, else he must be damned, who yet died in true faith and yet never fell away, which were strange: But by this opinion either the remnant sound believing should be no condition of justification and salvation, because the man is justified and saved without it, and the faith of one or two years gave him right to Christ and saved him? Ergo the remnant faith is not a condition of the Covenant, but a persevering by grace promised and a persevering in that faith, as also by their way who make persevering faith the only condition of the Covenant of Grace. 1. Faith and works are confounded: whereas to be saved by faith is to be saved before, and to be justified before we can do good works, and the jus or title to righteousnesse and salvation, coming only from the price and Redemption that is in Jesus Christ, is not more or lesse, and growes not more then the worth of the ransone of the blood called the blood of God, Acts 20.28. does grow, and it is to be justified by grace and by

 

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faith, and then works come in as the fruit of our justification and salvation, Eph. 2. Ye are not saved by works, lest any man should boast, in a righteousnesse of his own, coming from no merite of Christ, which buyeth determinating grace, and indeclinably leads and bows the will; Otherwise we may boast, that is, glory in the Lord, who worketh all our works for us, Psal. 34.2. Isa. 41.16. Isa. 26. 12. The salvation and righteousnesse is the gift of God. What then shall be the room of works? He answers No room at all as causes of justification and salvation, by an excellent antanaclasis, as learned Trochrig: for he answers, We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Then by grace we have the full right to righteousnesse and salvation by the ransome of blood, which is Christs, Papists and Arminians dare not bring in Evangelick works or faith as an Evangelick work here, though they be too bold. 2. Being once made the creation of God in Christ, and having obtained right by the blood of Christ to salvation, we walk by his grace in good works as leading us to the possession of the purchased inheritance. 3. The Authors of this stand for the Apostasie of the Saints, and they cannot eschew it who make this finall faith that takes in in its essence good works as the soul of it or charity (as Papists say) as the form of it, the only condition of the Covenant.

Quest. But is not life eternall given and promised only to faith which continues to the end? Ans. Faith is considered two wayes. In its nature. 2. In its duration and existence. As to the former, saving faith is of that nature that it is apt to endure, it hath a sort of immortality, so the promise in titulo & jure, is made to that faith only which is of that nature that it must endure to the end, and the promise of life and remission is not made to a saving faith under the accident of enduring to the end, or for the years, suppon thirty or fourty years, or eight hundred years, or above that Adam or the Patriarchs lived in the state of beleeving, for a faith of some hours only shall save the repenting thief as well as a faith of many years. And 2. life eternall in the possession is promised and given only to the faith that continues to the end, not because of the duration because a longer enduring faith hath merit,

 

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but that is by accident, in regard of the right to life and because God hath commanded persevering in faith, life is given only in possession to such a faith as endures, but we cannot say that the accidentall endurance and existence of faith for so many years doth save and justifie, as the living so many years makes a Child an heir to a great estate, for his being born the eldest son, makes him his fathers heir.

 

CHAP. XXIV.

What faith is required in the Gospel.

THere is a legall faith, a duty commanded, the object of which is twofold, 1. Truths relating to the mind revealed and to be revealed. So Adam had a habit or habituall power to beleeve the Law and the Gospel upon supposition, it should be revealed. As a whole man beleeves skill in his Physitian to prevent diseases ere they come, and to remove them, when come. Its folly to say Adam stood in need, before he fell, of a supernaturall power to beleeve Evangelick truths, if he beleeved God to be true, he had such a power as to beleeve all was true, that God should reveal. 2. Adam had a faith of dependencie, to rely upon God in all possible evils feared.

  1. The promise of life is not made to Law-faith more then to Law-love, or Law-fear, or Law-desire, more then to any other, but the promise is made to Evangelick-faith that layes hold on CHRIST as our righteousnesse. But for obeying the Commands Adamwas to live, Gal.3.13. [foreign] in them, by doing them, Ezek. 20.11. As Lavater, there is no absurditie if it be said men shall live, that is merit by free paction, life eternall: but then (saith Calvineif a man keep the Law, he needs not the Grace of Christ. Obj. If faith be imputed, as it layes hold onChrists Righteousnesse, it must be the meritorious cause of Justification and by its inherent dignitie, for there is nothing more essentiall to faith, then to lay hold on Christs Righteousnesse. Ans. If faith were imputed as righteousnesse according to the act of laying

 

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hold on Christ, it were true, but the act of faith is not imputed, but that which faith layes hold on, it being an instrument, to wit, the Righteousnesse of Christ, it is not an act of beleeving saith a Jesuit. And though they say the works Evangelick are from the habit of grace, so was Adam a patient, when God concreated his Image, and habituall righteousnesse in him. But Arminians and Jesuits do not say, nor darre not, that predeterminating Grace is from Christs merites, therefore yet the sinner may more boast then Adam, and say I have justified my self by the acts of free-will which is indifferent and from under all the bowing and determining or swaying of the Grace of Christ, for the free-will should have so whether Christ had died or not died.

 

CHAP. XXV.

  1. WHether is Christs Righteousnesse imputed and made ours, because we believe and apprehend it ours; or do we believe, because it is ours first before we believe?

Ans. There is a twofold imputation, one legall, another which for Doctrines cause we call application or reall (though the legall imputation be also reall; but not to us as the former) the Lords act of laying the iniquity of us all upon Christ, Isa. 53.6. and the Lords making him sin for us, that is a sacrifice for sin, 2 Cor. 5.21. evinces necessarily the truth of this, the former imputation. For 2 Cor. 5.21. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. If it be expounded of actuall reconciliation of persons, it may say something, for the other imputation, but the other imputation is clear, Rom. 4.3. Abraham beleeved God, and it was counted to him for righteousnesse, v. 7. Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered, v. 8. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin, v. 9. Faith (that is, that which faith beleeved, as hope is put for the thing hoped for, Col. 1.5. Rom. 8.24. was imputed to Abraham for righteousnesse, though Gomarus give another exposition, to wit, that by faith or the act of beleeving we obtain this to

 

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be reputed righteous, and it suits better with the Text. And as to the former imputation, God could not in justice would Christ for our transgressions, nor bruise him for our iniquities, nor could the Lord break him, nor deliver him to the death for us all, except God had both made him the sinner, that is, imputed and reckoned him the sinner in Law (for intrinsecally and inherently he was not the sinner, but holy, harmlesse, &c.) and laid our debts upon him, Isa. 53.6. and except he had been willing to have been counted the sinner, and had said (thou hast given me a body, here am I, to do thy will, Psal. 40.7. Heb. 10. 6,7.) this reckoning of Christ to be the sinner is not only in the eternall decree, but also a laying of our iniquities upon him in time, Isa. 53.6. or a dealing with him in Law in punishing him as the sinner. And 2. by using the humane nature as an instrument of our Redemption on the Crosse. Antinomians take this imputing of our sins to Christ, and reckoning Christ to be the sinner, to be the justifying of the sinner, which is a grosse mistake; for so without beleeving all that Christ died for should be justified upon the Crosse. But the Scripture is so far from ascribing Justification to any but to a beleever, that it saith Abrahams faith was imputed to him for righteousnesse. Now the faith of multitudes for whom Christ died when he suffered on the Crosse, is a very nothing: Many are not born, and a nothing or a non ens cannot be counted for righteousnesse.

It is to be observed that payment made by the surety absolveth the debter, so as the Law, except it be the generall Law of gratitude, requireth no act of love, of faith, of service from the debter, nor doth the Law of suretyship in its essence and nature require that the Creditor, & sub eo titulo should pay the homage of faith, indeed when the Creditor is both the Creditor and the offended party, and also the supream Law-giver GOD, he may require of the captives the obedience of faith. So would justice, which saith, we should hurt none, give to every man his own, presse, that the debter repay to the surety, so far as he is able to make up his losses, but to pay to obedience of faith as a part of the ransome due to offended Justice, is no Gospel-Law, nor any part thereof, nor can it bear truth, except we deny the reall satisfaction made by Christ, which both Papists do weaken when they mix the merit of faith therewith, and Socinians deny.

 

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  1. The satisfaction performed upon the Crosse for sinners, though it be for a certain particular number, determined of God, & quoad numerum numerantem, & quoad numerum numeratum,both as touching the number, so many, not all and every one, and such persons, by head, name, birth, &c.Yet it is not the justifying of me, or John, or Paul, for I, nor no man can know that Christs satisfaction stands for you or me, by name and person, while first I or you beleeve, because it is the hid Decree of God. 2. Nor is this legall imputation beleevable, nor is it revealed, as it is terminated to single persons, to me or to you, untill by faith we apprehend it.
  2. But the imputation of application is that in which our justification standeth.

And the faith by which as by an instrument we are justified, presupposeth three union, and maketh a fourth union.

It presupposeth an union,

 

  1. Naturall.
  2. Legall.
  3. Federall.

 

  1. Naturall, that Christ and we are not only both mankind, for CHRIST and Pharaoh, Judasthe traitour and all the sons or perdition are one, specie & naturâtrue men, but one in brotherhood. He assuming the nature of man with a speciall eye to Abraham, Heb. 2.16. that is, to the elect and beleevers, for with them he is bone of their bone, and is not ashamed to call them brethren, Heb. 2.11,12. Ps. 22.22.
  2. It presuppones a Legall union between Christ and them, that God made the debter and the Surety one in Law, and the summe one in so far as he laid our debts on Christ, Isa.53.6.2 Cor.5.21.
  3. It presuppones an union Federall, Godmaking Christour Surety, and he was willing to be our Surety, and to assume not only our nature in a personall union, but also our state, condition, and made our cause his cause, our sins his sins, not to defend them, nor to say A men to them, as if we might commit them again, but to suffer the punishment due to them. And our faith makes a fourth union betwixt Christ and us, whether naturall, as between head and members, the branches and the Vine Tree, or mysticall as that of the spouse and beloved wife, or artificiall, or mixed between

 

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the impe and the tree. Or 4 Legall, between the Surety and the Debter, the Advocate and the Client, or rather an union above all, is hard to determine, for these are but all comparisons, and this Christ prayes for, Joh. 17. 23. I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.

  1. Now to the Question, as the Law condemns not a man, but him who is first a sinner, and an heir of wrath by nature in the first Adam,for the Law is essentially just: So Godjustifies not a man, but the man who, by order of nature, is first by faith in CHRIST, Rom.5.18. Therefore as by the offence of one (judgement) came upon all men unto condemnation, even so by the righteousnesse of one the free gift came upon all men (in Christ, as the other were in the first Adam) unto the justification of life: and so we must say, that all, ere they be justified, and beforeGod impute faith to them, that is, Christs believed righteousnesse to be theirs, must have faith and so believe, and so be one with Christ. And this imputed righteousnesse is ours, because we believe, and not untill we first believe, and the other imputation goes before faith: So the faith of Gods speciall mercy is two wayes so called. 1. As it leaneth upon and apprehendeth God in Christ, for the obtaining of mercy and remission of sins, and imputed righteousnesse: So faith goes before justification, and we believe that our sins may be pardoned, and that our sins may not be imputed, and that we may be justified and freed from condemnation: so by the act of believing, righteounesse is imputed to us. And thus justification and remission, i.e. relaxing of our persons from a state of eternall condemnation, as is meant, Rom. 8.1. are not the object of faith, but the effect and fruit of faith. 2. The faith of speciall mercy to me is considered as it apprehendeth and believeth, or rather feelingly knoweth speciall mercy, imputation of Christs righteousnesse now given to me, and as Christ hath payed a ransome for me, and satisfied justice for me, and so imputed righteousnesse and justification are the object of faith; Or rather the object of the sense of faith, which is most carefully to be observed. To answer Bellarmines unsolide Argument, we either believe remission of sins part, or to come, &c. But remission is liberation from punishment eternall or temporall, but justification is freedome from the fundamentall

 

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guilt-deserving punishment, and remission is a consequent thereof.

  1. Whether or not, is Justification taken one and the same way in the Old and New Testament?

Ans. The Apostle is clear, Rom. 4. where he proves both Jews and Gentiles are justified as Abraham and David. But 2. Justification by Grace hath not in iisdem apicibus in the same points, the same adversaries. 1. Moses and the Prophets contend most with Ceremoniall hypocrits, who sought righteousnesse much in Ceremonies, Washings, Sacrifices, New Moons, and also their own inherent godlinesse, Deut. 5. Deut. 7. Deut. 10. Deut. 11. Isai. 1. 10,11,12. &c. Mic. 6.6,7,8. Psal. 50. 7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18. Ps. 4. 2,3,4,5. 1Sam. 15. 22,23. Isa. 66. 1,2,3,4,5. Jer. 7. 1,2,3.–21,22,23.

  1. Paulhad other Adversaries, Rom. ch. 3. ch. 4. ch. 5. ch. 9. ch. 10. especially Antinomians, who drew the Doctrine of free Justification by Grace to licencious loosnesse, then we may sinne, if so and so, we be justified (said they) then is the Law of none effict, Rom. 6.1. But his chief Adversaries, on the other extream, were men that stood much for Justification by the works of the Morall Law: And Paul, Rom. 3. proves that all, Jews, Gentiles, David, Abraham, could be justified neither by works of Nature nor of Grace, and casts down theJews righteousnesse by Law-doing, Rom. 9. Rom. 10.
  2. There were a third Classe of Adversaries to free Justification, Galatians,seduced and false Apostles,who contended for Justificatication by Circumcision and the necessity of keeping the Ceremonial Law, if they would be saved, Act. 15. 1,2,3,4, &c. Gal. 2. Gal. 3.Gal. 4. Gal. 5. ch. 6. Who mixed the Gospel and Moses his Law, and Paul proves, Gal. 3. that we are not justified by the works of the Morall Law, for that Law, Deut. 26.27. involves all that omit the least duty of the Law, Gal. 3. 10,11,12,13. under a curse, and Christ was made a curse for us. And Paul proves in the generall, we are justified by neither the works of the Morall, nor of the Ceremoniall Law.
  3. Jameshad to do with another gang of loose livers, the Gnosticks, who contended for justification by a bare nominall faith without love or good works. And James proves that we are justified

 

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before men and to our selves by faith working by love, and not by a dead faith.

  1. Johncontends much for reall and speaking marks of justification and conversion, against dead Professours void of love to the Brethren.
  2. 3. What is the dominion of the Law over a sinner?
  3. It is the legall power to condemn all such as are under the Law, as a Covenant of Works; as marriage is dissolved, if either of the parties be dead: So Rom.7.4. Ye are dead to the Law through the body of Christ, and it is not every commanding power that Paul, Rom. 7. denies to the Law, but a Lordly dominion, such as Lords of life and death have and exercises, [foreign], and we are dead to the Law through the body of Christ, which mortification or dying is not understood subjective, as if it were in us, but legally and objectively in Christ, because Christ in his body on the tree did bear our sins, 1 Pet. 2.24. and was made a curse for us, in our place, Gal. 3.13. For Christ (saith Ambrose, clearing the place) giving his body as a saviour, overcame death and condemned sin: Hence these two words, Rom. 7.4. Wherefore ye also my brethren, are become dead to the Law, Gal. 2.19, For I through the Law am dead to the Law, that I might live unto God; As the death to the Law is legall, I am no more under Law-condemnation then a dead man, so the living to God is a Law-living to God on a Law-absolution (as the absolved malefactor cleared of a capitall crime which might have cost him his head, liveth, and so is set free) so there is another most emphatick word which insinuats that Christ is dead to the Law, as Paul was, for after Paul saith Gal. 2.19. I through the Law am dead to the Law,he adds, v. 20. I am crucified with Christ legally, that is, as Christ was crucified for sin by the sentence of the Law, so I am crucified with him. Rom. 6.8. Now if we be dead with Christ, we beleeve that we shall also live with him, which is not only to be expounded of mortification and inherent newnesse of life, but also of legall dying with Christ: For Christ died no death but legall death, there is no inherent mortification or slaying of a body of sin in him as in us, though from his death there also flow an merited and inherent personall mortification in us, for it is added, v. 9. knowing that Christ being raised

 

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from death dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him, then Christ, by Law, cannot die twice, so Christ being once crucified, the Law and death, which had once dominion over him, hath now no more dominion over him. Then, first, as Christ died a Law-death and was under death, because under the Law, so are we legally in him freed from the Laws dominion, and death following thereupon. 2. As Christ defies the Laws dominion and death, so do we. 3. As Christ cannot twise satisfie the Law by dying (for then the first had not been sufficient) so neither can we ever be under Law-death and Law-condemnation, for we was once in Christ legally condemned and crucified in our Surety and so cannot suffer in our persons legall condemnation and legall death. 4. As Christ is dead to the dominion of the Law and death having, once died and come out from under both, so are we dead and come legally out in him, which answereth the severall tentations we can be under in Christ. Obj. But then may we not sin, because wee are freed from the dominion of the Law and death? as Rom. 6. he had said, ye are not under the Law, but under Grace, v. 15. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the Law, but under Grace? God forbid, ver. 16,17. He answers from an absurd, then we that are ransomed by Christ, should not be our ransome-payers servants, but the servants of sin. Now except the meaning had been we are not under the Law, that is, the Laws dominion and the Laws condemning power, there had been no place for such an Objection; nay, nor any shadow; but the true Objection is, we are not under the Law to be thereby condemned and eternally punished, therefore what is the hazard of sin? We may sinne at will, there is no fear of hell. Paul answers not from that evill of servile fear that followeth sin, but from the woefull ingratitude to our ransome-payer. O then we should not be under Christ and the directing light and rule of our Lord Ransomer, if we sin at will, but still servants and slaves to sin and so not redeemed, by which we gather that there is two things in the Law. 1. The condemning power of it. 2. The directive commanding power: As to the former, Christ by being condemned and suffering a cursed death for us, took that wholly away. We are not then under the Law as condemning, yea neither as saying and justifying, for then should

 

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we be married to the Law and under conjugall power as wife and husband living together, which Paul refutes, Rom. 2. 1,2,3,8. (2.) There is a directive commanding power that CHRIST takes in hand, and commands us to obey our Lord Ransomer, and we should sin against his love, if we should live loosly, because we are freed from condemnation. Hence also there is a twofold dominion of sin, one legal to condemn us eternally, another (as it were) physicall to keep us under the superlative power of lusts, if Christ had not died, we had been under both.

  1. 4. What is meant by the oldnesse of the letter in which we are not to serve?Rom. 7.
  2. He means the idle, fruitlesse, and bare knowledge of the Law in externall Discipline, that reigns in an unrenewed man, by which he remaining in nature under the Law, foments an opinion pharisaicall (for he points at the false and literall glosses of the Law given by Pharisees and refuted by Christ, Mat.5.) Of merit, externall worship, ceremonies without any inward heart-renovation, to which is opposed the newnesse of the spirit, or true new Evangelick obedience and holinesse wrought by the Spirit.

Object. Is not the letter of the Law a bondage, since we are freed in heaven from the letter and from awing threatening?

Ans. To serve God is liberty, not bondage, Psal. 119.45. Rev. 22.3. compared with ver. 5. serving of God and raigning suit well together. See Luk. 1.74,75. Joh. 8.34,35,36. Rom. 6.16,17. but there is a threefold bondage of the letter. 1. Accidentall, in regard of our corruption, the service is wearisome to unrenued nature: This we are saved from in CHRIST, not fully in this life, but it comes not from the Law which is spirituall. 2. A bondage to the dominion of the condemning Law. 3. There is a bulke of Ordinances, hearing, reading, praying, meditating, repenting, receiving of the seals, we are freed from the one in this, and shal be freed from the other in the life to come.

  1. What is the dignity of the Gospel above the Law?
  2. By the hearing of faith, that is, of the Gospel we receive the Spirit, Gal.3. though the Law in the letter be also spirituall and lively and seek of us the lost Image of GOD by way of commanding, yet there is no promise of the Spirit, made in the Law

 

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neither gifts nor grace, and both are given by the Preaching of the Gospel.

  1. No miracles are wrought by the Law to confirm the Doctrine of the Law, for it is not new, nor is the gift of miracles given as a reward of Law-obedience, miracles in genere causæ finalis,are wrought to avenge Pharaohand the Ægyptians Law-obedience; but the miracles are wrought by the Name of Jesus, Act. 4. and for the confirming of the Gospel, and for the good of the Church. See Gal. 3.1,2,3.

 

CHAP. XXVI.

Of the property of the Covenant of Grace, the perpetuity thereof.

Quest. WHerein stands the eternity of the Covenant of Grace? And what other properties there be of the Covenant?

Ans. The Law and Covenant of Works is a rule of everlasting righteousnesse, and so may be called an everlasting righteousnesse, containing precepts of the Law of nature intrinsecally good, such as to know love, fear, trust in him as the only true God: and in this sense it is an eternall Covenant.

But 1. it is not eternall in the positives of the second, and fourth, and fifth Commands, the way of worship, the means, as Ceremonies, Sabbath, Magistracie, and such like, which are not to continue in the life to come, and so neither faith nor hope in God through Christ, 1 Cor. 13.13. Rom. 8.24,25. 2 Cor. 5.7. nor a Temple, nor Ordinances, nor the Kingdom of Christ as now dispenced, are to be the binding rule for eternity to such as are confederats of the Covenant of Grace, Rev. 21,22,23. 1 Cor. 15.24. though more of the smell and remnants of the Covenant of Grace, of the Lamb, of praises to him who was slain, Rev. 5.9,11,14. be in the life to come, then of the Law Covenant, in regard of our standing in a state of glory for evermore by the Mediator, to keep the nature in an eternall union, for evermore, by the Lord Christ his being cloathed with our nature, glorified for ever, Rev. 3.21. Rev. 5.

 

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Rev. 7. Rev. 20. Rev. 21. Ch. 22. And in that we shall be ever with Christ God-Man, Luk. 23.42. Joh. 17.24. 2 Cor. 5.8. Phil. 1.23,17. in an eternall state of glory, though not in regard of an advocation and intercession for fallen sinners. As 1 Joh. 2.1,2. or of praying that our faith fail not, when winnowed, as Luk. 22.31,32. In a word there is a mediation of the triumphing reign for the standing of the glorified nature, and a mediation for the reconciling of, and interceeding for of sinners. The latter must cease when the kingdom is given up by the Sonne to the Father, 1 Cor. 15.24. The former is eternall and shall never cease.

  1. The Law as a possible and standing way of justifying and saving sinners is not eternall, but is now ceased to all flesh, the Man Christonly excepted, but the Covenant of Grace stands as the only way under heaven, by which sinners may be saved, and after the Covenant of Grace there is no dispensation, which Libertinesand Familists call more spirituall without Ordinances and a way as they speak of all spirit, of pure spirit.
  2. The Covenant of Grace is eternall, in regard in it there is promised actuall grace, and continuall influences of grace from the Head Christ,the High Priest, to keep the confederats in obedience and in perseverence to the end. And no such influences either for the habit of grace or for the continuated acts thereof, are promised in the Covenant of Works, in regard Adama man, and poor men in him do undertake to obey. Whereas Christ-Man kinds and undertakes as head Covenanter and Surety for all the under confederats, and for sinners in the Covenant of Grace. Which difference is much to be observed, between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace: And for that cause the Covenant of Works is, 1. more independent, and requires more of mans strength and less grace then the other.
  3. It stands more by precepts, lesse by promises, having only one promise of a reward and hyre to the obeyer, and consists all of precepts, the other though it want not precepts, especially, it is his command that we believe in the Son of God,yet stands most by promises, and this Covenant gets the name of a promise or the promise, Acts2.39. Rom. 8.9. compared with Acts 3.25. Gen. 12.3.

 

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  1. The Covenanted Works hath more of hyre, more of man of nature, of earning and working, and more of mans Covenant where he binds for himself, and the other partie for himself, without the mutuall help of any of the confederate parties.
  2. The Covenant of Grace is, thus, also eternall, in that the buried and dead parties Abraham,Isaacand Jacob are still in the Covenant of Grace, and there remains a Covenant union between Christ and their rotten flesh sleeping in the dust, which is not an union by faith, or by any actings obedientiall of dead men, as is most evident, if we compare our Saviours words, Matth. 22.32. with the Lord speaking out of the Bush to Moses, Exod. 3.6. and God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, nor is the rising of the body promised in the Covenant of Works, nor is there a standing Law Covenant between the Lord and dead Abraham requiring the condition of faith from buried men. Onely there is a warrand to say that the Covenant is everlasting, because it goes beyond time, and stands with the dead in Christ, Matth. 22. 32. (2.) Because two great promises of the Covenant, the rising of the body and life everlasting, are fulfilled after time is ended, Joh. 6. 38,39. 1 Thess. 4. 14, 16,17. and adde to this the publick owning and confessing of the Saints before the Father and the holy Angels; which is publick remission and declared justification before the world of Elect Men and Angels, Luke 12.8. Matth. 10.31. (3.) Because after all these, to walk among them as their God and dwell among them, Rev. 7.15,16,17. when they are cloathed in white Robs, and are before the throne serving him night and day, and that the Lord should be their God, Rev. 21.7. after they have overcome all temptations, is fulfilled eternally in heaven. Now for God to walk among a people and be their God is to be a Covenanting God to them, as is evident from 2 Cor. 6.16. Lev. 26.11,12. Jer. 32.38. Zech. 13.6.
  3. The second and principle propertie of the Covenant is the graciousnesse and freedome thereof, therefore is it made with sinners, without hire or price, and every article and tith of it is Grace, 1. The whole Gospel is the word of Grace, Acts.20.32. Col.1.6. the Bargaine a paction of Grace, and the new Covenant, Heb. 8.8. for Grace is a new thing, and nature an old thing, the condition

 

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of the Covenant, to beleeve is a gift of grace, Phil. 5.29. the mercies bestowed and promised are all of free grace, for we are Justified by his grace, Rom. 3.24. freely, and are saved and called with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, 2 Tim. 1.9. For by grace (saith Paulare ye saved through faith, and that not of your selves, it is the gift of God, Eph. 2.8. and the new creation is framed in us of grace. But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love where with he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, Eph. 2.4,5. and the new heart promised, Ezek. 36.26. is given upon this account, v. 32. Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord, be it known unto you, be ashamed and confounded for your own wayes, O house of Israel. We have remission of sins freely of his grace,Eph. 1.7. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgivenesse of sins, according to the riches of his grace, Col. 1.14. Perseverence is promised of free grace, Jer. 31.35. Jer. 32.39,40. Isa. 54.10. as life eternall is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. 6.23. and every influence of grace is of free grace, Phil. 1.13. Joh. 15.5. and CHRIST the Surety of the Covenant, of free-grace and love, is given, Joh. 3.16. to taste of death for every man, Heb. 2.9.

 

CHAP. XXVII.

Of cases of Law-fear, and Gospel-faith: How a child a God fears Law-threatnings.

FRom these properties flow diverse cases touching the stability of the Saints, their perseverance, their temptations, their standing in grace.

  1. If they cannot fall away, who are thus seated in the Covenant, is not free will left to much loosnesse of security? Answ.Not at all: For a principle of Godly fear is fixed in the heart, and so in free will, never to depart from God, Jer.32.39,40. And where this Godly aw is, the heart is in a Godly trembling and fear, and darre not be loose, wanton, and secure to fear nothing, but fears

 

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alway, Prov. 28.14. and fears and trembles at the Lord and his, goodnesse, Hos. 3.5. A Godly heart trembles more for, fear of grace and the debt of grace, then of justice and wrath; and fears sin more, as it is against the bands of grace, and against Christ, and Gospel-love who can save, then as it is against Law the Law-giver, and him who eternally destroyes. And so the aw of heaven hath a stronger impression then the terrour and aw of hell.

Quest. 2. How can the fear of falling away, and the faith of perseverance absolutely promised and absolutely given, consist together?

Ans. The Law-fear of falling away, and the Gospel faith of persevering are not consistent. The fear legall of the least sinne is a fear of hell and of eternall wrath to be irrecoverably inflicted, but because the person is under grace, the beleever cannot fear this fear, except the Law-fear be letten out against him as a temptation, but it is not his oblidged duty so to fear.

  1. The Law-fear upon a beleever is conditionall, and not absolute, as he fears hell and falling away, jure,as his deserving, if Godshould enter in judgement with him, and if he were not in CHRIST: But he is oblidged to a Gospel faith which layes hold on Christ, righteousnesse, and deliverance from condemnation, and if Christ and interest in him be hid from him, and nothing on but Law-fear, that is a triall, not a duty of Law-fear. But there is a Godly Law-fear, or a Gospel-Law-fear, which is a Godly horrour conditionall for that which is never to be inflicted, but yet according to deserving may be inflicted, and this is the terrour of the Lord, which breedeth Gospel perswasion, 2 Cor. 5.11. and so may well stand with Gospel-faith and assurance of deliverance from falling away and of being stablished and confirmed to the end. As a child in the fathers arm threatened to be cast over a sharp Rock in the Sea, may have horrour and fear, and cry out for fear, and yet beleeve so his fathers compassion as he will not throw him in the Sea, because the threatning is ordained not to be exercised, but that the child may so much the more thrust his arms about his fathers neck.

Quest. 3. What is the best victory over temptations from such fears?

 

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Ans. As in all temptations, so here, overcoming is attended with precious promises, which are to be read, Rev. c. 2. 7. 17. 26,27,28. c. 3.5.12.21. Rev. 21.

For 1. Feavers of the Law that have no kindly cools, and relenting by the promises of the Gospel, tend not to the strengthning of the life of God, but only when they leave a standing self loathing, and loving of Christ.

  1. It argues the strength of faith, after many, yea six foyles to stand; as the Army that is broken six times, yet rallies and draws up again, is often at the seventh time victorious.
  2. Such as stand against a strong and mighty tentation, being pressed out of measure, above strength, as Paulwas, 2 Cor.1.8,9. in so much (saith he) that we despaired even of life. But wee had the sentence of death in our selves, do prevail to the being taught of God, not to trust in our selves, but in God who quickens the dead: For here there comes reall strength from fighting: As he who, by strength of nature, lives and convalesceth after a running boatch and strong pestilence, goes through pest-houses and is never infected again. So the worthies by faith who overcame strong temptations, Heb. 11. to the end, keep the fields and prevail till death.
  3. Godly fear of self-weaknesse and trembling at sin which may darken the feelings of received mercies and sweet influences addeth strength. Something of that is here, 2 Cor.12. 10. when I am weak, then am I strong.
  4. A fixed peace in assurance of deliverance from condemnation, and quietnesse in beleeving pardon and righteousnesse in Christ,ought alwayes to be, as touching the state of Justification: for the questioning of this in a beleever, if Antinomianswill yeeld to truth, is contrair to faith, and no warrantable assurance. But 2. a fixed peace in David, immediately after blood shed and adultery, before beleeving of the remission of these particular sins be, in the Lords order, renewed, is security, and not Godly peace. Psal. 32.3. While I keept silence, my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day. 5. I acknowledgedand thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Psal. 51. 1.2,3. &c. prove this. But it may be said, doth not this holy feeling of, and trouble for

 

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the particular hainous guiltinesse, brangle the fixed peace and the persons faith and confidence that he is in a state of justification? Ans. Not at all: for the outcries of the child of God, Rom. 7.24. under, not a finger, or an arm, or a leg, but a body of sinne: O wretched man, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? are good, and much feeling of pain argues much life. And such as in this regard say, I thank, God, I was plagued and pained, but now nothing ails me, I have peace, I am rich, I have need of nothing, Revel. 3.17. I am all whole, must be in a dangerous case. Indeed the complaining of want of justification and of the righteousnesse of God in a believer, and a raising of the foundation, as Psal. 31.22. Jonah 2.4. I am cast out of thy sight: are both false and bastard-feelings, and hastie unbelief: for this is a reflection upon, and a reproaching of the Office of the Healer of sinners. This is contrair to faith, and the former is a complaining of the body of sin that can hardly be sclandered; so a complaining, of self, and the feeling of inherent corruption weakens not, but strengthens faith. And complaining thus, and triumphing in a believed justification, do well consort in Paul. Rom. 7.24. O wretched man, &c. v. 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord: and Rom. 8.1. Then every feeling of sin is not contrair to faith, as Mr. Town and other Antinomians teach, some godly tender feeling foments faith.

  1. 6. How cometh it to passe that seldome feeling of sin wanteth unbeleef?

Ans. Our looking, in a Legall, not in an Evangelick way, upon sin, doth occasion unbelief: for looking to the sicknesse of the sinner is but abused, when this use is made of it, that the question which Christ hath aboundantly answered; Ah he hath not, who satisfied and payed my ransome, justified me also by the Redemption that is in him: but the strong body of sin which leads me captive, Rom. 7.23. doth also lead, rather mislead me to doubt whether the ransome was sufficiently payed, and I sufficiently and freely, by his grace and theRedemption that is in Christ Jesus, justified, as Rom. 3.24. And because the sinner feels the stirring and too vigorous acting of a body of sin, which is his own work, he removes the foundation stones laid by Christ, and questions the well done work of Christ, and thrusts in his sickle into Christs harvest:

 

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which is upon the mater to say, Ah my sanctification is nought or small: Therefore Christs satisfaction is weak, so the man, laying the burden upon the wrong back, will take and pull off the burden that Christ in his own body did bear on the tree, as 1 Pet. 2.24. and wrestle under his own body of sin himself, and he thinks he will do the business better himself then Christ. This is that which Antinomians imput to us groundlesly, but it is our sinfull weaknesse so to be troubled at the indwelling of a body of sin, as we doubt of and call in question the work of Justification and the satisfaction of Christ. But there is good cause why the sinner quarrel with himself and complain of a body of sin, and yet not only quarrell with Christ, but exalt Christ, and by faith close with the absolutenesse of his gifted satisfaction and righteousnesse. And this is as easie by the Grace of God, as we see the more that a gracious soul abases himself, as one carnall and sold under sin, Rom. 7.14. as one in whom there dwells no good, as touching the flesh, v. 18. in whom sin dwells, v. 20. as one brought into captivity to the Law of sin, and a wretched man, 24. so much the more doth he exalt Christ the only deliverer, Rom. 7.25. Rom. 8.1, 23,33,34,35. and why should not our blacknesse commend Christs beauty, our deadness exalt his life, our sinfull wretchednesse his glorious office in saving, and our emptinesse and drynesse his fulnesse of the anointing who is all fulnesse?

 

CHAP. XXVIII.

Christ died not to blot out the sense of sin, but rather to quicken a Godly sense thereof.

The more of Christ and his sufferings be apprehended, the more Godly sense of sin, so far is Christs death from bloting out all sense of sin: For if sense of sin be all one with a simple reflecting knowledge, that we once sinned, then the Godly in this life from grace, not from the stirring of the Law, do both know and acknowledge what they were. 1 Tim. 1.13. I thank, Christ Jesus our Lord, &c. I was before a blasphemer, and a persecuter, and injurious: but I obtained mercy. Tit. 3.3. We our selves were

 

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also sometimes foolish, disobedient, &c. Yea the glorified cannot before the Throne sing the glory of the Lamb slain and the price of Redemption payed, Rev. 5.12. to redeem them from sin, but there must be even in glory, this sense of their debt, though without heart-break or sorrow. Then it cannot be a Doctrine of the Gospel that paying of our debt, and the ransome, doth score out of a gracious memory the counts of a payed debt: The more I know what Christ hath done, the more I should kisse and imbrace the gracious surety, and these kisses of Glory, and that song, worthy is the Lamp, &c. say that grace and the faith of the price payed do inlarge rather the holy memory and sense of sin, then obliterate it. Hence the translated out of sense of grace, cast back their eye to the pit, the drudgerie of bondage they were once in, Eph. 2.3,4,5. Tit. 3.3,4,5. 1 Tim. 1.13,14. with loving and praising the riches of grace. And must it not be good to read old counts and weep for joy, and cast and dart up praises to him who is at the right hand of the Father, and sorrow for old debts, and love much him who freely pardons?

  1. If sense of sin be taken for the unbelieving feeling of, and judging my self cast out of his sight and condemned, whereas yet I am in Christ, and it is God who justifies me, who is he shall condemnRom. 8. 33,34. We shall agree with Antinomians,this is indeed the hastie sense of unbeleef, Psal. 31.22. Jon. 2.4. Hence let them be rebuked who say not that Christ in the Gospel, hath taken away this sense of sin. Yea many redeemed of the Lord, are weary and laden, but they render themselves weary, and then sinfully complain that Christ will not ease them. In which unconverted ones in the dead-throw are more to be justified then they, the one being under a reall burden, and the spirit of the Law acting upon them, the other act the Law at their own hand, and will receive the spirit of bondage to fear again,whether it be reason or not. He is the less to be pittied, who casts himself with his own hand in prison.
  2. There is a Gospel-sense of in-dwelling of sin bringing forth the mourning of the dove, and tears that are so innocent as they wrong not Christ, or his work of redeeming and justifying: Of this, Rom.7.24. Christ, sure, takes not this away. Beleevers

 

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lodge a body of sin in them, as sighing patients and as captives half against their will, at least their renewed will, does contradict this guest, Rom. 7. 14,15,16,17,18, &c. 23,24. It is sinfull doctrine to say that CHRIST takes away this sense of sin. For 1. this is the very true tendernesse and gracious smitings of heart under any guiltinesse: As 1 Sam. 24.5. 2 Sam. 24.10. Davids heart smote him after he had cut off the lap of Sauls garment, and numbred the people. 1 Joh. 3.20. Job. 27.6. And in some it is the naturall conscience accusing and challenging after sin is committed; now CHRIST came not to extirpate conscience, nor the power of feeling and discerning the obligation to wrath, that the conscience apprehendeth after sin is committed, nor the legall evill deserving of sin, nor the contrariety between it and the Law. 2. Christ by his death gives repentance and mourning for sin, Acts 5.31. Eze. 32. 10,11. (3.) Christ commends this, Jer. 31.18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself. 2 King. 22.19. Because thine heart was tenderand thou hast weept before me, I have also heard thee, saith the Lord. Luk. 7.44. She hath washed my feet with tears. (4.) If Christ by his death should remove this, hee should bring on, by his death, a heart passed feeling, and burnt with a hot iron, which is condemned, Eph. 4.19. 1 Tim. 4.2. (5.) It speaks a gracelesse rockinesse of heart to sin, and not care for it, Act. 18.17,18. Pro. 30.20.

Far lesse would the Lord have us to dream that a Christian is annihilated and melted into God, where they leave off to know, will, desire, feel, act, or do any thing but God is all and all in this life, and that, to the eye of faith, though not to the eye of reason, all sense of sin is destroyed; this is a destroying and overturning of all, of Law, Gospel, of all humble walking with God, and removes all necessity of fearing, hoping, believing, praying, hearing, and changes as over into blocks.

 

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PART II.

Of the Mediatour of the Covenant.

CHAP. I.

  1. WHat room or place hath Christ the Mediator in the Covenants?
  2. He hath place in the Covenant of Works as a satisfier for us. 2. As a doer and an obedient fulfiller thereof in all points. And he is Mediatorand Surety of the Covenant of Grace.
  3. The first Adammarres all, the second ADAM who makes all things new, mends all. The first Adamwas a publick sort of stirresman, to whom was committed the standing and falling of all mankind, and in reference to man, the standing of Heaven, Earth, and Creatures in their perfection, and he spoiled all, put all things a-reeling. The second ADAM received in his arms the whole Creation that was a-falling, for in him all things [foreign] stand fast, Col. 1.17. And he bears up all by his mighty word, Heb. 1.3. He satisfied for our sins, and for our breach of the Covenant of Works.
  4. He is a full doer and fulfiller of the Covenant of Works most perfectly, by doing 1 Joh.3.7. He who does righteousnesse is righteous:As he who suffers for the broken Law, fulfills the Law. Rom. 6.7. He that is dead, [foreign] is freed, justified from sin, in the obligation of it to punishment. So Paul, vers. 8. If wee be dead with Christ, we beleeve that we shall live with him. This dying is to beleeve that he died for us, at least it excludes not that. And if we keep the Law, we are not oblidged to suffer: for the Law does not oblidge man in absolute sense, both to perfect doing

 

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and to perfect suffering copulatively, but to one of them. But if we be (legally) dead with Christ, (as his death so excellent doth exhaust sins punishment and is a perfect satisfaction therefore) we are free or justified from sin, not to suffer or satisfie by suffering for it, as Rom. 8.3. For what the Law could not do, so that it was weak (by accident, not of it self) through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the liknesse of sinfull flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. [foreign] the righteousnesse of the Law, the passive righteousnesse in suffering for the breach of the Law, might be fulfilled in us, 2 Cor. 5.2. And Isai. 53.5. But he was wounded for our transgressions, &c.–6. The Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all. But though some suffer, as the reprobate do, and suffer in this life the beginning of satisfactory judgement, yet are they not loosed from active obedience to the Law as the Law, though they cannot, having once sinned, be under the Law as a Covenant of Justification and life: nor is any flesh under that Covenant now.

  1. What place hath Christs righteousnesse here?

Ans. Pareus with some others distinguish between the Righteousnesse of Christs, person, which contains his essentiall Righteousnesse, as God, the habituall and actuall conformity of the Man Christ, and the perfect holinesse of the Man Christ. Such a High Priest became us, as is holy, harmlesse, &c. Heb. 7.26. And, The righteousnesse of his merit, in the satisfaction of his suffering, the satisfaction is the formall cause of our Justification which is counted ours: this latter righteousnesse is acquired, the former is essentiall.

Now the active obedience of Christ falls under a twofold consideration. 1. As the Man Christs perfect conformity to the Law of God, so as man he was oblidged to do and suffer all that he did and suffered, even to lay down his life for man. But had he been only man his righteousnesse had neither been by condignity meritorious, nor yet satisfactory for us. But 2. The whole course of Christs obedience from his birth to the grave, by doing and suffering, is to be considered as the doing and suffering of so excellent a person, his being born, his praying, preaching, dying, coming from a Person God-Man. Now the Law required not praying, preaching of

 

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God-man, the blood of God, or the dying of him who was God-Man. And so all these being both so excellent, and then so undue, have respect of satisfaction to God. 2. The active obedience of Christ & all that Christ did and suffered were performed by him in his state of humiliation: In which he was poor, [foreign], 2 Cor. 8.9. for us, so also by the same ground a weeping man, hungry, thirsty, weary for us, made lower then the Angels by the suffering of death, Heb. 2.9. Humbled by partaking of flesh and blood, because of the children, Heb. 2.14. Emptied himself for us, Ph. 2. This was, as Pareus well saith, perpetua quædam passio & pæna peccatorum nostrorum, fuit tota vita Christi: All these have a respect of punishment and suffering. For since Christ was both a viator and a comprehensor, and such a holy sinlesse person, he ought to have had the actuall possession of the Crown of Glory from the womb, and so should have been free of weeping, hunger, thirst, wearinesse, groaning, sighing, sadnesse, persecution, reproaches, &c. all which adhered to all his active holinesse, and therefore in that his actions were satisfactory passions. For satisfaction is defined a voluntary restoring of the equivalent, and as good in the place of what is taken away, and the good restored must be, 1. Undue. 2. The proper good of the restorer, which agrees to the active and passive obedience of Christ.

Obj. Then Christs very weeping, and praying, being the weeping and praying of God-Man, might have been a perfect satisfaction for our sins; for Christ was God-Man in all his holy actions in the state of humiliation, as in his being crncified, and in his suffering?

Ans. This doth not follow: Because the punishment of the breach of the Law, and not that only, but such a speciall punishment, by dying the first and second death, according to the threatening of the Law, Gen. 2.17. In the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die: was required in the Law, and except the threatening of the Law be fulfilled, the Law is not fulfilled: And Paul, Gal. 3.13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed be every one that hangeth on a tree. Now Christs suffering the death of crosse the cursed death is that which makes him under the Law.

 

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Ergo, there is a Law-righteousnesse in suffering death. So Gal. 4.4. God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the Law. For what end? 5. To redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the Adoption of sons. How are we redeemed from under the Law? By blood, purchasing to us Justification. Rom. 3.24. Being justified freely by his Grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousnesse for the remission of sins past: And redemption from the curse of the Law, and remission is ever ascribed to the blood of Christ dying, Rom. 3.24,25. Ye are bought with a price, [foreign] called a ransome of Christs blood, [foreign], Matth. 20.28. 1 Tim. 2.6. Eph. 1.1.7. In whom we have redemption in his blood, the forgivenesse of sins. Col. 1.14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgivenesse of sins. Rom. 5.9. Being justified by his blood. 1 Pet. 1.18. Being redeemed by the blood of the Lamb unspotted and undefided. 1 Joh. 1.8. The blood of Jesus Christ purgeth us from all sin. Rev. 5.9. And they sang a new song (to wit, the four Beasts and the four and twenty Elders)– for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood. 1 Pet. 1.18. By his stripes (which he suffered in his death, Isa. 5.3.) we are healed. Rev. 1.5. To him that hath loved us, and washen us from our sins in his blood.For though all Christs actions of God-man from the worth of the infinite person be meritorious, yet are they refuseable, yea a satisfaction by Covenant, which was the death of God-Man must be also. 2. The word also never speaks of Christs dying for all, but it mentions Justification in his blood, Ro. 3.24,25. Rom. 5.9. Yea the Scripture adds another end of Christs death, to wit, forgivenesse, Col. 1.14. Eph. 1.7. intercession at the right hand of GOD. 1 Joh. 2.1. that we may receive the Adoption of sons, Gal. 4.5. To make us Kings and Priests to God Rev. 1.16. dying to sin, living to him, 1 Pet. 2.24. That he

 

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might bring us to God, 1 Pet. 3.18. The glorifying of God in our bodies, 1 Cor. 6.19,20. Redeeming us from our vain conversation, 1 Pet. 1.18. From this present evil world, Gal. 1.4. Sanctifying the people, Heb. 13.12. Heb. 10. 8, 9,10. All which the Lord must intend in Christs death to Pagans, old and young, to all and every one of mankind to whom the Gospel could not come. And what authority have men to devise a redemption generall, universall, from hell, and not from sin? 2. For life eternall and not for the giving of the Spirit, and for redemption from a vain conversation, and for sanctifying of the people also? 3. A redemption in Christs blood, but no forgivenesse of sins in his blood, not any non-imputation of sin, nor reconciliation of the world, 2 Cor. 5.15;18? 4. A dying of the Just for the unjust, but not to bring them to God; a redeeming of them, but not a redeeming of them out of every Kindred and Tongue, and People and Nation (for these People, Nations, and Tongues, were redeemed by this way, as well as they) and a washing of them in his blood, but no making of them Kings and Priests to God, a dying-for all, but no living to him: contrair to 1 Pet. 1.18. Rev. 5.9. Rev. 1.5.5,6. 2 Cor. 5.15? 5. Christs blood did something (and it is not any thing) to make all saveable, to pacifie Justice, satisfie the Law, to merite Heaven; but did nothing to soften the heart, mortifie and sanctifie the will, mind, affections, to remove unbeleef, to renew the mind. But it is sure the Lord had not intended to commit heaven and hell any more to a sanctified will, but mutable and lubrick in Adam but to commit all to Christ, to a better Covenant, better promises, to a way of free grace not of nature: Yet these men commit the salvation and damnation of all and every one, to an unsanctified, corrupt, rebellious will, Gen. 6.5. Gen. 8.21. 1 Cor. 2.14 Joh. 6.44. Joh 14 4. Psal. 51.5. Jer. 17.9,10, &c.(except they say, Pagans and all mankind are regenerated, sanctified, justified) yea to a worse Covenant then that Covenant of Works, to an universall Covenant of Grace. That 1. never came to their ears. 2. By which they are in a worse condition then Adam was, who had the Image of God in his soul, and a full power to stand, and a clearly revealed Covenant: But all mankind for whom Christ is supposed to die, are born heirs of wrath, but they are

 

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born in more miserie in the bondage of sin, of a blind heart, of a corrupt will, their chains heavier, their furnace hoter in hell, helps fewer. And yet the absolutenesse of Soveraignty under the freedom of the Grace of Christ, by this way of Universalists, shines no more now, nay not so much now as in Adams state, for more is laid upon free-will, and lesse help to heal the will, then was in the Covenant of Works. And if all die in Adam, and the Second Adam die for all, he must die to loose the works of Satan in all; Now if a weaker course be taken to destroy Sathans Kingdom now then in Adams state, and all be laid upon a weaker will, Sathan is stronger now then before: And if Christ do not purchase by his death grace to bow indeclinably the will of all these for whom he dyed, to cause them live to him, die to sin, to make them Kings and Priests to God, &c. but leave their will in a more weak and wicked condition then it was under in the first Covenant, Sathan is in this stronger then the second ADAM. No more of this here.

It is a question, the Threatning standing, Gen. 2.17. how the active righteousnesse of Christ can be a cause meriting to us life, and satisfying the Law, when there is no suffering for the breach of the Law which expresly required death in the sinner: Not to say, that it seems too near to make Christs dying needlesse, if his active holinesse do the businesse; Nay we cannot so teach.

 

CHAP. II.

Where in stands our right to Christ and the satisfaction made for us by Christ? 2. Faith is not the cause of our right. 3. Christs incarnation and dying are not favours merited by Christ. 4. How Adams sin and Christs righteousnesse are ours.

Our right to CHRIST must be considered more accurately then ordinarily it is. Whether it floweth from 1. the merite of Christ: Or 2. from the grace of predestination: Or 3. faith in Christ.

  1. Conclusion.Grace is either objectivè, out of us as the free love of God having mercy on whom he will; Or subjectivè merited by Christ to us and bestowed upon us.

 

 

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As touching our right to God as incarnate. 2. As dying for us. 3. As his satisfaction is made ours, are of diverse considerations. For if God out of free love sent his Son in the world, Joh. 3.16. and if he, out of free-grace that separateth the race of man from Angels, took upon him the nature of man, to wit, of Abraham, and not the nature of Angels, Heb. 2.16. Then sure by the merits of Christs death it cannot come that God came in the flesh to save sinners. For the effect cannot but come from the cause; but the cause flowes not from the effect, nor is the effect, to wit, Christs Incarnation and his dying, the cause of that love and free-grace of God which moved God to send his Son in the flesh, but posterior unto, and latter then that love: for because he loved us, he sent his Son in the flesh to die for us.

  1. This cannot then be true (Christ by his dying for the Elect, merited and deserved, that God should be made Man for us)for this should be true also (by the blood of Christ, and by the redemption that is in Christ, God sent his Son in the flesh, and the Son took on him our nature, by the blood of the Covenant)nor can this be true (Christ merited by his death, that he should die for us) for so it should be true, that Christ by his blood shed his blood for us: Where as because he loved his Church freely, he gave himself for her. Eph. 5.25. Who loved me and gave himself for me, Gal. 2.20. Hence 1. though grace be the cause of grace, as because he of grace ordained us to glory, therefore of grace he calls, and because of free-grace he calls, of free-grace he carries on his work, and gives of grace, perseverance and glory. Yet there is a fountain-grace of election to glory, which hath no cause nor merit, not the merit of Christ for its cause; but is the cause of causes and of Christs merits. As one fire may produce another but the element of fire was not produced by another element of fire, but by God in creation. And one Vine Tree brings forth another, but the first Vine Tree was created by the Lord only.
  2. Conclus.Nor have we (to speak acurately) right to Christs satisfaction nor to his righteousnesse by faith. 1. Because the Lords free-grace in laying our sins on Christ, Isa. 53.6. and his making him sin for us, 2 Cor. 5.21. does rather give the right to his Satisfaction. God would have Christ to stand for so many chosen of

 

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God upon the Crosse, and for no other. 1 Cor. 1.30. Ye are of him through Jesus Christ, who is made [foreign] of God, to us, wisedom, and righteousnesse, and sanctification, and redemption. Nor is there any act of faith interveening by which Christ became our surety and ransone-payer upon the Crosse, and not the surety of others.

  1. It is ordinary to our Divinesto say, by faith we do apply Christand his righteousnesse: but if we speak properly, application is possession and a putting on of Christ and his righteousnesse. Now title or Law-right to an inheritance, and possession of it, are different natures, and have different causes: but faith gives not law-right to Christ and his righteousnesse not so much as instrumentally. My receiving with my hand gold, my eating and drinking the flesh and blood of Christ by faith, Joh. 6.53,54, &c. doth presuppone some right to that gold: but no man can say that receiving of gold, and eating of bread and putting on of garments, gives a man right to gold, bread or garments. He that possesseth an inheritance hath some right to the inheritance by birth, buying, purchase or gift: the possession in its nature and causes may be unjust, yet it is possession. Nor can it be shown what causative influence, even instrumentall faith, hath in our Law-right to Christs satisfaction and righteousnesse, except it were a meritorious cause of our right by way of instrument, which can hardly be said.
  2. We may ask how Christso died for the Reprobate, as his death is a remedie applicable to them by the ordination of God,so as they shall have life eternall, if they believe. For 1. there is either a jus and a Law-right to pardon and life eternall merited by Christs death to the Reprobate, or no such thing is merited. If neither be procured by Christs merite, the Patrons of this way shall say there is no serious offer made to them: yea there is a jus, a title to life eternall and remission, which all the reprobate may challenge,

 

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even a right to remission and life eternall, so they beleeve. Well then, it is the same right conditional to life and pardon which is purchased to the Elect: yea this must be purchased whether they believe or not. Then there is no more in the kind of the Law-right to Redemption and life eternall and remission of sins purchased to Peter, then to Judas or Cain; And therefore hath Christ bestowed as much tender love in dying for the Reprobate as in dying for his friends. And Christ saith there is no greater love then this, Joh. 15.13. As for the efficacious intention of applying of Christs death to Peter, when as God had no such intention of applying it to Judas, that is an act of eternall predestination, not a fruit of Christs death, and as for the grace of beleeving, it was purchased to all, Reprobate and Elect, only the Lord applyes not his death, and bestowes not the grace of beleeving upon the Reprobate, but for right to faith, to remission, to perseverance, to life eternall, this right must be purchased, but faith it self is never bestowed upon them. But there is a ransome of blood given for faith, and purchased by CHRISTS merit: But CHRIST is never called the Head of all men, Elect and Reprobate, but the Head of the Body the Church, Eph.1.22. Col. 1.18. And whereas the Head hath merited faith to the Reprobate, and that absolutely (for a condition is not possible) he should bestow it absolutely, else there is no seriousnesse in the command of beleeving. And since faith is no meritorious cause of right to remission and life eternall, nor a cause in part, or in whole, of our compleat and actuall reconciliation, it may well be said, that they all are compleatly reconciled, pardoned, justified, washen in Christs blood, when nothing is wanting, that compleats the nature of remission and justification, for faith is only a condition applying, not a cause buying, nor satisfying for us, and no cause giving in part, or in whole, any new right.

  1. Conclus.Should we, by faith, have right to the promise of a new heart, by beleeving, we should have a new heart before we have a new heart, for none can beleeve savingly any promise, and so neither can he beleeve that promise that God shall give a new heart, untill the habit of faith, which is a speciall part of the new heart, be infused: For actuall saith must flow from habituall

 

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faith. Therefore right to that promise must be absolutely purchased by the death of Christ to the elect before they beleeve.

Quest. How is it that not only, penally, but intrinsecally and formally we sinned in Adam, and are inherenter sinners in him, but we are righteous in Christ only imputativè;, and why should not Christ be named formally the sinner, since he is made by imputation the sinner? As Adams sin is ours by imputation, and we formally and inherently are sinners in Adam?

Ans. How we sinned in Adam is a point of greater difficulty: For this first sin the tottering and reeling of the specifick common nature in Adam is ours, not because he is our father [foreign] by nature (though that be a ground of the imputation also) but because he is such a father by Covenant, and Law, the Law and Covenant of Works being laid in pawnd in his hand. There be three parts of Originall sin: A partaking of the first sin of Adam, we all sinned in him, Rom. 5.12,14,15. (2.) The want of the Image of God, called the Glory of God, Rom. 3.23. (3.) Concupiscence and a bentnesse of nature to sin, Rom. 7.7,14,17,18,23,24. As to the first, Adams sin is ours really and truely, not so much because it is ours, as because it is imputed to be ours by God, who so contrived the Law of Works, as it should be made with Adam, not as a single father, but with Adam as a publick person representing all man, and having our common nature as a father both by nature and Law, which came from the meer free-will of God.

  1. Who might so have contrived the first Covenant of Works, that sin should only have been Adamsown sin, not the sin of his posterity. For by no necessity of nature, which is antecedent to the free decree of God, are all mankind legallyin Adams loins, thoughnaturally they be.

(2.) But children are as naturally in their nearest fathers loines, as we are all in the loines of Adam, and all men are equally of that same specifick nature with their nearest Parents, as with their first Parents: Yet the sins of the nearest Parents, by no necessity, are alwayes charged upon the children, but now all have sinned in Adam, Rom. 5.12,18.

(3.) Where a sin is inherently and personally, there is no need of imputation, which is a free Act of God, had Christ been inherently

 

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and personally the sinner, God needed not make him, or impute our sins to him: as Isai. 53.6, 2 Cor. 5.21. and if we had been intrinsecally sinners in Adam, his sin had been ours as intrinsecally as it was Adams; and as Adam was not the first who sinned by imputation, but personally and intrinsecally, so neither should Adams sin have been our sin by imputation, but intrinsecally and personally, now the Scripture saith, Rom. 5.19. By one mans disobedience, many were made sinners, [foreign] then they were not intrinsecally sinners, before they were made, that is, before they were reputed sinners in Adam, or before Adams sin was imputed to them: as we are not intrinsecally righteous in Christ, before we be justified, and made or reputed righteous in Christ: When therefore our Divines say, wee are as guilty of eating the forbidden fruit, as if our hands were there and our teeth, and we did eat in him, the speech cannot be taken physically personally (for we were not then born) but morally and legally: but our nature was legally there. But when the Elect does sin, Christ is not said to have been in our loines legally, but he was made sin, he was punished so as if he had been the sinner; though there was in Christ no formall guiltinesse, no reatus culpæ, but reatus pænæ.

But we are deprived of the Image of God, and inclined to all sin, not by imputation, as the young Lion and the young Serpent have not the bloody and the stinging nature of the old Lion and the old Serpent by imputation, but by naturall and intrinsecall inherencie: Now our holie, harmlesse, and undesiled High Priest hath no sin in him by inherencie.

  1. A legall satisfaction and paying of a summe, yea more then the debter was owing, can never take away a morally inherent guiltinesse, nor inherently justifie and make innocent the sinner and make him one, who hath never borrowed the money and wasted it, or one who hath never sinned in Adam,and who hath never sinned in his own person: Yea the Law of Works standing, as it is most spiritual and holy; It is 1: impossible that he who hath once broken the Law, though he be made inherently most holy, and perfectly sanctified, can be made righteous, which requires

 

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there shall never be one the least sin committed, and what is done cannot be undone.

  1. The suffering of another, as of the Man Christ, may well stand for what we should have suffered, but cannot remove the inherent blot of sin, and remove fundamental guiltinesse. The paying a thousand Crowns for him who borrowed five hundreth Crowns and spent them on harlotry and drunkennesse, may free the debter from being in Law, lyable to pay the five hundreth Crowns, but can never free him from being an unjust borrower, and a profuse waster.
  2. The two Covenants of Works and a Grace standing, its impossible that the active obedience of Christ can make us actively and inherently righteous, or restore to us our lost innocency.

 

CHAP. III.

How Christ suffered for us in our roome and place. 2. He died not for all and every one. 3. How many wayes Christ is said to die in our stead. 4. The Lords so dying for all makes not all saveable, nor the Gospel Preachable to all Nations. 5. Christ died in the stead of the Elect.

The Lord Jesus hath a roome in each Covenant, of Works, and of Grace: In the Covenant of Works as a sufferer for the breach of it. Its said by Learned Davenantius, one is said truely and properly to die for another, who dies to procure his good, though the other by his own fault, get no good of his dying for him. But there is not such a Question as this, whether one may truely and properly die for another, but whether Christ in the sense of the Holy Ghost died verè & propriè, truely and properly, the just for the unjust, to procure good to the unjust, and yet these unjust may eternally perish and reap no good by Christs dying, through their unbeleef? 2. Will it not follow that Christ 1. died truely

 

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and properly for all, and yet, non obstante morte Christi, notwithstanding of the Lords dying, all the world may eternally perish, as say Arminians and Socinians. 3. It shall follow that the immediate, yet the compleat effect of Christs death is not actuall, but possible saving of all. And Christ hath verè & propriè, truelie and properly died for them. Nor 4. is it enough to say that Christ had a speciall intention in dying for the Elect to give them faith, but he had no such intention in dying for the Reprobate. But hence it follows that Christ as properly and truely died for the Reprobate as for the Elect, as touching the nature and intention of his dying; and that he offered as sufficient a ransome for the one as for the other, and that is a meer possible ransome, but as concerning the intention to apply effectually, or no effectuall intention to apply the death, there’s the difference. But 1. we aske for Scripture, where it is said CHRIST dying as dying for the world, had these two contrair intentions. The Scripture saith, Christ died to gather his scattered children, Joh. 11.5. to bring to God, 1 Pet. 3.18. these for whom he died, that they might have life, Joh.10.11. live to God, 2 Cor.5.15. die to sin, 1 Pet.2.24. be redeemed from their vain conversation, 1 Pet.1.18. be delivered from this present evill world, Gal.1.4. Here is our effectuall intention; where is there a place for his dying with no effectuall intention to bring any to God? and yet he dyed for all good and evill, to make salvation possible, say they. It is not enough to coyn two intentions in Christ-God-Man dying, and give us Scripture for one of them only, and bid us take the other on trust. 2. Nor is it enough to say all these places speak of Christs effectuall dying for his Elect only. For 1. it is not truely nor properly said that Christ effectually died for the Elect only, for he effectually died for no man by this way, because he died only to make salvation possible to all, so as they might perish for ever, notwithstanding of his dying for them: So the efficacy of dying is in Christs intention, and application. Now efficacy of intention and efficacy of application are both extrinsecall to his laying down his life. 2. The place, 2 Cor.5.15. cannot be expounded by them of only the effect: For it speaks (as they expone it) of Christ dying for all that were dead, as v. 14. and these they say are Elect and Reprobate.

 

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  1. Nothing is said, whether Christ on the Crosse did sustain the person of all for whom he died, Elect and Reprobate, and whether he sustained two persons (for he was cut off, but not for himself,Dan. 9.26.) one for the Reprobate, another for the Elect. And whether hefinished the transgression, and made an end of sins,as Daniel saith, 9.24. that is, of all sins and transgressions, finall unbeleef and all others: For except he did that, hee cannot finish the transgression, make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousnesse to these for whom he died; Except either he bring in half a righteousnesse, or at least imperfect, and never make an end of some sins and transgressions, because men will not have it so, and set bounds to the infinit sufficiency of Christ: Or because he puts an end of sin, and brings in everlasting righteousnesse conditionally, and is gracious and mercifull as men will, and decrees to show mercy, not upon $ rebellion, or upon unbeleef, which separateth a Reprobate from and Elect, if so it seems good to men, and if man shad have mercy on whom he will, and harden whom he will, or, which is all one, if man shall have mercy upon himself, because he will, or harden himself, because he will harden himself. Yet may it be disputable to some, whether grace by which one is effectually drawn to Christ, rather then another, be the grace of predestination continuated and so before Christs death, or a fruit of Christs death and so after. But it may well be said that every created saving grace is a fruit of Christs death, and that we receive the habit of saving grace out of his fulnesse, and the saving habit infused separateth an Elect from a Reprobate: For it is peculiar to Beleevers and the Elect to be gifted with one heart, Ezek. 11.19. and a new heart in the habit, Ezek. 36.26. and with the spirit of grace and supplication to beleeve and mourn, Zech. 12.10. and the Spirit and blessing that is powred on the thirsty ground, and the seed, Isai. 44.3. And so must we say, that the same habit as actuated by the Lords Spirit, and as it makes one to beleeve, and drives him effectually to the Son, actually and efficaciously, and drives not another, is a fruit of Christs death, but this way must glory be a fruit of the death of Christ, but not habituall saving grace. 2. The death of Christ for all is as common a means of salvation as

 

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the Preaching of the Gospel: And both must be made effectuall by efficacious grace, which is not the fruit of the merit of Christ, by this way, and since grace to actually apply the death of Christ, is not given to Pagans and millions for whom Christ died, as these Authors teach, how unsufficient must the death of our Lord be? For it leaves faith as impossible to the reprobates as if he had never died for them, for neither habituall nor actuall faith is purchased to them by this death: Only the Pelagian application is left to them, which they should have had, suppose Christ had never died for them.

  1. It is to be considered, how many wayes CHRIST may be said to give himself [foreign] a ransome for us, or in our place.
  2. Christ hath sufficiently died for all in their room to redeem them. For, pro [foreign], for men,noteth ever the decree and intention of Christdying for men; but the sufficiency and worth and intrensecal dignity of Christs death, depends not upon the decree & intention of God for the worth of the death and the blood of him who is God, Act. 20.28. 1 Cor. 2.8. and the Lord of Glory is infinite, because of the infinitnesse of the person, before and without the decree of God. 2. Nor is it true that Christs dying for all and every one (which is a dream) makes salvation possible to all, so that the Covenant is Preachable to all upon condition of beleeving, Act. 10.43. To him (Jesus Anointed who went about doing good and so was man, v. 38) to him (who was slain in our nature, not for all and every man,v. 39. to him) whom God raised up the third day, v. 40. To him gave all the Prophets witnesse (as it is, v. 43.) that through his Name, who ever beleeves in him shal have remission of sins.
  3. And this would be considered (whoso beleeves in Christare justified and saved) how it is universall? It is most true thus: There is a sure connexion between faith and life eternall, and the connexion is decreed of God; or the concatenation of the end and the means, or of the means and the end, faith and salvation. And it is true: whether all beleeve or none at all beleeve, and whether all or none at all be saved, as is this (whosoever shall keep the Law perfectly, shall be justified and saved by the works of the Law) But 1. it makes neither faith nor salvation possible to Pagans and

 

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Reprobates, nor perfect obedience in doing the Law nor Justification or salvation by the works of the law possible to any living man. But the Question is, whether the connexion of the former be made true by the decree and revealed will of God promising life to the beleever, by no means, but only by this, because Christ died for all and every one. And so this should have been false (if all Pagans and Reprobate and Elect beleeve they shall be saved) if Christ had died only for the Elect. This must be proven either by Scripture, or by some solid reason from Scripture; for it saith this, Reprobats can not have life by beleeving in Christ crucified for them: except it be true that Christ was crucified for them, but none can be saved by beleeving that Christ died for them, except they also beleeve that Christ rose from the dead, and ascended and interceeds in Heaven for them. Then one might infer this could not be true, but false (if Reprobats beleeve they shall be saved) except Christ have died, risen again, ascended, and interceeds for all Reprobate and Elect. For true and saving faith the only condition of salvation, must lay hold on the Resurrection, Ascension, and Intercession of Christ, as well is on his dying for all. The reason why it cannot be true that Reprobats shall be saved, if they believe, except Christ have died for them, is (by this way) they cannot beleeve that Christ hath died for their sins, except it be true that he died for their sins: Yea, I answer, they cannot beleeve that Christ rose again for their righteousnesse, except it be true that Christ also rose for the righteousnesse of the Reprobats; this latter they cannot say.

It is said by Christs dying for all, God hath now a conditionall will of saving all and every one, Elect and Reprobate, if they shall beleeve, which conditionall will was not in God, before Christs dying for all. Yea without Christs dying for all, salvation upon condition of beleeving had been impossible. But not to say that it is unworthy of the Holy Lord, that new wills and new decrees should arise in him, upon any thing that falls out in time, such as the crucifying of the Lord Jesus. Such Doctrine we condemn in Vorstius, and in Arminians,as is well observed by D. Twisse, such a decree as this, that God should say (I decree, will, and in, tend remission and life purchased by the death of Christ, to all Pagans

 

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that never hear the Gospel, to all Reprobats, so they shall beleeve in Christ: And yet I never decree they shall beleeve nor have grace to beleeve) saith no more then there is a connexion between faith as the condition, and remission and life eternall as the thing promised; as whenGod had decreed that Jerusalem should be burnt, and deny grace to obey; Yet saith Jeremiah from the Lord, Jer. 38.17. If thou wilt assuredly go forth to the King of Babylons Princes, then thy soul shall live, and this City shal not be burnt with fire, and thou shall live and thine house. And the Lord says to Cain, Gen. 4.7. If thou dost well (and shall savingly beleeve as Abelthou shalt be accepted. Then was that connexion decreed of God, it containing a most just condition of life, and a condition to which Zedekiah and Cain were oblidged, but that the death of Christ made the Lord to intend and decree conditionally and in any tearms either acceptation to life or remission to Cain, as the end, and well doing as the means, or intended to purchase the grace either of the one or the other, is not warranted by Scripture, for both the one and the other, are the fruits of the merits of Christ; Show 1. how God can will and decree such a thing to the Reprobate: for its as if a father would say, I purpose to sell such a plot of ground to my son, so he pay me an hundreth Crowns, When 1. the son, by no possiblity, hath, or can have the hundreth Crowns, but only from his father. 2. When the father of his free pleasure hath decreed never to give him the hundreth Crowns or the plot of ground. 2. Show how faith is made possible by Christs death, when it is not purchased to the reprobate by Christs death, it is not surely made physically possible by Christs death, if it be said that it is made possible morally, rationally, and objectively to them, because there cannot be an offer of life made to Reprobates and to all, upon condition of faith, exceptChrist have died for the Reprobate, that is denyed, and never proven: If one should come (say they) to the Antipods or to such as never heard of Christ, and Preach the Gospel, he should not, before he Preach, look for any new establishing of the conditionall Covenant (who ever beleeves in Christ shall be justified and saved) but should take it as granted, it was made with them before; therefore by Christs death the Gospel of it self is Preachable and may be Preached to all Nations,

 

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quovis seculo, in any age, as it was to Job. Ans. If any come to the Antipods and any Nation that never heard of Christ, having the gift of Tongues, and Preach to such, or by his own industrie acquire the gift of such Tongues, and by the strong hand of providence Preach the conditionall Covenant, these Providences should be a command, and the setting up of a shining torch there should prove these people (as to the elect among them) in Gods minde were a Covenanted people no lesse then the Church of Samaria. And there were no need to expect a new establishing of the conditionall Gospel-Covenant: But how is that proven to be from this, because God sent his Son to die for all and every one of these Antipods, and made the Gospel-Covenant with all and every one of them before: the Authors shall be ebbe of Scripture here. And if these Antipods should, all and every one, refuse the Gospel and kill the Preacher, and never one either receive the Gospel, or propagate to any that may receive it; Then such an Apostolick mission is not in Scripture, and the lawfulnesse of that mans call to me is to be questioned: and I should judge, his own Spirit, not God sent him. Nor is this true, that the Gospel is and was Preachable, and of it self, may be preached to any age. Job lived before the giving of the Law, and Melchisedeck, and they had the call of God to Preach to them to whom they Preached. 2. It shall be denied that Jonah had sinned, if he had not preached to Nineveh, except God had expresly commanded him to preach to Nineveh, otherwise it had been the sin of Godly Prophets who lived with him in the time of JoashKing of Judah, 2 King. 14.25. and they had been guilty, as Jonah, in not Preaching to Nineveh. Yea all the Ministers and Apostles, and Prophets had sinned in not Prophecying to the Phylistins, Syrians, Persians, Bythinia, Samaria; whereas the Apostles, Matth. 10.5. Act. 16.6. were forbidden to Preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, to Asia: and it were strange to say Ezekiel sinned in not preaching to a people of an unknown Language, whereas the Lord expresly says he sent him not unto them, Ezek. 3.5,6. and that, Rom. 10.15. How shall they Preach, except they be sent? is meant of the Apostles, and of all lawfull Pastors. And there may be running and no sending of God to Nations, Jer. 23.21. and Psal. 147.19,20. when he denies, he declared his judgements and his statutes to any Nation, by sent

 

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Prophets, as he did to Jacob, if the Gospel then was of it self Preachable to all Nations, Prophets unsent might have Preached these same judgements to other Nations, that were Preached to Jacob, though not sent of God. But that place, Psal. 147. and diverse others would say he choised only Israel as his Covenanted people: As Deut. 7.7,8,9. Deut. 10.12,13,14,15. Exod. 20.1,2. Psal. 78.5,6. Amos 3.1.2. Deut. 27.1,2. to them only he revealed the Covenant of Grace, then was it not a Covenant of its own nature that might at any age, be Preached to all Nations. But what is then revealed in these decrees? (if the Reprobate beleeve, they shall be saved) Ans. Not Gods intention conditionall or absolute to save them, or to give them faith or grace merited by Christs death, to beleeve, for then some good will and love of election, the Lord should bear toward the election of such, and should desire all the Reprobate to be saved, so they would believe, and yet by this way, no more is there grace purchased to them, by Christ, to beleeve, then there is grace purchased to them to performe obedience to the Law: Now the Authors will not say that by Christs dying for all, there is a conditionall will in Christ, or in the Father, to give life to all who perfectly keep the Law: for this conditionall will or means and end, was in God before, and suppone Christ had never died for sinners. 2. This would say that the Reprobate were to beleeve that Christ died to save them, having purchased life to them, and to believe that he died not to save them all for whom he died, because they are not to believe he died to purchase faith by his death, or grace to beleeve, without which salvation is impossible: it cannot be said that God absolutely intended to save them, whether they beleeve or not, even while as there is such a decree in God, because he hath decreed both the end and the means, to wit, having ordained for them salvation, and having ordained for them faith; nor is there any such decree in God, toward any but the Elect only, therefore this conditionall decree (if all and every one beleeve, all and every one shall be saved) can infer no love of God through Christ to the persons of all and every one to have them saved, more then this can infer a love of saving all and every one, to be in God or to have been in the Lord, before the fall of Angels, and men (if all and every one of

 

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Angels and men shall perfectly, without sin to the end, keep the Law, then all Angels, all men Elect and Reprobate shall be saved eternally.) Now no man sound in judgement, can say this conditionall can infer that God had a good will to save some Angels, not to save others: More then this (if all and every man beleeve in Christ they shall be saved) can infer that God hath a good-will to save Reprobate men, and not fallen Angels. In a word, no simple conditionall propositions can infer the desire or good will of God to the persons of men or to have the things done, except God effectually work the condition: As this (if all fulfill the Law perfectly, men and Angels, and all men shall be saved by the Law) cannot infer that God hath a good will to the persons of all Angels and all men to justifie and save them all, without exception, by the works of the Law; the contrair whereof he decreed. For this connex proposition may stand true with the salvation of all Angels, of all men, of no Angels, or no men, according as the Lord shall be pleased of his good pleasure and free grace to work, or not to work the condition of moving the will of Angels and men to keep the Law. And therefore these connexions nibil ponunt absoluti, they place nothing absolutely to persons, but only to things, to wit, 1. that it is the duetie and obligation of all Angels and men to perform absolute obedience to the Law, as they would be justified and saved by the Law, and its the duty of all men in the Visible Church to beleeve in Christ. if they would be justified and saved in Christ. 2. That there is a wise connexion between means and end, obedience legall and life, faith and life, according to the approving will of God, and yet neither means nor end may ever come to passe or fall out, and neither means nor end may ever be decreed of God to fall out: Yea God may decree absolutely that none of the extreams shall exist as God decrees (if Zedekiah shall yeeld to the King of Babylon, Jerusalem shall not be burnt) and yet according to his decree or will of purpose the Lord hath decreed that the yeelding of Zedekiah, and the safety of the idolatrous Citie should not come to passe, but the contrair. So God decrees, if Judas repent and beleeve, he shall be saved according to the will of precept, and yet according to the Lords will of purpose, neither did the Lord decree or intend the repenting and saving beleeving

 

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of Judas nor was grace to beleeve and repent purchased by the death of Christ to Judas (by these Authors) though they boast of the amplitude of Christs death, nor did the Lord by that will of purpose ever decree or intend the salvation of Judas.

Therefore, 3. this, that the death of Christ is of its own nature preachable to all Nations, in every age, is not true: For the phrase is neither in Scripture, in Old or New Testament, nor is the thing it self in Scripture: For the meaning is, either GOD may send Apostles in any age to all the Nations of the world, to Preach: If that be, by his extraordinary power, he may save all the damned, that way. That Preachablenesse is not the object of our faith: Nor is that Preachablenesse a fruit of Christs dying for all. If it be meant that God by his ordinary power may send Apostles in any age to all Nations: How is that to be said? Except we say God hath decreed in his will of purpose to send Preachers to all; That cannot be, except his decree be disappointed. Or 3. If it be his command and revealed will that the Gospel be Preached to all Nations, every age, they grievously sin, who Preach not the Gospel to the Brasilians and Antipods, whether they can speak in their Language or not. And if the Doctrine of the Covenant of its own nature may so be Preached to all Nations, without exception, in every difference of time, then must all the Nations of the earth, in all differences of time, be in a capacity to be a Covenanted people of God, the Church of Christ, the Vineyard of the Lord, his inheritance, the Spouse of Christ, his Body, his Called, and Chosen flock. For to have the Doctrine of the Covenant fixedly Preached to a Nation, and Christ offered to them, is to be the planted Vineyard of the Lord, for to Preach to Macedonia, fixedly, they willingly hearing, is indeed the Lords entering in Covenant with Macedonia, and his choising them to be his confederate people, and the Lords planting a Vineyard, and building a Wine-presse in it, and setting up a Ministry therein; and therefore the Lord was not in Covenant with them before. Indeed to Preach the Word simply to scoffers who reject it, and that occasionally in the passing, so as there is no sort of accepting of the Covenant nor any fixed Ministry there, is not a renewing of the Covenant with them, nor does it presuppose a Covenant before made with them. 2. It

 

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is against the wisdome of God, that 1. there should be such a band of love the greatest love that ever was, Joh. 15.13. lying upon all mankind, Brasilians, Americans, binding them to thankfull Gospel-obedience that Christ died for them, yet this obligation of the greatest love is neither written in their heart, as the Law of nature, nor is it ever revealed to them that they are under so much love by Covenant. 2. How can the Lord say I choosed you, O Israel, among all the people of the earth, and entred in Covenant with you and your seed only. For 1. there is no need of a new establishing of the conditionall Gospel-Covenant, for it was established with Israel, and with all the world before he choosed or called them. 2. He cannot be said to enter in Covenant with them only. For all the world ever was thus Covenanted with God. 3. All the world must be an invisible Covenanted Church, and the fit matter to be a Church. For the Evangel may be Preached est de se annunciabile, not to stones and to rocks, but to all Nations, quovis seculo. 4. Since the Preaching of the Gospel to some Nations, and not to others, is an act of the Soveraign pleasure, yea and of the free grace of God to such as this Sun-light graciously doth visit, by this way, the sinfull neglect of such as refuse to Preach shall be the cause of the perishing of the elect, a dream.

  1. CHRIST may be said to die for us, as if we had substituted him in our place, in so rigid a sense, as if he had been made our surety to fulfill both the preceptive and active, and also the satisfying and suffering part of the Law in our room. This may pleaseAntinomians,but a doubt it is, if it stand with the truth: For then what ever we, yea all mortall men be (for Christdied for them all, as many teach) most wicked, yet Christs active and surety and cautionary righteousnesse should be ours, and though we should never beleeve, yet Christ who fulfilled the Law and preceptive as well as the threatning part, must have beleeved for all that he died for, and what need we then in our persons either beleeve or repent? Its true, we need not perform any active obedience, as a part of active fulfilling of that Covenant of Works, which either must have all, or no obedience. If it be said that alio titulo, upon another account of thankfulnesse to our ransom payer we owe active obedience: Yet all that CHRIST died for,

 

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both actively and passively must be perfectly righteous and justified, having payed the most perfect active and passive obedience that the Law required, though we never beleeve, and Christ must have payed the active part of justifying faith for us. And why, but we should be formally justified in him without faith also? As also, God, not we, laid our sins upon Christ, Isai. 53.6. 2 Cor. 5.21. and therefore we did commissionate and substitute Christ to die in our room.

Socinus, Crellius, the Raccovian Catechism, Arminius, contend that Christ died for all finaliter, for to procure good and salvation to all, so they beleeve, and yet through their own fault, they may haply never be saved: not that he satisfied for us, but died for example as a Martyr (say Socinians) as Paul suffered for the Church, so as we, beleeving in Christ as in the only chief Martyr and witnesse, who as the only Author declared the Gospel, not as a sufferer and ransom-payer who redeemed us from the Law, are saved. And as Arminians, he died for our good, not that he died in our room and stead, so as the sins of the Elect were actually taken off them and translated upon Christ, so as wee are actually freed from the punishment of sin, as if we had substitute a Saviour our selves, and payed our debt our selves to God; and so according to the rigour of justice, we might crave by the Law of buying and selling deliverance from punishment, and life eternall from God. But this way they will not have Christ to die in the place and room of any, but only for their good, so as they may die eternally themselves for whom Christ died. Hence 1. It follows that Christ died for them but gave no ransome of blood for them for whom he died. 2. Arminians will not have the sins and punishment satisfactory to justice (for of such punishment we speak) actually uponChrist, and translated off the sinner and laid

 

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upon Christ and beleevers actually freed from satisfactory punishment: So that both beleevers and Christ must actually bear the satisfactory punishment. Which indeed makes beleevers half redeemers with Christ: against which we disputed before.

  1. Arminiansdenies that we payed our debts to God, in Christ paying them for us. So that the broken man cannot be said to have satisfied the debt in, and through the surety who satisfied for him, which in all Law is unjust. And since Arminians denies that we payed to justice a ransome for sin, because our Surety Christ payed for us, he must deny that Christ was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities, or that the chastisement of our peace was upon him: Contrair to Isai. 53.5. because we made him not our Mediatour and Surety, but God made him Mediatour, and laid our iniquities upon him, Isai. 53.6. But it is accidentall in Law that the debter substitute the surety, or request him to take the place of surety upon him. But he is a reall and a most legall surety who not requested, of free grace becomes surety and pays the very same summe in specte, in kind, that the debter ought to pay; this reason does prove he is both a surety and a gracious surety. As a Kings son who comes in and layes down his head for a malefactor, truely and really dyeth and layeth down his life in the room and place of that malefactor, though there was no Covenant nor paction between him and the Kings son, though neither the malefactor, nor any friend in his name did request the Prince to become surety and die for him. Reuben offers his two sons to Jacob as pawnds to be slain, if he should not bring home Benjamin safe to the father: And had Jacob accepted of the offer, Reubens two sons who knew not of the bargain, had been sureties for Benjamin, Gen. 42.37. and Judah might have been Law-surety for Benjamin toJacob, though Benjamin requested him not to take any such place. The Lord the Creditour and Christ the Cautioner did strike hands together: Christ put himself in our room, as an hostage, pledge and surety to die for us, and payed the first and second death, the summe that we was owing, according to a paction between the Lord and Christ, and we requested not Christ to be surety, only by beleeving, we thank him, and subscribe and say Amen to what is done. But in Law we payed, in regard the same

 

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nature that suffered was ours, and accepted as ours. But Arminians clearly refuse that Christ shall be an hostage and surety for us, because the offended party of his own furnished not one that died for him; and so he strikes at the root of a reall sacrifice that is satisfactory toGod, because one and the same cannot be both satisfied, and, de suo, of his own, furnish a satisfying surety. For so as his own, Socinus saith, one cannot be both a satisfier and a person satisfied, and this is no satisfaction at all, saith Socinus. (4.) Out beleeving cannot effectuate this, that Christ hath actually born the satisfactory punishment due to us.  Arminius saith that Christ hath not, actu ipso, actually born that punishment: he must say he hath born it only potentially, potentiâ. Then its like when we beleeve, he bears that punishment compleatly, but he cannot die nor suffer, but once; only he must mean that Christ did actually bear our sins, but the satisfactory punishment is not accepted as suffered in our name. But our beleeving hindereth not, but he hath in genere causæ moralis & meritoriæ, really as a meriting cause deserved that God in justice cannot exact from us that same satisfactory punishment that Christ hath suffered for our sins, & its impossible that our faith can adde any meritorious power to Christs death: & therefore though not in our selves and physically, yet really, morally, legally in Christ, deliverance from satisfactory punishment is due to us, we being in Christ legally, and life eternall is due to us, being in Christ according to the rigour of justice, and injuria irrogata Christo sponsori foret, wrong should be done to Christ, and commutative justice, by which, ex condigno, by condignitie, he hath bought freedom from hell, and right to heaven, to these he died for, if we should suffer eternall wrath, in our persons, whether we beleeve or beleeve not; for beleeving is no part of the meriting cause of the satisfying ransome. Yea Christ by right of buying and selling, and we in Christ our surety may claime freedom from the second death, and right to everlasting life, so as God should fail against commutative justice against Christ, and break (with reverence and humble submission to his Glorious Majesty be it spoken) Covenant to Christ, and he should buy with a price more then enough, his seed, and not get his wages, if these he died for, die the second death, and come short of glory eternall, if the Lord say to Christ, I promise

 

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to thee a seed, that they shall be delivered from the second death, and have life eternall, providing thou shalt give me a price abundantly sufficient to buy these, to wit, the life and blood of God-Man, and offer thy self a sacrifice upon the Crosse to offended Justice. If CHRIST shall do this and pay the ransome, and Christ get no wages, no saved seed, but they perish through the want of faith only: either must faith be a part of the ransome, which none can say, or then the Lord shall not keep Covenant to Christ. (5.) When Arminius saith that the Lord can, nullo jure, by no Law, nor Justice crave of us faith and conversion to God, if we have payed our debts, by rigour of justice exactly to God in Christ who legally in our stead and place payed for us, he supposes plainly that God requires faith and obedience of us as a part of recompence made to offended Justice. And Arminius faith, that Christs righteousnesse is ours, not as performed by him, but as imputed to us by faith: So that faith comes in as a collaterall price payed for us or part of the price, the very act and work of beleeving being counted ours, and our righteousnesse before God: Yea but God by no necessity of hurt Justice craves faith and repentance from us.

That CHRIST died not for our good only, but in our stead is proven, 1. Because Christ in some other more legall way died for us then for Angels, for he died for their good, that he might be made the Head of Angels, Col. 2.10. Phil. 2.7,8,9,10,11. Rom. 10.9,11. and he died for the good of the whole Creation that he might make all things new, and restore the creatures to their perfection, which by the sin of man they had lost, Rom. 8.20,21,22,23. Acts 3.21. Rev. 21.5. but he died not as suffering punishment due to the Angels, and the work of Creation in their stead, as wounded for their transgressions, as he died for our transgressions, Isa. 53. For the transgressions of us all, Elect and Reprobate as, they say, exponing that all, Isa. 53.6. of all and every one of mankind, were upon him.

  1. We deny not, but there be considerable differences between Christsdying, and the punishment of the Elect which they were to suffer. As,
  2. Ours should have been eternall, because we could never

 

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out-satisfie. But the sufferings of Christ, because of the dignity of his person God-Man, were perfectly satisfactory in a short time.

  1. He could not suffer the same pain in number, that we should have suffered, for one and the same accident cannot be in different subjects, nor is the surety to pay the very same summe numero,that the debter borrowed.
  2. The Lord could not but have punished the Elect with hating & aversion of mind, they being intrinsecally and inherently sinners. He punished Christ, who was not inherently, but only by imputation the sinner, with no hatred at all, but with anger and desire of shewing and exercising revenging justice, but still loving him dearly, as his only Son. But upon this account, Christmust stand in our room, and because of the five-fold onenesse and Law-identity and samenesse. For,
  3. Though physically the surety and the debter be two different men, yet in Law they are one and the same person, and one and the same legall party, and the same object of justice. Whoso pursues in Law the surety, does, also pursue the debter.
  4. The debt and summe is one, not two debts, nor two ransoms, nor two punishments, nor two lives to losse, but one.
  5. It is one and the same solution and satisfaction, there can not in Law justice, come another reckoning, dying, and payment making after the surety hath payed.
  6. There is one and the same acceptation upon the creditor his part, if he accept of satisfaction in the payment made by the surety, he cannot but legally accept of the debter, and cannot pursue him in Law, but must look upon him as no debter. To justifie him is another thing: It being a fornisecall transient declaration of his righteousnesse who beleeves. I speak here of an acception of satisfaction to hurt justice revenging sin, not of an acceptation of obedience.
  7. Its one and the same legall effect, Christjustified in the Spirit, and risen again, 1 Tim3.16. and we in him as in the meritorious cause are legally justified. Hence he who suffered the same satisfactory punishment, for the same sinnes committed by us, which in Law we ought to have suffered eternally.

 

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  1. He suffered and died for us in our stead and place, especially when the Creditor counts these sufferings, as if we had suffered: So Paul,2 Cor. 5.14. If one be dead for all, then were all dead.And the Messiah was cut off and died not for himself, Dan. 9.26. He did no violence, neither was guile found in his mouth, Isa. 53.9. Joh. 8.46. Heb. 7.26. But he was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed, Isa. 53.5. 1 Pet. 2.23,24,25. He was delivered for our offences, The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was cut out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he plagued, Isa. 53.8. He bare on his body our sins on the tree.
  2. He who being made under the Law, payed that Law-debt of satisfaction, which the Elect in their persons should have payed, and thereby freed them from the Law-debt of satisfaction: He sustained the person of the Elect in his suffering. But Christbeing made under the Law, payed that Law-debt of satisfaction, which the Elect in their persons should have payed. The proposition is out of doubt, none denies the Minor, but that we should have died eternally in our persons, if Christ had not died for us.
  3. He who of purpose took on him our nature, the nature and seed of Abraham,and the legall condition of a surety to suffer for us, he stood in our person and room in suffering for us. But Christ took on him our nature, which is common to beleeving Jews, and to such also who are casten off of God, Rom.9.2,4. but not as common to them, but as the seed of Abraham, Heb. 2.16.

And 5. Gal. 3.10. For as many as are of the works of the Law, are under the curse, for it is written, cursed is every one who continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the Law, being made a curse for us–not to reconcile all and every one to himself, or to obtain a potentiall and far off power of salvation. But, ver. 14. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith. Not that we might beleeve or not beleeve, if we would, that is not the blessing of Abraham, Act. 11.18. Act. 15.8,9. Act. 5.31. Ph. 1.29. and for his great love he died for us, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.

 

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  1. And it is thus confirmed, Christ in dying is not looked on as a man; Nor 2. simply as a single man dying; Nor 3. as a publick Martyr or witnesse that, all or none at all, if they so will, may get good of him, but by speciall paction, if he shall lay down his life, and work his work, and suffer for our sins, that which we should have suffered, he shall, receive his wages and see his seed.
  2. As also none who dies as a surety or pays as a surety, but he bears the person of such as he pays for, who ever gives a ransome for another by way of payment, and whosoever as a Priest offers a sacrifice for another, he represents the person offended for whom he offers, so does the Advocate act the person of the Client, the intercessour his person for whom he interceeds.
  3. The phrase to die for another as a ransoner signifies to die in the stead and person of another. Demosthenes, orat.[foreign] in liew of Ktesiphon.For Archias, for Marcellus, he pleads, it is in Law as if Archias, as if Marcellus, or as if the parties for which Cicero, andDemostenes do plead, were in persons pleading themselves. Its true, Isocrates hath [foreign] for in honum, for the favour and good of any: And (for) [foreign] notes also to do or die for the good and profit of others, Col. 1.24. Irejoice in my sufferings for you, that I may sill up the remnant of the sufferings of Christ for his body. But if it cannot be denied, but for Christ to die for his body is somewhat more then for Paul or any Martyr to die for the body, then sure Christs dying for his Church (as the more doth include the lesse) notes Christs dying for the good of his Church, and somewhat more then for the Churches profit: any may see Stephanus his Thesaurus.

[foreign] (For) is often the same with [foreign], Paul, Rom. 9. I would wish to be separated from Christ, for my brethren; that was not that they might be saved or not, it were contrair to his prayer. 2 Cor. 5.15. If Christ died for all, then all were dead. The bread is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world. The good shepheard gives his life for his sheep. I lay down my life for my sheep. Greater love then this hath no man, that a man should give

 

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his life for his friends. It is expedient that one die for the people, Joh. 11. Christ hath died for the ungodly, Rom. 5. in their stead. For the just, ver. 7. [foreign] for noteth most frequently vice, loco, in the place and stead: As also, [foreign] 2 Sam. 18.33. would God I had died for thee,Absalom. The LXX. the Syriack version, and the Chalde paraphrase, in thy stead, I would I had died, and thou remained alive. Gen. 22.13. A sacrifice for Isaac, in stead of Isaac, Gen. 44.33. I shall remain pledge (faith Reubenfor the lad, [foreign] in paund for the lad. Num. 3.12. I have taken the Levites for all the first born, in stead of the first born. So LXX. [foreign].

  1. When a ransome is given for another in point of justice, Mar. 10.45. Christ gives his life a ransome for many,Matth. 20. 28. He came to give his(dear precious) life a ransome in stead of many, 1 Tim. 2.6. [foreign] a counter ransome for all. Matth. 5.38. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Exod. 21.24.23. Thou shalt give life for life. Give that peece of money for thee and me, Mat. 17. Isa 43.4. I will give men for thee, and people for thy life.
  2. It is used thus, when a man is given in place of another, Pro. 11.8. The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead.Job 34.24. and he makes others to stand in their place,Heb. as before, Psal. 45.16. in stead of fathers shall be sons. Job 16.4. Oh! if your soul were in my souls stead.
  3. It is when the son comes in the room and stead of the father, or one kills another, which is a sad exchanging of one person for another, and though the following King does not act in the person, or by the nãe & authority of him who went before, yet there is one person changed, and another raigns in his place and room. 1 Chron. 14.1. Abijah sleept, and Asa his son raigned in his stead.

LXX. [foreign]. Mar. 10. [foreign]. Mat. 20.28. [foreign]. LXX. [foreign] 23. dabis [foreign] LXX. [foreign]. Dabis. [foreign] LXX. [foreign]. Prov. 11.8. LXX. [foreign]. Job 24.14. Heb as before. Ps. 45.16. LXX. [foreign]. Job 16.4. LXX. [foreign] Mat. 2.22. [foreign]) LXX. [foreign] 1 King. 3.7. Thou hast made thy servant to raign in the room of David my father. LXX. [foreign]. 2 Kin. 11.43. Rehoboam raigned in his stead, [foreign], Chal. Paraphrastes,

 

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pro eo. 31. Abijah raigned in his stead, [foreign]. 2 Kin. 1.17. Joram raigned in his stead, LXX. [foreign]. 1 Kin. 15.28. Baasha slew him and raigned, [foreign]. 2 Kin. 8.15. He slew him, and Hazael raigned, [foreign]. 2 Kin. 15.10. Shallum slew him, and raigned in his stead,[foreign]. ver. 14. Manahem slew him, and raigned, [foreign]. ver. 30. Hoshea smote him, and raigned, [foreign]. So Esth. 2.4. Eccl. 4.15. 2 Sam. 17.25. Gen. 30.2. 1 King. 16.10. Zimri raigned, [foreign] Ezek. 16.32.

Joseph heard that Archelaus did raign in the room of Herod his father, Mat. 2.22. Tremellius, and Trostius both turn it, loco Herodis, Mat. 5.38. eye for eye: Its the same word [foreign] Mat. 17.27. give it for me and thee. The same word, Luk. 11.11. If his son aske a fish, for a fish in stead of a fish. Tremellius and Trostius, in place of a fish, loco piscis, he will not give him a serpent. Rom. 12.17. neither render evill for evill: So the same in both languages is, 1 Thes. 5.15. [foreign], and 1 Pet. 3.19. and 1 Cor. 11.16. Her hair is given her in stead of a covering.The same word in the Syriack is, 1 Pet. 3.18. The Lord Christ died, the just for the unjust: in stead of the unjust, Christ is, Gal. 3.13. made a curse for us, in our stead. Matth. 20.28. Syriack, that he might give his life a redemption for many, [foreign] vice multorum. And the same is, Mar.10.45. and Rom. 5.6. in due time Christ died for the wicked, [foreign]. Syriack [foreign] pro, vel vice improborum. 8. While we was sinners Christ died for us. [foreign] in our place, 2 Cor. 5.15. If one died in place of all men, all were dead. Mark 14.24. This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed [foreign] for many, loco multorum, Luk. 22.20. This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed in place of you. Joh. 10.11. The good shepheard layes down his life for his sheep, in place of his sheep: The same word, Joh. 11.50. Know ye not that it is expedient that one man die in the place of the people, & that the whole people perish not. Then the intrinsecall end of Christs dying consisteth not with the perishing of these for whom he died: for he died that the whole

 

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people should not perish. 1 Tim. 2.6. Who gave himself a redemption for every man. Tit. 2.14. Who gave his soul in stead of us. Heb. 2.9. Who tasted death in the place of every man. 1 Pet. 2.21. Christ died in stead of us, 1 Pet. 4.1. Rom. 9.3. I pray that I were separated from Christ in stead of my brethren. The same word so constantly used can hardly signifie, for the good and profit either of things or persons: As Luk. 11.11. will the father give the son a serpent in stead of a fish, for the good and profit of a fish? 2. Thes. 5.15. See that none of you render evill for evill, i.e. evil for the good and profite of evill? a wild sense, and it is wilder in the case of persons, when it is said, the son raigns, [foreign] so often by the Seventy Translators, in stead of his father, that must be for the good and profit of the dead father. But nothing can be wilder, then to say Jehu killed Ahabs seed, and Zimri slew his Master Elah, Hoshea slew the King, and he raigned in his stead (as the Seventy say not once) that is, he raigned for the good and profit of the King whom he slew, and so slaying of Kings, and rooting out the race and posterity of Kings, shall be their good and profit.

Socinus, and the Catechism of Raccovia, saith if to die for sinners be as much as to die in the place and stead of sinners, then to die for sinnes must be to die in the place and stead of sinnes. Ans. These and the like argue much the vanity of Socinus, if this be retorted, as justly it may. Then as Christs dying for sinners, is for the good, profite, saving, beleeving, and confirming of the faith, establishing the comfort of sinners, then by the like Christs dying for sins, must be to save sins from hell, to bring sins to God, that sins should not live to themselves, and to establish the faith, the consolation of sins; whereas Christ died not for sins as for sinners, that he might save sins, but to dissolve the works of the devill, to take away sin, 1 Joh. 3.9. Joh. 1.29. Christ died one way for sins and another way for sinners: The Physitian one way cures the disease that it may be rooted out, and be no more, and another way the diseased person, that he may live and be in health.

 

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CHAP. IV.

How we are in Christ dying, and crucified in him. 2. A twofold crucifying of us with Christ. 3. A discourse of mortification. 4. The actings of the mortified. 5. That we are to be mortified in our affections to every thing that is not God, &c.

IT is objected, that we was not born, nor had we any being when Christ died, then we died not in Christ, nor could we rise, ascend to heaven, nor sit in heavenly places with him? Ans. But 1. in Physicall actions there is required the reall existence of the worker. Not so in legall actions, for as we had no being, who now beleeve, when Christ died, so our sins had no being: How then could our sins, that were not, deserve punishment? Yet I desire to beleeve that Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 3.24. his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree. And that he was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities, who now live, Isai. 53.5. and they cannot deny this, who teach that CHRIST died for the sins of the world, none excepted. And the child in the womb, when the father is absolved from treason is really and in Law restored to his fathers inheritance: And the sucking child may be Crowned a King, and take possession of a Kingdom, and take the oath of loyalty of the subjection in the person of another, though Physically he neither do, not know what is done, but sleep in the armes of the nurse. So we legally in CHRIST satisfied, our nature in Christ was crucified, and we, though not born, did satisfie and suffer satisfactory punishment in Christ. Heb. 1.3. Having by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Heb. 9.28. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. And in him we were (legally) crucified, and dead to the Law: As Gal. 2.19. so as Christ once being dead and crucified, the head and members, whole Mysticall Christ is dead to the Law, and Christ can die no more, for he cannot satisfie and pay the debt twise: And so are we in him dead to hell, to wrath, to Law-vengeance. Sathan raises a discussed plea against

 

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the conscience, thou art a sinner, and under the curse of the Law. There is no answer to that, but by beleeving I was with Christ, crucified, and am dead to the Law and died to death first and second. For Christ suffered mysticall, Christ legally satisfied and so did I in him (I speak not now of personall suffering with, or for Christ) and therefore that is a plea of Sathans forging, and taken away. And unjust summonds may be answered by non-compearance; and by the appeal of faith to Christ who having payed the debt sits Judge upon his own debts, which he himself payed, and therefore cannot suffer these for whom he died to suffer for his proper debt, which once he payed. The husband cannot endure the wife to be imprisoned for the debts which he made his own and fully satisfied.

Obj. 2. All men must die and return to dust, and so must sinners, as the Law requires, therefore Christ died not for thee?

Ans. Socinus, and Crellius object the same, which Sathan doth.

For that death in the hew and collour of Law-wrath is holden before a beleever now and then under doubting as a temptation. For we suffer not death such as Christ suffered, to wit, for sin, watered and affected with the curse of the Law; nor must we measure death from body or bulk of departing, but from the salt, and worst of death, which is the curse, and that being removed, we never die, Joh. 11.26. Joh. 5.24. no more look upon death in the Law, for there it raigns, but in Christ, and in him death is dead and removed; the formall demeriting power is removed, when the Law is satisfied: And a beleever being dead to the Law is dead to the curse and to the worst of death, as Christ is dead to it now.

Obj.3. But the conscience of the beleever, suppose there were no devill, challenges him of sin, and therefore that he is under a curse?

Ans. The conscience may be the factor and deputie of Sathan in that also, for it is the deposing of Christ from his Office of Mediator

 

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in satisfying and answering by his death all the demands of the Law, there is none but Christ, when the Law demands blood and the torments of the second death, can plead any thing on the contrair. Rom. 3.19. We know that what things soever the Law speaks, it speaks to these that are under the Law: but the Law speaks not then to a beleever, for he is under grace, and so is not in tearms of treating or parleying with the Law. Christ was crucified and the beleever is legally crucified with Christ, buried and risen again with Christ. 1. Then the Law is not his judge, it spake to Christ and condemned him and put him to death, when he was under the Law, and condemned you in him, now you say, Christ is not condemned and crucified, when ye enter in a new treatie with the Law to receive a new sentence from it, and thus ye undoe what Christ hath perfectly done. 2. To hearken to conscience componing and making another paction with the Law then Christ hath made, is to take the plea that Christ hath embarked in, off his hand; ye are to stand still and be silent, and beleeve that Christs dying, and your dying in him, is a closing of a satisfactory bargain with the Law. Christ condemned sin in the flesh, by taking on his flesh the curse due to us for sin, & for sin, that is, for sins cause, that it might be taken away, he sent his Son to die, Rom. 8.3. and judge and condemn sin. 3. This is to mistate a question well debated and discussed by Christ; for he being the end and perfection of the Law, hath silenced, and satisfied the Law, and to what use can it serve to make a new plea and a bastard controversie with a satisfied party, or to hearken to conscience which craves in the name of mistaken Law well payed debts, and this is but Sathan abusing the Law, and feigning Letters of Caption in the name of the Law, to trouble the quieted conscience of a beleever. But its safest to say, I stand to what Christ hath done and suffered to fulfill the Law, and I believe I was crucified in him, judged, and condemned legally in Christ: and what can you seek more of an ill-doer? He is condemned, crucified, hanged on a tree, and so is justice quieted. Some raise the devill and a storm in the soul and cannot calm it again: It is not good to provoke, irritate, and waken a sleeping dogge. There is quietnesse and peace of beleeving what Christ hath done as well done, and comfortably to rest on his deed by faith. Hence a case

 

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of some, who, because they are under deadnesse and security, desire a wakening of conscience, and Sathan hath taught some to commit some hainous guiltinesse, that they may fall in the hand of justice, and so be wakened, and Sathan gives them their fill of it. Hence, we had rather take a Law-way which is not Gods way, as ly under deadnesse; there may be a legall looking upon deadnesse, whereas it is a Gospel-sin that we should be humbled for, and in which we should not please our selves; but no man freed from the Law and brought out of prison, should be willing or desirous to return to the dungeon again. We should let God guide us under a feaver, and not be our own Physitians, but be quiet at Christs part, if he be pleased to cure by contrairs, and to quicken me by deadening me, or to make a soul humble by smiting with a spirit of pride: its good, we are to submit.

Obj. How could we be in Christ as in our surety (for saith Arminiuswe did not give nor appoint Christ to be our Cautioner or Surety?

Ans. Its evill arguing of Arminius or Sathan, who would make the union either naturall or legall betwixt us and Christ, weak, far off, generall, and such as is betwixt Christ and Pagans, and all the world: But this reason is nought, for we sinners were not born and very nothing, when God made the first Adam our father and head in Law as in nature, nor had we any hand or action in substituting the first Adam in his place, and yet we sinned in Adam, and his sin is ours, by divine imputation. But can any deny but Christ on the Crosse did act the cause of many beleevers not born? This is peculiar to this dispensation, that the creditor, not the debter, appoint both the Law-head, and the Evangelick Surety. The Surety had from us a Cautionary, sponsorie, and deputed nature, but no subscribed commission from us, it was in the heart of the Creditor by grace efficacious to obtain our consent, and to make a sort of legall marriage assuming our nature before we either knew our husband, or gave consent to the marriage-Covenant. As the Advocat speaks in the person of the Client absent and sleeping, and when the Client hears and sees how his cause is promoved, he both assents unto, and renders thanks and praises to the Advocat: and so the absent and far off Client not knowing

 

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any thing does act in the Advocat. And how many answers doth our Advocat in Heaven make for sinners on earth in his pleadings, of which we know not in particular any thing? Nor doth Christ speak or plead for beleevers as a privat man, nor appear in his Name as it were, but in our person.

Neither is there a faining of a person here, or a borrowed and fained redemption, there be these five here. 1. A Redeemer Christ. 2. Persons redeemed, sinners. 3. A Lord from whom we are redeemed, the Lord Jehovah, not simply, as God, he is the partie from whom we are redeemed, but God as the offended Law-giver, who had us lyable to eternall punishment. 4. There was a price, the life and blood of God, which though not profitable to God (for that is extrinsecall to satisfaction reall) yet an aboundant compensation to justice for declarative glory taken from God which is the nature of reall satisfaction. 5. There is here a God just, true, holy, unchangeable, to whom the price is payed. Nor does Christ sustain the person of the enemy Satan from whom we are redeemed, for he is but the lictor who then had no right to detain us, we are redeemed from evils of sin and punishment: Nor doth Christ in suffering sustain the person of God. Hence, from our being crucified with Christ crucified, something is to be said in a practicall way of our mortification; for mortification flows originally from Christs death, we being crucified in him and with him, Gal. 2.20

  1. What is mortification?
  2. It is a deadning of the whole powers and inclinations of the foul in their bentnesse and operations, in order to things forbidden by the Law of God, or in things indifferent and commanded. Hence, not the affections only, but the understanding and mind must be deadned. And therefore this is no mortification untill sin originall be subdued in its damnation by Christs death, and in its dominion by the Spirit of Sanctification. A tree is not withered while standing on its root, bulk and branches are green and flourishing: Its much to know the withdrawing of sap and life from the root and the vitall parts of old Adam.The ebbing of a River is not the drying up of it; the new birth only is mortification.
  3. 2. Since mortification comes only from Christs death, what is the influence of Christs death herein?

 

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Ans. The influence is reall, ad modum cause physicæ, the merit of blood hath bought us from our vain conversation, 1 Pet. 1.18. Christ dying doth merit by blood the Spirit, and infused grace, which deadens the whole life of sin. Evangelick Arguments from ten heavens, from ten Gospels working morally and in a swasory way, cannot more work mortification then touching can make a reall change on a dead corps; we was legally dead and crucified in Christ, and with Christ, when he died, many not being born then: But in the infusing of the life of God, Christ applyes the reall principle of mortification. Now the redemption from a vain conversation, 1 Pet. 1.18. from the present evil world, Gal. 1.4. is as reall and proper a bargain, except we follow Socinus, as redemption from the wrath to come. 2. Christs death hath an influence morall and swasorie to work mortification: As 1 Pet. 1.16. Be holy. 17. Passe the time of your sojourning in fear. For ye are bought with his blood from your vain conversation. And 1 Pet. 5.1,2. Christ hath suffered in the flesh, therefore be mortified to your lusts, and serve them not, as the Gentiles do: So Col. 3.1.5. But the action morall of the Gospel doth not work upon the naturall man: for like works upon the like; carnall reason upon a carnall spirit; and spirituall Arguments upon a renewed man; as an Argument from a painted feather works upon a child, more then an Argument from an inheritance, which no doubt will work upon a man come to age, and yet neither the one nor the other works upon a renewed mind to remove him off Christ his rock. Hence it is, 3. that Acts of Omnipotency are used as Morall Arguments: also, God works in you to will and to do, therefore work out your salvation. And choosing, redeeming, calling, justifying, quickening, converting, are brought in as causes in Scripture, both reall and morall; but they work morally on reason, where there is an impression of faith and principle of life. The Gospel works on an unrenewed man to perswade him almost to be a Christian: Ye may perswade a youth to a course, and get his word, consent, and write; but because reason is green and young, he falls off it again, but a man of judgement shall stand to it: yet if he be not renewed, reason is also green and raw before a spirituall temptation.

 

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Quest. What are the actings of a mortified man?

Ans. No actings. 2. Slow actings and lent. 3. Actings indifferent. 4. Closing with contrair providences, reproaches, work not on mortification to fire the man. Psal. 35.12. They speak mischievous things. 13. But I as a deaf man, heard not. David feared to be the reproach of the foolish: Such a case, though from God, would raise a cry in a child of this world. Psal. 39.9. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou did it. A mortified man is dead to the voice of men-singers and women-singers, and musicall instruments of all sorts, Eccles. 2.8. and houses, gardens, vineyards, orchards, great possessions, cattell, treasures, gold, silver, are all as musick to a dead man: and repenting Solomon now mortified, looks on them as a wise man upon experienced vanitie and vexation of spirit. Will he sing and dance at a shadow? Except a mad man, none will do that. 2. If any thing, without a child of God, work upon him, they move him not much: Psal. 131.2. Surely I have behaved and quieted my self, as a child that is weaned of his mother, my soul is even as a weaned child. Acts 20.24. None of these things move me: I make not much reckoning of bands. Peter, 1 Pet. 4.12. will have the saints not to think burning quick, strange, graces motions are quiet, slow, modest, there is not much fire in the spirit of a weaned child: A mortified soul is as a sea that hath no winds, nor low ebbings, nor high spring tides. Grace stirres leasurely and lentely toward all things, except to God: were there ten Paradices offered to it, it cryes not, a dying mans pulse beats weakly. Grace shouts at nothing, wonders at, and admires nothing; weeps slowly, laughs slowly, sings weakly, eats slowly, drinks not wantonly, feasts, and yet trembles and fears, whether it be the outward or the inward man. David sayes it well, Ps. 62.2. He only is my RockI shall not greatly be moved. The beleever sings, and yet he is not wanton; and weeps, and yet is not sad; dies, and yet lives; is servent in the cause of God, and yet stayed and composed in spirit. 3. The actings of mortification are indifferent, not fixedly bent upon any thing but God, no not upon the Ark and spirituall comforts. Weeping David, 2 Sam. 16.25. saith to Zadok. carry back the Arb of God into the City (better I want my comfort, then the Ark be

 

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taken) if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again and shew me both it and his habitation. 26. But if he say, I have no delight in thee, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him. O how sweet, when for God, Moses can lay down his personall satisfaction in a share of life eternall. What if he tramp upon my eternall Crown, I should lay it down at his feet; and is not this mortification? Should he hide his face, for eternity, from me, and I never see him in his manifestations, so his glory shine in my everlasting sad desertion; there is required an indifferency to all created things without; no peremptory and absolute fixednesse of the affection to any good, God excepted, is good: the contrair of this is an ingadging of the heart more then is right to any thing, give me children, or then I die, there should be a contented living without children if God so will: love the creature, as if ye loved not, the Lord would have us hungring for the creature, and yet not eagerly desiring, and thirsting, and yet have a lent and well ordered appetite to drink: love the child, but let the heart cleave leasurely to the child. Plowing, and no heart-labouring, buying and selling, and no heart-ingadging to the bargain is best here. 1 Cor. 7. They that have wives should be as if they had none. 30. And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not. In the acting of affections toward the things of this life, as father, mother, husband, wife, children, houses, gain, beauty, honour, and new bought farme, there would be a godly distance of the heart from the thing ye do: Loving, and no loving; rejoicing, and no rejoicing; weeping, and no weeping; speaks most mortification. We cannot do here, except sinfully we over-doe, and the out-goings of the heart to the creature must be fierie, which is childish, whereas mortification is a gracious well composed grave temper of the aged in Christ. There is a fire-edge and a fervour or feaver of affections even to spirituall objects that are created at the first conversion, for mortification does not so soon begin as the new heart. As for God, love as one that loves, desire and desire, and when he hides himself, weep as if you weeped, so the weeping be terminated upon God, not upon his dispensations, to quarrell at, and censure

 

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his wayes, but let the out-goings of the heart to God, and to Christ loved and longed for, be with fire, and full strength, Cant. 3.1,2,3,4. Cant. 2.5. Ps. 42.1,2,3. Ps. 84.1,2. Joh. 20.13. Luk. 7.38. Rev. 1.17. 4. Its mortification to have a heart closing with all providences. Phil. 1.21. To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain: To live is good, to die is good, because the Lord so wills, the Lords giving is to Job praising, and the Lords taking away is to Job praising. Phil. 4.12. I know both how to be abased, and how to abound: every where, and in all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. If I die, it is good; if I live, it is good; if I be full, and rich, it is good; if I be hungry, and poor, it is good; if David be on the Throne, it is good, and he sings Psalms; if he be chased barefooted, and ashes on his head, by the ascent of Mount Olivet, it is good; he also praises and sings Psalms, 2 Sam. 15.30. Ps. 3.1,2,3. If he be at home in his house, it is good, he praises, Ps. 30. Ps. 101. If he be banished in the wildernesse, and chased from the house of God, its good, he praises, Psal. 42. Psal. 63. Psal. 84. Nothing falls wrong to a mortified soul. The people cry Hosanna, Christ bids them rejoice, their King comes, Zech. 9.9. The wicked spits on his face, and plucks off the hair, that is good, Isa. 50.6. I gave them face and back to be doing their will. Heat to a gracious spirit is good, cold is good, joy is good, sorrow is good, health is good, sicknesse is good: Ezekiah gets a victory, the Assyrians are slain, that is good. Isaiah prophecies that all that are in his house, and his treasures shall be spoiled, and his children carried captive, good is the word of the Lord: Is spoil and captivity and the sword good? Yea Ezekiah closes with it, Isai. 39.8. Grace wonders at nothing, laughs at nothing, weeps at nothing but faintly, rejoices at nothing wantonly; closes with all, sayes Amen to all: for Christ was crucified for me, and I am crucified in, and with him.

  1. 3. What are the speces or sorts of mortifications, that we may know the true mortification?
  2. 1. Its hard to give the division of them logically: There is 1. a naturall mortification, there is no fire in the affections of sucking infants to Crowns, Kingdomes, to treasures of Gold and Silver,

 

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that is not mortification, but virtually there is as much fire in a flint stone, though formally it be cold, as may burn twenty Cities. Concupiscence driven away from the aged. Eccles. 12. the hearth-stone is cold, and there is in it such a deadnesse to lusts, not because of deadnesse of sin Originall, it lives, as the souls of the old men live, but because the tools are broken, the animal and vitall spirits are weakened, the man loves the journey, but the horse is crooked and laid by: there is nothing of Christs death, here.

  1. There is a compelled mortification, sicknesse and withered arms and legs, and strong fetters in the prison, poverty and want, care for bread, and the armed man poverty that hath a sharp sword, necessityblunts the affections in their second acts, the man hath no mind of whooring: And many drink water, who through Christcrucifying, are not mortified to wine and strong drink. 1. There is often in this, an ignorance of CHRIST crucified, and no faith. 2. A reluctance to divine dispensation, and no gracious submission to God, which is in one crucified to the world.
  2. There is a Philosophick mortification to the creatures which are seen by the light of nature to be very nothing and most unsatisfactory to the naturall man: but there is no supernaturall deadness in the heart wrought by the death of Christ. Archimedis,and other great spirits, sick of love to know the nature, motion, and influence of the starres, and pained with a speculative disease of books, and to know much, do contemn and despise honour, gain, pleasure, the three idols, of ambitious, of covetous and voluptuous men; but there is no deadnesse, no bluntning of the operations of the soul toward the idol world, flowing from the beleeved in crucified Lord of Glory, except you say that Plato,and Aristotle, and such, were crucified with Christ: Learning works not mortification.
  3. There is a religious or a madly superstitious mortification. The Monks(saith Lutherdreamed that the world was crucified unto them, and they unto the world, when they entered unto their Monasteries, but by this means Christ is crucified, not the world: Yea the world is delivered from crucifying, and is the more quickened by that opinion of trust they had in their own holinesse

 

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and righteousnesse. Col. 2.23. In will-worship, in humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh. There is much vain and counterfeit mortification; and Papists have as good warrand to sacrifice their lives to God, and to offer a bloodie sacrifice unto God, under the New Testament, as to shed their own blood in whipping and scourging, and such bloody worship, bath the grouud of mortification that Baals Priests had to launce themselves with knives to the effusion of blood. And the same may be said of pilgrimages, of voluntary poverty, in which (as Luther said) the world and all their lusts are quickened.

  1. Not unlike to this is the Pharisees mortification, in which they are not crucified with CHRIST, but alive and vigorously strong to self-righteousnesse, to merits, to dead works.
  2. There is a civill or morall mortification which hath diverse branches. As 1. Senecateacheth that nature is satisfied with water for drink, and a turfe for a house, yet he was a covetous man himself. And shall Horatius Coclesbe a mortified man, because the defended the Romans against the three Curiatii alone? Though the bloody Gallant killed his own sister? And was the state mortified who pardoned him that bloody fact, for his gallant service? And Decius father and son who suffered so much for their Countrey, and loved it more then their own blood? And must Africanus Major, and Cato, who suffered for the liberty of the publick, and Diogenes, who lived on herbs, be mortified men to the world? But what avails it to be dead to the bulk of a bit body of clay, and yet be alive to vain glory? 2. There is an occasionall deadnesse rising from the sight of a father, a brother, a friend dead, not from the death of Christ. An unbeleever dies with this word, I would not live for all the world, and, we are like water spilt on the ground. The house is burnt, all spoiled, treasures, and the stock, by land and sea-robbers, are plucked away; and riches have wings. Hence, mortification transient for a time: but lusts fallen in a sown, are not dead, they rise again and live. 3. There is another transient mortification, as D. Preston observes, when the conscience is affrighted with Judgement, and some fire-flaught of restraining grace is up. 4. A good calm nature naturally either dull and stupid, or some clement and meek disposition, and free of

 

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the fire that often follows the complexion, and hampered in with teachers, parents, company, education, learning, seems a mortified nature. But that is true mortification, that flowes from faith in a humbled crucified Saviour, and it is not to beleeve that Christ was mortified in our room and place, as Saltmarsh and Antinomians would say. Faith in Christ crucified is our mortification causatively, in radice, not formally.

  1. 4. To what things must we be crucified?

Answ. Gal. 6.14. To all things created, to the world; wee condemn and despise and hate the world, and the world does value us nothing.

  1. There is a deadnesse to selfwhich was in Christ our samplar of mortification, Ro. 15.1. Let us not please our selves, but bear the infirmities of others.3. For even Christ pleased not himself, Self loved and adored, and mortification do not consist, too much life in apprehension, and admiring self, argues deadnesse of deadnesse and of mortification. Was not Christ a noble self? Yet for the Lord, and his ransoned ones, Christ got above noble excellent self. It is true, there is a renewed spirituall self, a new I in the Saints, [foreign], Rom. 7.17. Now it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwels in me. Gal. 2.20. It is not I that lives, but Christ lives in me. Mortification sets us above new [foreign] renewed self, and regenerated and crucified I; it being a created excellency that we are not to adore.
  2. Mortification requires a deadnes to the will, as in Christ, not my will, but thy will be done:Much life in the will to created things, speaks little or no mortification. Christexcelled in this, Joh. 5.30. I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. Or what court, and power, and life hath our will? And how soon the will is broken and dead, then is the man broken, dead and crucified with Christ. Much will, much life of sin: See Joh. 5.40. Ye will not come. Luk. 19.14. We will not have this man to raign over us. See Mark 6.25. Mat. 1.19.Mark 15.15. Act. 24.27. Act. 25.9. Luk. 10.29. Rev. 22.17. All will, argues of mortification.
  3. There is required deadnesse to our life, which was eminently in Christ, Mat.20.28. 1 Tim.2.6. Joh. 10.11. So Paul, Act 20.24.

 

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Ye speak of bonds and affliction, But none of thase things move me, neither count I my life dear to my self, so that I may finish my course with joy. To be mortified to life, is to hate the life, Luk. 14.26. for Christ. And Revel. 12. they overcame: mortification was their victory. v.11. They overcame, for they loved not their lives unto death: Love of life is the life of sin when its not loved in God.

  1. We must be dead to wisedome, and to all the gifts of the mind, for the wisedome of the world is foolrie, and Godhath befooled it, when it comes in competition with the wisedom of the Gospel, 1 Cor.1.18,19. except we be dead to it, we cannot glory in the Lord. 27,28,29. Compared with v. 31.
  2. There must be a deadnesse to learning, to books, and bookvanity, Eccles.12.12. There is no end of making many books, and much study is a wearinesse of the flesh.Eccles. 1.17. And I gave my heart of know wisedome, and to know madnesse and folly: I perceived that this also is a vexation of spirit. 18. For in much wisedom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Paul spake more with Tongues then they all, 1 Cor. 14.18. but he was dead to that gift, he had rather have brought them nearer to Christ. 1 Cor. 4.10. We are fools, and hardly we can away with that; but we are fools for Christs sake, and for the interest of Christ and the Gospel, let us so be counted. Its nearnesse to Christ that maks us for him to be willing that what is most eminent in us be trampled upon, even shining wisedome, sciences, acts, eloquence, knowledge which pusseth up. Yea there is (3.) required a deadnesse of the knowledge of Gospel-mysteries, 1 Cor. 13.2. Paul was not rude in knowledge, but he was dead to that, and would not glory in that. And (4.) they are not crucified with Christ, not dead to opinions and sides, and to lead factions: I am of Paul, I am of Apollo, was no honour to Paul in his own esteem, 1 Cor. 1. What? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? Who excells in learning, who admires

 

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not his own, the birth of his own mind? If it were but to hold there be ten new worlds in the Moon, and millions of worlds in the other side of this world? My brethren, be not many masters. Ah! we are not dead to the Chair, the Pulpit, every one loves to be counted and calledRabbi. The blessed Man Christ confesses that he knows neither the day nor the hour of the Son of Mans coming; yet there are who darre define the time of his coming, and the day. The mind is a proud and haughty thing, and we are not dead to it; the mind is not mortified to the mind, 1 Cor. 8.1,2.

  1. We are not dead to Mammon:O who is like Christand refuses to be a rich King, Joh. 6? Paul, 2 Cor. 8.9. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor: He had a greater mind then that he could live to riches. Paul,Acts 20.33. saith not I have sought neither silver nor gold, as the Godly judge, Whose ox have I taken, 1 Sam. 12.3. but I have coveted no mans silver or gold, or apparrel: The life of lust to riches is in the trusting in it. Job 31.24. If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, thou art my confidence; Or, 25. have rejoiced because my wealth was great. Its true, a beggar and an extream poor man that cannot have bread, is not troubled nor much tempted to seek a Kingdom and the millions and tunnes of gold that many rich ones have; but yet there are speculative desires and rolling waves and floods of wishes in the heart for these: and because hunger and want of bread is his door enemy lying between him and the hope of great riches, the man is neither mortified to the love of bread nor to the millions of gold that the heart is sick after. And as there be diverse kinds and speces of pests, and they are not all of one kind, yet all contrair to the blood and the heat of life: So are there sundry kinds of unmortified lusts about riches according to the sicknesse of the desire.

Obj. But is not the desire of food and raiment naturall, how then is it faulty?

Ans. The desire simply is naturall, and the Ants and the Conies do desire. But the desire 1. beyond measure. 2. With a sinfull doubting that they shall not have it, which reproacheth Omnipotency. 3. A desire wider then that of Ants and Conies, of

 

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that which is more nor sufficient, which would destroy and not feed but over-feed, is the faulty desire; as sicknesse desires drink more then sufficient, not for health, but to feed the disease, it is the desire of the disease rather then of the man diseased; and the forbidden desire is the sin.

Obj. 2. May not a child of God desire more then enough, how then is he mortified?

Ans. If the desire of more then enough come from the habit of covetousnesse, the man is not mortified to Mammon: all sinfull habits in the child of God are broken, and lessened, and chased in to inclinations, or to the habit of Originall corruption slackened and by grace subdued; but in every child of God there is sin dwelling and the flesh, Heb. 12.1. Rom. 7.17,18. 1 Joh. 1.8,10. Jam. 4.5. Gal. 5.17. and the old man, which is put off by degrees, Eph. 4.24. Col. 3.5.10. which is a habit of corruption not in full vigor, but sickening, decaying, and a dying daily, but even a grown child of God from this broken and sick habit may, temptation invading, and the Lord withdrawing his influence of grace, may break out into grosse acts of covetousnesse, adultery, murther, as is clear in David, Lot, Peter, Asa,and that saith that mortification is compleat in none. And there is too oft a sort of sinfull resurrection of the habit of sin and the flesh, so that David seems not to be David, but an adulterer, a murtherer: As we see it is the same River that swells over its banks, that it was before, but the overflowing is from without, from the clouds and from excessive rain, the river also hath a receptive capacity in it self to exceed its banks and channel: So hath a child of God from strong temptation from without, and broken corruption from within, a more then his own ordinary quantity and swelling over his channel; To teach us that our mortification is a work not of day, but of our whole life. Neither would the wise Agur pray against riches, Prov. 30. if temptations contrair to mortification did not follow them.

  1. There is a necessity of deadnesse to honour, and to learn the noble and excellent arte of self-contempt, that the Spirit shall teach us that spirituall lesson to be willingly tramped on, and the face spitted on, and the hair plucked off the cheeks, as our Blessed Lord went out and in the way met with spitting and shame,

 

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Isai. 50.6. Mat. 26.67. Mat. 27.26. O great word! Phil. 4.12. [foreign], I have learned to be abased. 1 Cor. 4.12. Being reviled we blesse, being persecuted we suffer, being defamed we intreat, we are made as the filth of the world, and are as the off, scouring of all things unto this day.[foreign], the sweepings of the house. Erasmus, the filth wiped off any thing. Valla, the filth that sticks to the shoes. The Syriack hath a word that noteth the dung of the belly. As the condemned man tumbled into the sea as a sacrifice to Neptune from a steep place was calledperipsema. So Budæus thinks Paul alludes to heathen expiations. And when they reproached me, David, Psal. 38.13. But I was as a deaf man that heareth not, as a dumb man that opened not his mouth. The sense anddiscerning of heat and cold, of railings, and applauses, would be dead: That is mortification, when the sense of hearing is dead to sounds, to musick, and to pleasant songs, these are not delightfull to a crucified or hanged man, when the life is out: Nor can all the sweet smells, flowers, roses, precious ointments, affect the smelling of a crucified man, nor all the fair and magnifick pallaces, meadows, gardens, rivers, mountains, hangings, painted pictures, work upon the sight or eyes of a crucified man. When the heart is ravished with honour, as the man who said the glory of Themistocles hindered him to sleep in the night, as litle mortified as Themistocles who said sleep was taken from him, and he was raised out of his bed in the night by reason of the brave trophie and renown of the victory of Miltiades, that renowned man of Athens, who, as is known, with a 10000. Greeks,put to flight 60000. Persians. And Alexander the Great, his heart must have been waking at the sound of honour, who, when a messenger came running to him full of joy, said what should thou tell me, but that Homer is living again? for he thirsted for nothing so much as honour: And how soft and very nothing is the spirit that is broken with riches or honour and pleasure? And often men judge themselves mortified, because they are dead, it may be to riches, but alive to ambition and desire of honour. As Nebuchadnezzar spared no charges for his gods, his pleasure, but he was alive to honour, Dan. 4.30. Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the Kingdom, by the might of my

 

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power, and the honour of my majesty? Sathan doth often change Post-horses, and can seemingly deaden men to riches, when they are not mortified, and yet the heart is strongly vigorous to honour. When it was told Zeno that his ship, which he did trade withall, was broken:Well done, Fortune, (saith he) thou compells us to go within our cloak; he meaned, To live upon the glory of vertue and learning, when riches are spent and gone, was well done. But mortification, in the habite and root, is like the works of nature. The Sun equally enlightens the whole Air from the East to the West: Life comes in equally upon the whole Embryo and birth. Saving mortification goes through the whole soul. Christ merited by his death deadnesse to honour as well as to riches; Though in the actuall subduing of lusts D. Preston does well observe that there is not that labour required in subduing and mortifying all sins. For love of sin being the dominion, life and castle of sin, the more love to the heart-idol and to the right eye, the harder it is to be mortified. Some sins cleave to us as our hair and nails, as a custome of some sinfull words, these are sooner mortified; and yet if mortification be not in the heart, these take life again, as hairs and nails cutted and shaven grow again. The trees in Winter are not dead: but there be master-devils and strongly rooted heart-darlings pride, covetousnesse, to which we are mortified, with a huge greater deal of pains and wrestling, for they are to men as the eye and the right hand.

  1. We are not soon dead to injuries. Our blessed Coppie in this excels: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.And Steven,Act. 7.60. Lord lay not this sin to their charge, Colos. 3.13. Forgiving one another. Yea, but he wronged me, and injuries have a strong impulsion upon our spirits. I cannot forget it. If any man have a quarrell at any (saith he) let it falls even as Christ forgave you, so do ye also. Shall not Socrates witnesse against us, who answered his friends, willing him to accuse before the Judge a vain youth who did smite him with his foot, If an Asse lift his heels against me, shall I lift my heels against the Asse? and the youth was so convinced that he hanged himself. And he said nothing to a multitude of reproaches easten upon him in the Theater, but, I am vexed with words in the Theater as

 

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in a great banquet. But naturall reason mortifies men to injuries, as cold water allayes and for a time softens the pain of the childs burnt finger, but the pain is the greater when the water is removed; Or as want of money mortifies a man to drunkennesse, he drinks not excessively, not because the heart will not dare to sin, but because he cannot. The Word backed with influences from the death of Christ strongly mortifies to all sins.

  1. And the soul is not easily deadned to an office or place of a Prince, a Ruler, a Master, a Prophet, a Teacher. Abishai,2 Sam. 16.9. Why should this dead dog curse my lord the King? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head. Davidstandeth not much upon cursing thelord the King. He is so mortified to that stile as he forgets it, and, v. 10. he saith, Let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David. He saith not, the Lord hath bidden him ourse the lord King David. Answers thou the high Priest so? Its a great word. Christ was the Messiah,that is a great office of King, Priest and Prophet: but he was willing to forget his office, by way of taking much on him, that he might fulfill his office by way of suffering. As Rulers and such as are in place must so far be dead to their office and place, as they must be willing to bear in their bosome the reproaches of all the mighty people, and to have their footsteps, even as Rulers, reproached, Psal. 89. v. 50,51. Places and office too often have an influence and strong enough on our unmortified hearts. But there are some providentiall sufferings that befall Rulers, as Rulers, against which they should be hardned, knowing that the Lord suffers in them.
  2. It should be our work to be deadned to pleasure. I have married a wife,and therefore, [foreign], I can not come.This is the most lively lust. There is a mortified eye, Job 31.1. I have made a covenant with mine eye, why then should I look on a maid? Mortified eye looks call for mortified heart-looks. Its an old sin, Gen. 3.6. And when the woman saw the tree that it was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes,she did eat.

 

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Mortified Joseph saw sin ingraven on pleasure, Gen. 39.9. How then can I do this great wickednesse, and sin against God?

  1. There must be a deadned heart to all the three, to the world, 1 Joh.2.15. Love not the world, nor the things of the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world,Jam. 4.4. There is some life between the friends of the world and the world, and James doubteth not to call that enimity with God, and the three great Idols of the world, gain, glory and pleasure, cannot make any happy, which Heathens,Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca saw: and therefore they pressed a contempt of the world. For strength is the glory of the Elephant or the Bull rather then of man, and plucked away by age and time; And beauty is no lesse uncertain, being made up of quantity and colour, and the Rose and the Lilly hath more of it then man. Riches have wings, and tender not the owner happy: Nobility is a borrowed good, and the Parents glory not ours: And honour is the opinion and esteem of men, and we yet cannot be dead to nothings, to shadows, to emptinesse and to vanity: and fair buildings are well ordered dead stones.
  2. They are not rightly mortified who are not deadned to creature-comforts, to father and mother, for they forsake, and the mother may forget the fruit of her own womb, but the Lord cannot forget his own, Psal.27.10. Isa.49.15. My friends, Job 19.19. 2. All my friends, 3. All my inward (and dearest) friends, 4. Abhorre me. Forsaking is hard, but abhorring is most sad. Yea even in the Cause of God Paul is put to this, 2 Tim. 4.16. At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. 2. So must the Church be dead to forraign forces, Hos. 14.3. Ashur shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, and the people must be dead and sit still from help from Egypt, Isai. 30.7. For the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cryed concerning this, Your strength is to sit still. Sitting still is a ceasing from relying upon the Chariots and strength of Egypt, as being dead to them: For thus saith the Lord, the holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall ye be saved, in quietnesse and in

 

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confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not. And 4. his people must cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of? Isai. 2.22. and be dead to multitude: for, Psal. 33.16. No King is saved by an host, a mighty man is not delivered by much strength. 17.An horse is a vain thing for safety. The help of the creature substitute in the room of God, having the lustre of blue and purple, or cloathed in scarlet, riding upon horses. Young men of desire, Ezek. 23.23. doe easily dazle our eyes, and when we are not renewed in the spirit of our mind, unsanctified hearts are weak in apprehending, and more weak in discerning of things. 5. So must there be a deadning of the husband to the wife, Job. 19.17. to servants, Job. 15.16. to sons, 2 Sam. 16. v. 11. of the mother to the daughter, of the daughter in law to the mother in law, Mic. 7.6. to blood-friends.

  1. All the godly and zealous Prophets said Amento the word of the Lord, even Christ with sighs and tears, to the extream desolation and ruine of Jerusalem, Luk.19.41. Math. 23.37,38. and Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, &c. to the plowing of Zion as a field, to the sword, captivity, to the laying wast of the land without inhabitants, Isa. 5.9. Isa. 6.10,11,12. Jer. 9.1,2,3,4. Jer. 16.1,2,3. &c. Mic. 3.12. Hos. 4.3. Hos. 5.6,9, &c. There must be a deadning to our Country and Mother-Church, that the glory of justice may shine; yea to our fathers grave, our own bed, our own fireside.
  2. The Lord will have Isaiahand the godly dead to Lawes and Government, to vision and prophecying, when Judge and Prophet shall be taken away,Isa. 3. 2. and children shall be their Princes, and babes shall rule over them, v.4. and the vineyard broken, and the hedge spoiled.And he will have the godly dead to King and Priest and Law, 2 Chron. 15.3. Now for a long season Israel had been without the true GOD, and without a teaching Priest, and without law. Hos. 3.4. Hos. 10.3. And now shall they say, We have no King, because we feared not the Lord: what shall then a King do to us? Hence we must be mortified to every thing created which the Lord may take from us.
  3. And upon this account there is required a deadning of our hearts to shipping and trading with diverse mighty Nations, as we

 

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see in the case of Tyre, Ezek. 27. of Babylon, Rev. 18.11,12,13. Jer. 51. so are we to be mortified to fair houses, Isa. 5.8. stately cities, Isa. 14. to all the Cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up: to all the Oaks of Bashan, to all the high mountains, to every high tower, to every fenced wall, to all the ships of Tarshish, to all the fenced cities: for the day of the Lord may be upon these, Esai. 2. to all fair Rivers, to Oxen, Horses, Chariots, fair acres of land, to Vineyards, to Olive trees, Ezek. 29.4,5. Isa. 50.2. Exo. 7.19. Deut. 28.31,40,41,51. to seed time and harvest, Deut. 28.38. Hag. 1.6. to corn, wine, oyl, to cattell, increase of kine and flocks of sheep, Deut. 28.51, Amos 4.9. to Wine-trees, to Fig-trees, to seasonable rains, grasse and fruitfull fields, Joel. 1.4,5,7,10. Jer. 14.3,4,5,6. to peace, safe down-lying and safe rising. Lev. 26.36. for in all the hand of the Lords anger is stretched out.

  1. The Lord would have us dead to valiant and to mighty men, to Captains, Isa.3.1,3,4. Yea he makes true, Ps.76.5, The stout-hearted are spoiled, they have sleept their sleep, and none of the men of might have found their hands. 6. At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and the horse are cast into a dead sleep: And therefore he will have us dead to courage in warre. Who brings on faintnesse and terrour upon the spirit, when the sound of a shaking leaf shall chase men, Levit. 26.36. And when the Lord sends a trembling of heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind, Deut. 38.65?
  2. We are called to be dead to honourable birth, blood, and noble Families, when Princes are filled with contempt, and these that were cloathed in scarlet, imbrace the dung-hill, Lam.5.12. Isa.40.23,20.
  3. And we must be dead to the vigorousnesse of youth, when we read Eccl.12.1,2,3. &c. And Barzillaihis complaint, 2 Sam. 19.35. Can I taste what I eat? Can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women? And why but this should make us dead to sports, pastime, dicing, gaming, dancing, feasting, chambering, wantonnesse, to all plenty and fulnesse, when God can remove the appetite, and give bread, or remove bread, and give the appetite. So as the Lord leaves that doom on you,

 

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Lev. 26.26. And when I have broken the staffe of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight, and ye shall eat and not be satisfied. So is Solomon dead to laughter, Eccles. 2.2. I said of laughter it is mad.

  1. There is required a deadnesse to Ordinances, the Tabernacle is not God: Davidmay be banished from it. The Temple is a Type of Christ, yet it is burnt with fire, and the Sanctuary prophaned: And the Lord required a sort of lentnesse or leasurlinesse of motion of the heart toward these, and will have his people in their exile resting upon this, Ezek. 11.16. Therefore say, thus saith the Lord God, although I have cast them far off from the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countreys, yet will I be to them as a little Sanctuary in the countreys where they shall come.And they who remained still at Jerusalem reproached their poor captivated brethren, as hated of God, and gloried in themselves as Citizens and Inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, v. 15. to the exiled brethren, Get you far from the Lord, unto us is this Land given in possession. They were not mortified in looking upon the Holy Land and City, but vainly gloried in it. And therefore there are two things in Ordinances. 1. God that fills the Ordinances. 2. The externall bulke of them. Mortification to God and his presence in Ordinances, is not that we here require, for the affections cannot be vigorous enough in following God. There may be a limiting and binding of God to means, to the Temple, Sanctuary, hearing, Seals, and a fleshly heat and livelinesse to means, and bare and naked Ordinances; and in both these there is so far required a deadnesse, as there would be an holy submission to all these, when the Lord deprives us of Ordinances, and a retiring in to the fountain, to the Lord himself, that he may be all in all. So some cannot sleep except the Bible be under the head in the night: Some tye their faith and comfort so to one man, if he be not their Pastor nothing is right. But so much of CHRIST, or the substance of Gospel-promises must be neglected, as means and instruments, and Ordinances are Idolized: In a word, mortification calls for livelinesse of affection to God in Christ, and a holy deadnesse to all things that are not God.

 

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  1. There is necessary here a deadnesse to works, for there be these defects in them. 1. They cannot save, Eph.2. (2.) They were not crucified for you, let them not have the place and Chair of Christ. 3. They cannot quiet the conscience, because they cannot justifie. PaulPreached from Jerusalem to Illyricum, laboured more aboundantly then they all, was unrebukeable, was conscious to himself of nothing, yet was he as dead to these as to very nothing, 1 Cor. 4.4. and to losse and dung, Phil. 3.8. Hence must we be dead to the idol of Godlinesse, for its not God.
  2. And dead to Godly men, in poynt of confidence, we must not know the Man Christ after the flesh,2 Cor.5.16. nor any meer man, to cry man up as God, (every man is a liar) is contrair to Gospel-mortification.
  3. It were good to pray much, and to be dead to prayer: One of the main causes why we cry and pray much and are not heard, Psal.22.2. Psal.69.1,2,3, is, because that which is proper to God the hearer of prayer, to wit, confidence and hope, we give to prayer which is not God. We pray to our own prayers and to our own wrestling often, rather then to God: and we beleeve praying does the businesse and works the charm, as if prayer were Omnipotency it self.
  4. Nor are we dead to faith and hope, but we beleeve in faith and in beleeving, and we hope in our own hoping in God. But was faith crucified for you?How many fetch peace, pardon and righteousnesse, not from Christ,but from their act of beleeving? Hence a cale, whether some may not fervently pray and beleeve strongly, and yet be disappointed in the particular they pray for and beleeve they shall have? Certain it may be, especially when we are dead to Omnipotency and alive to praying and beleeving; and lay more weight on faith in God then on God, and on praying to God then on God himself. What Antinomians say unjustly we give to works, to wit, our peace with God, they and many unduely give to faith, not to Christ.
  5. We fail in being more alive to comforts then to God the comforter: the infant may at once both suck the breasts, and also sleep. And is one flower more to be smelled then the whole Garden? And shall feelings and raptures, and manifestations of God

 

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in his out-goings be courted and over-courted by us beyond the God of all comforts? There is need that the heart be deadened to sense, for feeling and sense is fiery and idolatrous; and were sense more mortified at the out-goings of faith, hope, love, it were good, for our faith should be the more lively and vigorous to lay, hold on God. Q. Is it not lawfull to be taken and feelingly delighted with the influences of God? Ans. Sure, feeling of it, self is not faulty, the fierinesse and excessive fervour of feeling is faulty, especially when terminated upon created actings of love, faith, joy, desire, hope, and not upon influences as coming from the free Grace of God, otherwise, we are but sick and pained of love of our own gracious actings, because they are our own; and this is the sicknesse of selfishnesse. Ah! a Godhead, a Godhead is not known.

  1. Nor must we be, in a too lively way, taken with our own stock, nor trust in the habit of grace or the new heart: for grace in us is a created rose that spreads fair and broad and smels well, but it is not God nor Christ, that we may learn not to trust in our selves,[foreign], 2 Cor. 1.9. But why but we may trust in our renued selves now furnished with a stock and infused habits, the excellent blossoms and blooms of heaven? Nay, not in our selvesthus fitted, but in God who raises the dead:for its not possible both to trust in renewed self and in God: And Paul never meant that any that professeth CHRIST, is to lean upon sinfull self or upon lost and condemned self. And sure it is as selfy to be alive to infused habits, as to misken Christ, and think, being once a convert, we can fend ourselves all the rest of the way to heaven without Christ, we need not Christ for a Guide or a Tutor, its within us may save us. And nothing can be more contrair to a living the noble and sure life of continuall dependencie by faith on the given Leader of the people, Jesus Christ, then to trust on habits of grace, they are not Christ.
  2. Ah! who is that mortified as to be dead to the created sweetnesse of joy, and the right hand pleasures of God, and the formall beatitude of glory, and alive to the only pure objective happinesse of glory? And yet that is mortification, to love and be sick and thirsty for heaven, not for the pleasures of the Garden, and the

 

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Streets of Gold, and the Tree of Life, and the River of Water of life, but for only only God, the heaven of heavens: And therefore we cannot be alive to pure and the only abstracted and unmixed Godhead, except we be thus dead to heaven.

  1. There is a deadnesse to the letter of the promise: The promise(saith M. Ambroseis but the Casket,and Christ the Jewell in it, the promise is but the field, Christ is the Pearle bid in it. Christ removed, the promise is no promise, or but saplesse signes.
  2. We must also be dead to the rayes, out-shinings and manifestations of Godto the soul here, and must transchange Godin all presence and all love embracements, and no more: but be dead to the house of wine, to the lifted up banner of love, to love-kisses of Christ, to the love-banquets, and to the felt lying, as the beloved, all the night between the breasts: for these nearest communions are not God himself. There is required a godly hardnesse for receiving sparkles of hell and some draughts of sore trying wrath, and the hell of his most wise and righteous frownings, and necessary absence and night of hiding himself.
  3. And should not the Church be dead to providences of fair weather, and Court, or the blessing of a godly King David, Ezekiah,and mortified to miraculous deliverances, dividing of the red sea, defeat of enemies, to confirmation of the truth by Martyrdome and sufferings to blood? He who is dead to himself and his body and ease, and hardned against contradictions of sinners, against torment of body, cold, imprisonment, sicknesse, death, and can in patience submit to all providences, is crucified with Christ, if God give or withdraw, he is dead to both.
  4. All who are dead with Christ, are dead to all dead worship, saplesse ceremonies, and formall worship, Col.2.20. Gal.4.9. and are lively in the serving of God, and fervant in spirit, serving the Lord: And rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, Phil.

3.3. Rom. 12.

 

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CHAP. V.

Of the Covenant of Redemption between God and the Mediator Christ. 2. Christ is not a bare witnesse to confirm the Covenant, but the Author of the Covenant. 3. The Socinian way of works cannot quiet the conscience. 4. Christ is upon both sides of the Covenant. 5. Justice mediats not. 6.Reasons of the entrance of sin.

ISai. 49. 8. I will preserve thee (saith the Lord to Christand give thee for a Covenant of the people.

Hence, the 1. Question: How is Christ said to be given as a Covenant of the people?

Ans. As Isai. 49 6. he saith, I have given thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou may est be my salvatiou unto the end of the earth: that is, as Act. 13.46,47. I have thee, O Christ, to be the Preached Light, and Guide of the Gentiles, and the Preached Saviour, declared and proclaimed by the Preaching of Paul, Barnabas, and the Apostles, and Pastors. So I will give thee for the Covenant, that is, the Preached surety and Mediator of the Covenant, Heb. 7.22. Heb. 8.6. When the first Covenant was broken, he makes with us an everlasting Covenant, even the sure mercies of David, Isai. 55.3. 2. I will give thee as the only one who is the subject of the Gospel and Covenant of Grace: For to Preach Christ and to Preach the Gospel and New Covenant are all one. 3. I have given thee to be the confirmer of the promises, they are all yea, and Amen, in thee, 2 Cor. 1.20. Gal. 3.16. And 4. by thy death thou confirmes the Covenant, and seals it with thy blood, Heb. 9.15,16,17,22,23,24. Heb. 13.20.

  1. But Socinusdenies that Christ is the purchaser or the obtainer by his blood (as it were) of the New Covenant, for he did not by his death procure or merit pardon to us, he is only the surety or Mediator of the Covenant. And Crellius and he say, the cause why the confirming of the Covenant is ascribed to the death of Christ, is because as by a slain beast and divided into two parts, Covenants of old were established, so by the death of Christ the Covenant of Grace was solemnly confirmed and sealed?

 

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Ans. Christ is so the Surety as Mediator, as he is also the Author of this Covenant, as God, Exod. 3.6. It was he who said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 1 Cor. 10.9. Let us not tempt Christ, as some of them tempted him, and were destroyed of the Serpents. And this is he who led them, and brought them out of Ægypt, Numb. 21.6,7. whom they tempted in the wildernesse, 5,6,7. And he ascribes to himself the Covenant, Heb.8.9. Not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers, &c. And it is clear, that the pardon of sin promised in the Covenant, Jer. 31. Heb. 8. is never ascribed to the blood of Martyrs, but every where to Christs blood, Eph. 1.7. Col. 1.14. Rom. 3.25. Rev. 1.5. 1 Joh. 1.8. Heb. 9.14.14,15,22. Heb. 10.16,17,18.

  1. That he is the Surety also of the Covenant, is expresly said, Heb.7.22. and the Mediator thereof, Heb. 8. Nor can it be said that the death of the Testator does properly give faith and authority to the Testament, for the authority and justice of the just or unjust will of the Testator, addeth unto, or diminisheth from the authority of the Testament; for the Testators will is the principal efficient cause of the Testament, the death of the man is only a necessary condition, by which the right of the Testator to these goods is transferred from him (who now being dead, needs them not) in to friends, to whom they are left in Legacie; and so death is but an antecedent condition of the right to the goods. 3.Christs dying to bear witnesse to his own Gospel is only the secondary end of his death, in so far as secondarily remission of sins is made known to us after the principall end of his death, to wit, reconciliation, remission, pardon, redemption, and life is purchased to us by way of merit: And sure the truth of pardon and redemption is hugely more confirmed and sealed by the whole company of the Martyrs, and made known to the sons of men, then by the death of one single man, Maries Son:Nor does the Scripture ever commend Christs love to us in sealing the Gospel with his blood as the only way to life, or making this the most strong Argument to move us

 

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to beleeve in God, and obey Christ, because Christ died for sinners, and rose again to make the Gospel true like, and worthy to be beleeved, as the Martyres do: but love shined in this, that in dying we have redemption and forgivenesse and life in his blood; And since Godly and sound beleeving Martyrs died for this end, especially to glorifie God, and seal the truth, Joh. 21.19. Rev. 2.13. Mat. 10.32. Luk. 12.8. Mar. 8.38. Luk. 9. 26. 2 Tim. 2.12. Rev. 12.11. we must have most properly forgivenesse of sins in the blood of Steven, and Antipas,and the rest of the Martyres. And miracles do aboundantly seal the truth of the Gospel; And so doth the holinesse of profession, Joh. 20.32. Mar. 16.20. Joh.5.35,36. Matth. 5.16. but never are we redeemed, justified, saved by Christs and the Apostles miracles and holy life, for any thing we read in Scripture; but we have life by Christs blood as by a ransome, a price to buy us.

  1. Hence, 1.case: May not the conscience be quiet by the way of Socinus,which lays aside a ransome given to Justice?

Ans. The experience of the Godly man wakened in conscience saith to this, when he is chastened with pain in his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain, and the mans soul drawes near to the grave, and his life unto the destroyers, and the man stands in need of an Interpreter, one among a thousand to shew unto man his righteousnesse, Job 33.19,20,21,22,23. Then God is gracious to him, and saith, deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found him a ransome: He is not quiet while God say, my Prophet, deliver him from hell and the pit, which he so much fears, for my offended Justice hath found a ransome in Christ, and I am pacified with him. Yea, and the conscience must be purged from dead works, by his blood who offered himself without spot to God through the eternall Spirit, Heb. 9.14. Yea, and there is no remission of sins without sheding of blood, v. 22. Not of Buls or Goats, for the blood of beasts leaves still conscience of sin, Heb. 10.1,3. Then it must be the blood of Christ, v. 5.10. who was crucified and made a curse for us, Gal. 3.10. such a curse as we must have eternally, according to Divine Justice, suffered. Yea, if works done by the exemplary grace of a Martyr, such a holy man as Christ, who was never wounded for our transgressions, nor

 

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bruised for our iniquities, then Christ died in vain, and there was no ransome of blood given for our sins, only God of free-will made an innocent man a curse, and would have him crucified neither for his own sin, nor for ours; well then, may good works without the blood of sinner or surety, take away sin: And the conscience sprinkled with good works may will calm a guilty conscience, yea, and according to the measure of good works is the measure of assurance of peace with God. Now we see the most tender David, Job, Hezekiah, Heman,who walked most with God, have not alway most assurance of peace and righteousnesse with God, but most dreadfull doubtings of conscience, according as by faith they apprehend the ransome of full satisfaction, or were dazled and darkened in their apprehension; yea sure, without the ransome of blood, of free-will, all receive a dry and unbloody pardon by doing the Commandements of Jesus Christ. The Socinian faith which looks to an exemplary Martyr whom God of no justice, but in vain, and for no cause, delivered to death, but of meer free pleasure, whereas there might be, and is forgivenesse without shedding of blood: contrair to Heb. 9.22. Rom. 3.24.25, &c. even good works done in imitation of Christ.

  1. 2. Another case is here: Is Christon our side of the Covenant, and on the Lords side? This would seem no satisfying of justice. Ans. It is true the case would seem no quieting of conscience. If 1. Christ-God were not the same offended God, who out of soveraignty of free grace doth condescend to make a Covenant of grace, and so is upon Gods side. 2. If Christ were not a Person different from offended God, as the Godhead is common to all the three, so in a voluntary and admirable dispensation and Oeconomie the Kings Son, a Person different from the Father, taketh upon him our nature; And 3. having mans nature which offended, and so being fit therein to satisfie wrath, and fit therein to merit, to sanctifie the people with his own blood, might well be upon our side: and there’s no scenick, no seeming, but a most reall satisfaction here, in that there is a most full and reall compensation made to offended justice, and our faith laying hold on this, the conscience is quieted. As I sinned in the first Adam legally, so I satisfied in the second Adam. Obj. But justice saith, The same

 

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person that sinned, the same must suffer and satisfie, and no other.

Ans. Justice saith so, but that part of justice by the graciousnesse and mercifulnesse of the Just God is, and may be dispensed withall: So as Justice as Justice seeks payment, the Creditor as the Creditor seeks recompence and restitution: But by whom, Justice determines not, whether payment and satisfaction be made by the same very person who offended, or by a fit surety in the person and place of the offender, as it determines not whether as much or far more be restored then was taken away, so there be a compact and voluntary agreement between the satisfier and the satisfied. Hence, Justice being 1. offended, is not (to speak so) the interposing and the mediating attribute of God; but Soveraignty of Free-grace and mercy interposeth. 2. Justice may seek payment from the only offending partie, and from no other, from Adam and his posterity only; but Justice doth not indispensably, and by necessity of nature exact payment from the only offender and from no other. 3. The conscience of the beleever may with sweetnesse of admiration and peace rest upon satisfied justice, and adore interposing grace, and be quickened from looking unto, and loving interposing grace, to obey and take on the labour of Gospel love to run the wayes of his Commandements. 4. It is not an act of Law, nor of Justice, to give, or find out a satisfier, but an act of love, grace, and infinite wisedom.

  1. 3. A third case is, how can the beleever look upon life eternall as a gift, if it be sold at so condign a price as Christs blood?

Ans. It is not fit to speak of this mysterie, but with holy reverence, life eternall is bought to us, and we are said to be bought with a price, 1 Cor. 6.19. 1 Pet. 1.18. 1 Tim. 2.6. Matth. 20.28. Now it is unworthy of Christ, that the fruit of his death should be only grace, not glory, and such a grace as is lubrick, uncertain, renders us indifferent, but much weaker to beleeve or not believe, that is, as Socinians say, to earne and win the wager of Glory by a new Gospel-working, which is our righteousnesse, and merit to glory: For sure Pagans are more sinfully weak in the Second ADAM who died for them, as Socinus will, then mankind were in the first Adam. The Scripture saith that Christ gave himself for his Church, that he might present her a glorious Church, Eph.5.

 

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  1. 27. 1 Thes. 5.9. For God hath not appointed us for wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.10. Who died for us.2 Tim. 2.10. Therefore I endure all things for the elects sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternall glory. Jude 21. Looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternall life. Rev. 5.9. Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, &c. Act. 20.28. Feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. Eph. 1.7. In whom we have redemption through his blood. 11. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance. We are not afraid to call eternall life a fruit of Christs death, that is, of the merit of his death: See Joh. 10.10,11.28. Joh. 3.14,15,16.
  2. 4. A fourth case: Many stumble, some in that God permitted sin to enter, which he might have hindered, knowing he should be thereby under a necessity either to torment men in hell, or torment on earth his most innocent Son Christ?

Ans. Socinians, Arminians, yea Pagans, and all enemies to Christian Religion, are burdened with the same seeming reason: For if God, or their gods may hinder wickednesse, and yet do not hinder it, they bring themselves, or the true God, that they must be necessitated to torment the sinners.

  1. There be reasons unanswerable, why if we yeeld (and it is a shame to deny) that God is able to hinder sin to enter in the world, or that he is not infinitly wise, and so that he hath not most weighty reasons why he suffers sin to be: As 1. if sin come freely in the world without the will of God, either the Lords dominion over sin must be none at all; or the creatures dominion of free-will must be dependent upon the dominion of grace and Soveraignty. 2. The out-goings of free-grace must eternally be hid, if sin had never been. As there had been no field for the expressions and blossoms of eternall flourishing revenging justice: As also, the creatures times are short, and could not reach the eminent degree of manifesting the glory of free-grace and pardoning mercy, but the Lord aimed at this. And 1. the relation of a Saviour and a sinner, of the Physician and the sick must be known; Now a Physician hath not relation actuall to all sick, all the world over, but only to his own patients, his own sick ones, who by Covenant, feeling their

 

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danger, have laid the weight of life and death, of righteousnesse, of salvation over upon that one only Saviour, and live, dyet, apply salves, medicine, only by the direction of this Physician, and do receive medicine and recepts from no other.

  1. Infinite wisedom made choise, beside other infinite possible wayes, of this only way of redeeming: and here glorious Soveraignty shines, he wailles out, Judas, Magus, Pharaoh,to be fire-wood and coal to the River of fire and brimstone, and made so many sinfull peeces of sick, brittle clay, overgilded with the habit of grace, of free righteousnesse, of glory, to be the eternall harpers and proclaimers of the glory of his grace; whereas he might have made these stones, and worms, for he created Angels and worms, and all out of theMother Nothing,by his good pleasure. And it must be a wonder of unsearchable Soveraignty, that should not for eternity have been concealed, such a number of Angels and men whom he set up in the heaven of heavens as heirs of glory, to be everlasting Heraulds and Trumpeters to sound out experienced grace and mercy, might have been, if so it had pleased him, lumps of everlasting vengeance in the eternall lack, and all that are condemned, and suffer the vengeance of eternall fire, both devils and men are chips and peeces of beingshewen out of the same rock (if so we may speak) of that huge and vast Nothing, and might have been up before the Throne filling the Chairs and rooms of the now heirs of glory, thou beleever, might have been in the seat of Iudas, scorched in his furnace in hell, and Iudasmight have had thy Throne and thy Crown up with him eternally who sits on the Throne, and with the Lamb.
  2. He might have keeped all the sons of men, and all the Angels, in a sinlesse condition, to be courteours to proclaim the glory of Law-goodnesse, and of the never broken Covenant of Works, but then there should never have been such a thing known to the generations to come,as that Ark of glory,that huge and boundlesse all fulnesse of the indwelling Godhead in the Man Christ. Sure, had there been none sick, such a suffering Physician to heal us had never been, none lost would have said there is no Saviour, none dead in sin, would say, there is no need of such a Lord and Prince of life by whose swelling wounds we are healed, Isa.53.

 

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  1. Nor was it fit that this should never be known to Angelsand men, that the Lord honours so many redeemed sinners with a grant and licence to love so high, so precious a Redeemer, and as it were to marre and black his fairnesse and desirable excellency with our feeble and sinfully weak love, he being so far above our love or faith or praises.
  2. The Gospel-wonders should not be an eternally sealed book to men and Angels, as, Revel.12. 1. that wonder in heaven, A woman cloathed with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve Stars,should be known. And what was shewed toJohn was to be shown to the Churches, Rev. 21. 10. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great City, the holy Hierusalem descending out of heaven from God. 11. Having the glory of God. I mean here the wonders of grace, mercy, declared justice: as that the most High should empty Himself and the Godhead be united to clay: that there should be such a high Bridegroom, so low and sinfull a Spouse: that death should conquer death: that Nothings of clay should sing their debts, eternally cast down their crowns, being made of sinners glorified Kings, and not be ashamed to cast down their crowns before him that sits on the throne. Nor should the gifts and graces of God be hidden, Rom. 8. 32. He that spared not his own Son,–how should he not with him, [foreign], give us all things, begrace to us all? How should he not make heaven and earth free grace to us, and all a masse of grace to us? Eph. 1. 6. [foreign], He hath begraced us all over in Christ. 1 Tim. 1.13. But I obtained mercy, as dipped in a sea of mercy. Luk. 1.28. Hail Virgine, [foreign], filled with free grace. Let us forgive one another, Col. 3. 13. as Christ begraced pardon to us, [foreign]. That we might know, 1 Cor. 2. 12. [foreign], the things that are freely given us. And what a debt must that be, the forgiving of ten thousand talents, more then to forgive millions and tuns of gold?

Hence the Question, whether Law-innocency and never sinning, or Gospel-repentance and rising again in Christ, be most excellent? It is answered, 1. Simply to us: It is better and morally more excellent never to fall, never to be sick, then to rise in Christ and

 

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he healed by such a Physician. But sinning and falling being considered in relation to a more universall good, there is more excellency in Gospel-rising then in Law-standing: As, 1. There is more feeling deeper sense in the woman which did wash Christs feet with her tears, andwipe them with the hair of her head, then in some who never so fell. And Christ may hold forth something of this, Luk. 15. 7. Likewise I say unto you (saith Christ) there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more then over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.True it is our Saviours scope is not to compare repentance and Law-innocency together, or to show that the Pharisees needed no repentance, as if they were not in a lost condition: but to show what joy was in heaven with the Lord the father of the forlorn son, and in the Angels, at the home coming of repenting sinners. And is not a Jewell of ten thousand millions of more worth then a Diamond that is not worth the eighth part of that summe? Adams innocency and never sinning should have been by the common influences of Law-love, and the same may be said of Angel-innocency. But Gospel-repentance is the gift procured at a dearer rate, Christ was exalted a Prince to give repentance, Acts 5. 31. Neither should there be sense and such loving sense of free grace in the forlorn son, had he never sled away from his father, and never been so received with a welcome of grace which he beleeved, before he felt it.

 

CHAP. VI.

Q.11. Whether there be any such thing as a Covenant of Suretyship or Redemption between JEHOVAH and the Son of GOD? That there is such a Covenant, is proven by 11. Arguments.

NO doubt, Christ God-Man is in Covenant with God, being a person designed from eternity, with his own consent, and in time yeelding thereunto, and yet he stands not in that Covenant-relation that we stand in: as we shall hear.

1.Arg. What Argument does prove that there is a people in Covenant with God, who call the Lord their God, as Zech. 13.9.

 

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Jer. 32.38. Isai, 25.9. the same shall prove Christ to be in Covenant with God: As who can say, he is my God, he must be in Covenant with God. As Jer. 31.33. I will be their God, and they shall be my people, Ezek. 11.20. Ezek. 34.24, 25, 30. Now this is clearly said of Christ,Psal. 89.26. He shall cry unto me, thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation: The Son, the only begotten of the Father saith, thou art my God, Heb. 1.5. And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son. It is expounded of Christ, but was first spoken ofSolomon, the Type, 1 Sam. 7.14. My mercy, that is, my Covenant mercy to the Son of David and his seed, shall stand sure as the dayes of heaven, Psal. 89.28,29,34,35,36. 1 Chron. 22.10 He shall build a house for my Name, he shall be my Son, and I will be his father. Then follows the Covenant-promise: And I will establish the Throne of his Kingdom over Israel for ever; which is expounded, Psal. 89.28,29. &c. of Christ, a Covenanted King as long as the Sun and the Moon indures, 34,35,36. and cannot agree to David, whose Kingdom is now gone. As also,Christ flees to this Covenant in his extream suffering, my God, my God, why hast thou for, saken me? Psal. 22.1. Mat. 27.46. So Psal. 40. it is Christ who saith, v. 8. I delight to do thy will, O my God. And it is a Covenant compellation, my God, and spoken by him, v. 6. Mine ears thou hast opened, who removes all sacrifices, and offers himself a sacrifice, Heb. 10. 5. A body thou hast prepared me. So also, Ps. 45.7. Thou lovest righteousnesse and hatest wickednesse: Therefore God, thy God (a Covenant word) hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladnesse, above thy fellows. See glorified Christ glorying in this. Rev. 3.12. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the house of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the Name of my God (which is) New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: Four times he calls him his God. The Lord speaks in his Type, Psal. 118.28. he who comes in the Name of the Lord, and is made the head of the corner: Thou art my God, and I will praise thee, thou art my God, I will exalt thee. Christ is a noble example in this teaching us to ride at this anchor of hope, thou art my God by Covenant, Mic. 5.4. Christ shall feed in the Name of the Lord his God, Isa. 55.4.

 

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  1. Arg.Is taken from the Lords way of calling of Christ to his Office of Mediator: So, he who is the Lords chosen, called, and sent servant, is either ingadged in the service, by necessity of nature, so that God cannot choose, but he must choose and call him, and he must, by the same necessity of nature, be chosen and called to that service, or he is the Lords chosen and called servant by free agreement and consent of the Lord who calls, and of the partie called, which is a Covenant between Master and Servant, the Lord and the sent Ambassadour who is sent, the Lord, the Messenger who comes with such news. Now of Christ it is said, Isai. 42.1. Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. And of meer grace and free-love, both God sent him, and he came, Joh. 3.16. 1 Tim. 1. 15. for by no necessity of nature was Christ sent to preach glad tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, Isai. 61.1. to say to the prisoners go forth, Isai. 49.9. For Isai. 42.6. I the Lord have called thee (saith he) in righteousnesse–7. To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darknesse out of the prison-house. Nor can we say, that any thing, but the good will of the Lord did conclude or determine him to send: 1. To save men, not Angels, Heb. 2. 16. 2. Some men, not others; Joh.15.13,14. 3. So ill deserving men, as lost ones, Luk. 19. 10. sinners, 1 Tim. 1. 15. Rom. 5.6.8. (3.) When the Lord speaks of the Covenant of grace, Ezek. 37.23. he addes a word of this Covenant, I will cleanse them, so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. 24. And David my servant (the son of David Christ, for David was dead) shall be King over them, and they all shall have one Sheepherd. Ezek. 34.23. I will set up one Sheepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David, he shall feed them, and he shall be their Sheepherd. 24. I the Lord will be their God. And Zecha. 13. JEHOVAH ownes Christ as this Sheepherd, as one of his hireing. v. 7. Awake, O sword, against my Sheepherd. Mal. 3. 1. The Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in, behold he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. Hence, this David is the Servant, Sheepherd, and Messenger of the Lord, either by nature, which cannot be said, for the Man Christ is by Nature his servant, but

 

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Christ-Mediatour, God-Man, is not so his servant, or he is so by free consent, on the Lords part, who hires and sends him, and on Christs part, who graciously condescended to be hired, and undertook for us; which all along must be understood of no servile reward.

  1. Arg.Christs voluntary yeelding to the work, proves this, if Christ- God- Man willing to empty himself and take on him our nature, did offer his service to God, saying, Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou didst not desire, Psal. 40.6. Heb. 10.5. a body thou hast prepared me.7. Then said I, loe I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will. And if Christ-God-Man did willingly lay down his life of his own goodnesse, and no man could take his life from him, against his will, Joh. 10,11,18. Joh. 18.5.8. Joh. 14.31. Luk. 9.51. Then is Christs free consent to be our surety and Redeemer, to seek and to save us, clear, Matth. 20.28. Luk. 19.10. And if it pleased the Lord to bruise him, Isa. 53.10. and of love to give him to the death for us, Joh. 3.16. Rom. 8.3.32. Matth. 21.37. then the Lords consent that he should be our Surety, Saviour, and Redeemer, is no lesse evident. Now a mutuall agreement between JEHOVAH and the Son for one and the same undertaking is a compact and Covenant, to have us saved.
  2. Argumentis, from the agreed upon giving and taking between the Father and the Son, where there is a free giving of some to the Son to be ransoned, and keeped, upon the Fathers part, and a most free closing of the Son to own and answer for the given, and to lose none, but to raise them up at the last Day, There certainly is a Covenant gone before, as Jacobs reckoning with Laban, Gen. 31.39. That which was torn of beasts, I brought not unto thee: I bare the losse of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night.40. (Thus) I was, in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. This evidently speaks a Covenant upon Labans part, delivering his flock of Jacob, as to a servant and sheepherd, saying, I contract with thee, I deliver my flock to thee, answer for them: make an account to me of dead and living. And on Jacobs part, a taking burden Covenant wayes to take care of

 

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them; and a Covenant-yeelding, require thou at my hand old and young, weak and strong of the flock: I bind my self to keep them. So Christ hath delivered and given to him of the Father, so many by head and name, Joh. 17.2. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternall life to as many, [foreign] as thou hast given him. 12. Those that thou gavest me, [foreign], I have kept, and none of them are lost. Joh. 6.37. All that the Father hath given me, shall come unto me, [foreign], and the comer to me, I will in no wise cast out. 39. And this is the Fathers(Covenant-) will that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and beleeveth on him, may have everlasting life, at the last day. And what speaketh stronger consolation, then the Father gave me to the Son Christ to be saved, and the Son undertook for me, hath given a written band under his hand to keep me? O what happinesse! that I am not mine own keeper, but that Christ hath given it under his hand, and the Father and the Son have Covenant-wise closed and stricken hands, the one having given, and the other received me a-keeping. 2. My soul enter thou not into their secrets who lay all peace, comfort, assurance of salvation upon their own Socinian faith, that is, their indifferent relying upon the Saviour Jesus and their own holiness, watchfulnesse, obedience, love to God. Sure, the comfort, joy, peace, assurancesubjective that they have in their conscience, can be no stronger then the objective and fundamental certitude of standing, persevering, overcoming, slowing from free-will, which is woefully free and indifferent to persevere and stand, or not to persevere, not to stand, but to fall away. Its a stronger consolation (and the strongest should be the Christians choise) that is founded upon the Fathers giving, and the Sons receiving of sinners; and the faith of salvation to me which relies and leans upon Christs undertaking for me, that I shall not be lost, nor casten out, then upon my undertaking for my self.

The fifth Argument is from Christs receiving the Seals, Who so receives in his body the Seals of the Covenant of Grace, Circumcision, and Baptism, and yet needs no putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, by Circumcision, and needs no forgivenesse of sin,

 

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no regeneration, no burying with Christ in Baptism, as Col. 2, 11, 12. Rom. 6.3,4,5. and eats the Passeover, and needs not that the Lamb of God take away his sins, as Joh. 1.29. since he is holy, and without sin, he must be under the Covenant, and God must be his God, in some other Covenant then sinners are, for these seals are proper to a Covenanted people, strangers and Pagans might not receive them, but these in Covenant only, Gen. 17.7. Exod. 12.48. Matth. 28.20. Col. 2.11,12. and Christ must have received Seals for other uses and ends, then sinners received them, to wit, to testifie that he was the God of both Jews and Gentiles, and that he was the undertaker for us, in a Covenant of suretyship for us, to perfect a higher command then any mortall man was under, to wit, to lay down his life for sinners, Joh. 10.18. and beside that, for our cause he was made under the Law, to fulfill all righteousness, and so was Circumcised, Luk. 2.21. Baptized, Matth. 3.13,16,17. did eat the Passeover with the Disciples, Mat. 26.18 19,20. Mar. 14.18. Luk. 22.13,14. he, in coming under that state in which he must, because a man, fulfill the Law, and be under even Gospel commands so far as they were suteable to his holy Nature, testifieth in obeying all commands even of the Morall Law (and as the Son of God he was under no such obligation) that he was under a speciall ingagement, and compact to God, for the work of Redemption. And we are taught to feel what imbred delight and sweetnesse of peace is in duties; when Christ Covenants with God to come under the Law, and under the hardest of commands, to lay down his life for sinners, because it was a Law and command by Covenant, that hath most of obedience which hath most of a Law.

  1. Was Christ such an one, as needed seals to his speciall Covenant with the Father?

Ans. He needed no seals at all to strengthen his faith of dependency, for there was no sinfull weaknesse in his faith, yet he was capable of growing, Luk. 2.52: For the Law requires not the like physicall intention and bendednesse of acts of obedience from the young, as from the aged. 2. In that the receiving of the seals proves Christ to be Surety of the Covenant of Grace, it makes good, that he was under the other Covenant, and to perform the obedience due to the speciall command of dying, as to a command of Covenant.

 

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  1. Argument,is from the Lords libertie: If God might in justice have prosecuted the Covenant of Works, and Adam and his might justly have suffered eternall death for sin (for the Law is holy and just, and the threatning Gen. 2.17. just) except the Lord had of grace made another Covenant, then must the Lord send, or not send a Saviour to suffer, and be a suffering Redeemer and Surety as pleased him, or not pleased him; and if Christ may refuse to undertake, or willingly agree, as pleased him, and Christ being God consubstantiall with the Father, might have stood to the Law-way of works: For who, or what could have hindered him to follow a course of justice against all men? then if both agreed to dispense with that Law-way to save man; Here is Covenant-condiscension between JEHOVAH and the Son, of quieting Law, and pitching on a milde Gospel-way.
  2. Argument,from the promises made to Christ: He to whom the promises are made, as to the seed, so as in him they are yea, and Amen, and he who is eminently the chief heir of the promises, as ingaged to make good the promises on the Lords part, to give forgivenesse, Jer. 31.34, Heb. 8.12. perseverance, Jer. 32.39,40. Isa. 54.10. Isa. 59.21. peace, Ezek. 34.25. Lev. 26.6. 11,12. yea, and a new heart, Jer. 31.33. Ezek. 11.19. Heb. 8.10. life eternall, Joh. 10.28. and to make good the promises upon our part, by fulfilling the condition, and giving habituall grace, Jer. 31. 33. Ezek. 36.26. and actuall influences, Jer. 31.34. to know the Lord, Ier. 32.39,40. Ezek 36.27. to, and with him, God must strike a Covenant of suretyship, that he shall have the anointing in its fulnesse, above his fellows, without measure, to make good all these promises as Mediatour; for it is not simply grace and life that the Lord bestows upon his people, but grace out of the store-house of the Mediatour God-Man. Now this must be given to Christ by promise, Gal. 3.16. Now to Abrahamand his seed were the promises made, he saith not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ: He cannot well mean mysticall Christ, that is, Christ and all his, for they are indeed many and numerous, as Isai. 2.1,2. Isai. 60.1,2,3,4,5,6. Psal. 22.27. compared with Rev. 5.11. Rev. 7.9. for the promises are made to Christ-God-Man eminently, not formally: For 2 Cor. 1.20. All the

 

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promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen. For the promise is made to us for Christ, and through his grace, then the promise is made first to him, and more eminently, and to us for him: Propter quod unumquoda tale, id ipsum magis tale. 2. The promises are fulfilled and made good, not because we fulfill the condition, but for Christ, in whom, and by whose merit, both the grace promised, and the grace habituall and actuall to perform the condition, be it faith, repentance, humility, &c. is freely given to us. 3. Christ is he who makes the Covenant and all the promises, Act. 7.32. Who said to Moses, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham–34. I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Ægypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them: And now come, I will send thee unto Ægypt. And v. 35. Moses is made a Ruler and a deliverer by the hands of the Angel that appeared to him in the bush. This is Christ, the Angel, 38. of the Covenant, Mal. 3.1. Whom they tempted, 1 Cor. 10.9. Of whom the Lord said, Exod. 23.21. Beware of him, and obey his voice, and provoke him not: for he will not pardon your transgressions for my Name is upon him. And this Angel faith, I am the God of Abraham, the Omniscient God that sees the afflictions of his people. 3. Hears their prayers. 4. Delivers them out of Ægypt, Exod. 20.1,2. and so the Author of the Covenant, and of all the promises. It is much for weak beleevers that God stands ingadged in Christ by Covenant with him to give us to beleeve, and to beleeve to the end. Hath the Lord given himself Surety for the standing of a tottering beleever? Is there not ground to beleeve that Christ shall make good his undertaking? Also, if all the promises be made to Christ who is the author of the Covenant, and upon condition that Christ do his part, and lay down his life; then sure Christ is under a Covenant, to injoy his reward, when he hath done his work? And to have a beleeving seed is Christs reward, heaven and earth can make no surer binding for faith and salvation.

  1. As the former Argument is from the promise made unto Christ, and fulfilled to him, so this is from the Predictions, Prophecies and Promises of him, as he, of whom such glorious promises were foretold, and may claim the thing promised, by faith, he

 

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hath some word of promise for suiting these things: which is a Covenant, if he shall do what is required of him, and fulfill the Commandement, Joh. 10.18.

But such Prophecies and Promises there be of CHRIST, Isa. 22.22. The key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder: so he shall open and none shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall open. 23. And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious Throne to his fathers house. 24. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his fathers house, the off-spring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity: from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons. Zech. 3.8. For behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH. Zech. 6.12. Speak unto Joshua, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of Hosts, saying, Behold the man whose Name is the BRANCH, and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the Temple of the Lord: 13. Even he shall build the Temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his Throne, Mic. 5.4. And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the Majesty of the Name of the Lord his God, and they shall abide: For now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. 5. And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land. So Psal. 72.7. In his dayes shall the righteous flourish, &c. Hence, as Christ prayed in faith, Joh. 17.5. to be glorified with the glory he had with the Father before the world was, because he finished the work, though he was not yet crucified, but he had a mind fixed to suffer: So may Christ pray in faith to Govern right, and to bear the glory, and to feed in the strength of the Lord, and to have a conquished people, since he was to fulfill all the work that was laid upon him: And this supposes a Covenant.

Hence, Arg. 9. from the suite he bids his Son aske, which he will grant, Psal. 2.8. Aske of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession Psal. 89.26. He shall cry unto me, thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.27. Also I will make him my firstborn, higher then the Kings of the earth. 28. My mercy will I keep for him for ever, &c. If God say to us, call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will hear thee: This argues a Covenant that God

 

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shall hear, if we pray; Then it sayes, if Christ the Mediatour shall pray, he shall be heard and prospered with successe in his work.

  1. Argumentfrom the work of Christ, and the wages, which a Covenant calls for: Christ complains, Isa. 49.4. Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: there’s work. Shall he have nothing for his work? He adds, Yet surely my judgement is with the Lord, and my work with my God. v.6. He receives an answer of a full reward for his work. And he said, it is a light thing, that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the Tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou may st be my salvation unto the end of the earth. Which words are cited true of Christ, by Luke, Act. 13.47. when Christ is Preached to the Gentiles: And as one who laboured for us, so he craves his wages, though the Jews pay him unworthily. Zech. 11.12. Then I said, if ye think good, give (me) my price, and if not, forbear; pay me, or pay me not: Yet the Lord payed him. Phil. 2.7. He made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,–and became obedient to the death, the death of the crosse. Here is work: followeth his wages, call it merit, or what else, its a reward and the end of his suffering, which Christ both desired and intended, as the fruit of his labours. v. 9. [foreign], Therefore God highly exalted him, and gave him a Name above every name. Act. 5.21. Him hath God exalted with his right hand, to be a Prince and Saviour. Isa. 53.10. When he shall make his soul an offering for sin (which was work hard enough) he shall see his seed (which was his souls desired wages) he shall prolong his days, the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in hand: 11. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. 12. Therefore will I divide him (a portion) with the great, and he shall divide the spoyl with the strong: that is an ample reward. Follows his work, because he hath powred out his soul unto death, and he was numbred with the transgressours, and bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressours. Hence, his care to finish the work of him that sent him, and to do his will, Joh. 4.34. Joh. 17.4. Joh. 8.29. and as the Father

 

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loved, so he rewarded the obedience of his Son, not by necessity of nature, but by a voluntary compact, but he loves his obedience, Joh. 10.17. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. Joh. 15.10. If ye keep my Commandements, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Fathers Commandements, and abide in his love. Nor can it be denied but a redeemed and saved people was much in the heart of Christ, and much in his desire and intention. Joh. 10.10. I am come, that they may have life, and have it more aboundantly. And if, to finish the work, especially of saving lost man, was his meat and drink, Joh. 4.34. and he prayed for the ransoned ones, Joh. 17. to sanctifie them: 17. That they might he where he is, 24. There must be always in the heart of Christ a design of love, in that he made redeemed ones his end, his work, his souls satisfaction, Isa. 53.11. And O how worthlesse were we! that the desire of God should be toward us: How far below the price that love put on us? Was man a Crown and wager for God, for God, for such a God to run for, to work for, and to win? Was there not a more fixed seat in Angels, then in clay, for so high a love as the Love of God? Is there room in so low a peece of created Nothing, for so high, and deep, so broad and long a design, so high an aime, as nothing could be the last and the least result of transcendent love, but great Immanuell, God with us? Reason might say, a lesse price may buy poor man, a lower design may compasse sinners. But love said no lesse could do it: and this love is not capable of a mistake, in buying, infinite love cannot erro in designes of free-love.

  1. Argumentis from the Oath of God: Christ is made a High Priest, another way then other Priests: Heb. 7.21. For those Priests were made without an oath: but this with an oath, by him that said to him, the Lord hath sworn and will not repent, thou art a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedec, Psal. 110.4. No man enters to an office by an oath to be faithfull, or to be for ever in such an administration, but he enters also to the office by Covenant. And this oath is sworn by the Lord JEHOVAH, to Christ: The Lord hath sworn,–thou art a Priest.Its a more excellent Priesthood which is confirmed by an oath, then that of

 

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Aaron, which is confirmed by no oath. Psal. 89.35. Once have I sworn by my Holinesse, that I will not lie unto David, (the Messiah my Anointed, the son of David.) 36. His seed shall endure for ever. Act. 2.30. Therefore being a Prophet, and knowing that God with an oath had sworn to him, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit upon his Throne. 31. He seeing this before spake of the Resurrection. Psal. 132.11. The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David, he will not turn from it, of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy Throne. 12. If thy children shall keep my Covenant, and my Testimony that I shall teach them, their children also shal sit upon thy Throne for evermore.

They shall sit so and so by Covenant blessed in Christ. And so the stability and certainty of the decree and oath is not to make the children of David secure, but watchfull in their duty: But this is not a condition without the which the Messiah should not reign, but without this he should not reign to their comfort and everlasting good. But otherwise the truth of the Lords Covenant-faithfulnesse depends not upon mens unbeleef, Rom. 3.3. and for the certainty of this promise and oath which made good Christ his reign which shall not cease, see 2 Sam. 7.12. 1 King. 8.25. 2 Chron. 6.16. Luk. 1.69. Gen. 21.17,18. Hence there is no Covenant made with Christ that the Covenant of Works made with Adam should stand for ever. 2. No oath in that Covenant. 3. No promise or oath to give perseverance, and the Spirit and influences of grace for that effect. And the oath of God, that Christ shall be King of my will to reign over the heart, to give repentance as a Prince, Acts 5.31. and that God hath sworn him to be an eternall Priest who offered himself a sacrifice to deliver me from the present evill world, Gal. 1.4. to ransome me from my vain conversation, 1 Pet. 1. 18. to bring me to God, 1 Pet. 1.18. that I should, being dead to sin, live to righteousnesse, 1 Pet. 2.24. Eph. 5.25,26,27. Heb. 13.11,12. Rev. 1.5,6. is somewhat more comfortable them the doctrine of Papists, Arminians, who say that any tempted Saint may be a justified Saint to day, and an Apostate, a limme of Satan and a child of perdition to morrow, as Judas was: as if Christ were not a sworn Advocate in the nick and hour of temptation to help,

 

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in the act of winnowing: and had not made promises of actuall grace to actuall temptations when they come, Luk. 22.31. 1 Joh. 2.1. Math. 10.19. And if Christ be sworn a King, Advocate, an high Priest, to overcome the rockinesse and flinty and stony rebellion of will, providing that will shall first yeeld and not play the King against Christ: for any thing I see, the Covenant of grace is looser (the corruption of the Covenanter being ten times stronger to evil then the will of Adam was) then the Covenant of Works, and the Gospel an infinitely more plain path to a more fiery hell then the Law. And it speaks much of free grace, that the everlasting salvation of the Elect is in such a castle as the oath of the Omnipotent and infinitely faithfull Lord.

Lastly, the Argument is the more considerable that every Priesthood, even that of Levi, is imposed by Covenant, Mal. 2. 5. My Covenant was with him of life and peace.

 

CHAP. VII.

The Covenant of Redemption is explained in three eternall acts. 1. Designation, decree of ordination, and delectation in the work. 2. Mercy and peace, truth and righteousnes are agreed in this Covenant. 3. The designed sending of the Spirit cannot be a Covenant as this was. 4. The twelfth Argument. 5. The thoughts of eternall love.

THe Covenant of Redemption is two wayes considered. 1. As transacted in time between Jehovah and Christ, in his actuall discharge of his office of king, Priest and Prophet. 2. As it is an eternall transaction and compact between Jehovah and the second Person theSon of God, who gave personall consent that he should be the Undertaker, and no other. And these three acts are considerable in the Persons in this latter consideration:

  1. Designation of one.
  2. Decree and destination.
  3. Delectation in the work.

As to the first: There must have been a Person, either the Father,

 

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or the Son, or the Spirit. 1. By God, from eternity set apart, separated, and designed: And 2. This person must have given an actuall consent from eternity to the designation: Now the person designed was the Son only, this lot eternally (to speak so) fell upon only him who was, [foreign] the Lamb fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, 1 Pet. 1.20. And because Christ-God equall with the Father, does not begin to consent and agree to the designation in time, nor can Christ-God will any thing in time, which he did not will, and consent unto, from eternity; therefore he was present with the Father, and consented unto the designation, and closed the bargain from eternity: upon which account, Christ had the glory of a designed Saviour with the Father, before the world was, and prayes that he may, God-Man, be glorified, as touching the manifestation of that glory to Angels and men, with the glory that he had with the Father before the world was, Joh. 17.5. and here is an eternally closed Covenant between JEHOVAH and the Son, with the consent of parties. And who sees not our debt of love, for a foresight and providence of pure grace? Behold a designed Physician before we be sick, and Christ with his own consent, writing himself the repairer of the breaches before the house fall, and the healer and binder up before the bones be broken.

  1. Christ is chosen and predestinate the head, the first born of the house, and of the many brethren, and sayes Amen to the choise, and we are chosen in him, as our head, and he was fore-ordained the Mediator, and the Lamb before the foundation of the worldwas laid, to be slain for our sin. Hence, 2. offended Justice by the breach of the Covenant of Works in all the three Persons pleads that man should die, and that pleading is most, just, and the Law cannot be broken nor repealed. The soul that sins must die,Ezech.18. the threatning,Gen. 2. 17. must be fulfilled. 2. Mercy pleads (not having a Throne higher then justice, as Arminius saith) that so many chosen ones may find mercy, and peace calls for reconciliation to sinners.
  2. Infinite wisedomealso requires that justice and righteousnesse (under the name of mercy we comprehend free and rich grace) may meet, and peace and righteousnesse may kisse each other, Psa.

 

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85.11. Hence all these Attributes of glory must come forth, that a Throne may be set up and a Psalm may be sung, Rev. 5. 12. and the thousands of thousands may cry, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisedome, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. 13. And every creature which is in heaven (saith Johnand on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, honour, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ev r and ever. Hence 1. there is no conflict between mercy and justice (as Arminius saith) nor any naturall desire in God to have all Angels and men saved, which is hindered by justice, Job sayeth truely, c. 23. v. 13. He is of one (minde) and who can turn him? (from this end which he intends, as if he could not compasse it to another end) and what his soul desires (in saving or destroying) even that he doth. 14. For he performeth the thing that is decreed for me (and all creatures, and his decrees are most free, Eph. 1.11.) and many such things, or many the like things are with him.Therefore it pleased his most free, soveraign and absolute Counsell to bring forth to Angels and men, to heaven and earth, to sea and to all creatures, the glory of justice, truth, mercy, peace, grace, power, wisdom, Rev. 5.13. and in Christ the decreed and appointed Mediator, the Lamb fore ordained, as Peter, 1 Pet. 1.20. to be slain, and who agreed to the decree, and in an eternall compact took the burden upon him, to fulfill that of Psal. 85.10. Mercy and Truth are met together, Righteousnesse and Peace have kissed each other. 11. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and Righteousnesse shall look down from Heaven. So that in this transaction, the Father and the Son and Spirit, let out to men for their salvation the glory of all th se Attributes.

Obj. Did not the Holy Ghost also from eternity, say Amen, and agree to be sent by the Father and the Son, to lead the Saints in all truth, to sanctifie, to comfort them? And did not the Father and the Son from eternity decree to send the Spirit? And did not the Spirit also consent to the decree before the world was? And so shall there be also a Covenant between the Father and the Son sending the Spirit, Joh. 14.26. Joh.16.13,14,15. and the Spirit who is sent?

 

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Ans. Every mutuall agreement between the blessed Persons concerning their actions without, cannot be called a Covenant, nor need we contend about names. What if we say that there is some Oeconomicall and dispensatory agreement of sending and being sent, yea-even in the Works of Creation, Redemption and Sanctification, though two things stand in the way to hinder us to call such an agreement with the name of a voluntary compact or Covenant? 1. It seems naturall and not voluntary, that there is such an admirable order of working as the Father creates by the Son, as by his eternall wisedome, but yet a person, a suppositum, different from the Father, and by the Spirit, as his mighty power: a third Person. 2. The Son is decreed with his own consent to be the Person, to empty himself, to be in time cloathed with our nature, and to put on the state and legall condition of a Covenant-Obeyer of God to the death, the death of the crosse, and is made a little lower then the Angels: and this may well be called a Covenant-transaction, and a course of Covenant-obedience in the Mediator, which condition the Holy Ghost comes not under. And what should man say when the votes of the Three carries it, that our iniquities should be laid on the Son, Isa. 53.6. and the Son should be sent, Gal. 4.4. and he from eternity should step out. Lord, send me, here am I to do thy will. Joh. 3.13. No man (no person) [foreign], hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. These votes of love fell not upon Angels, but upon man. And how should it break my rockinesse that Christ spake for me, undertook for me, took all my diseases upon him, before I was, and before my disease had being? We reckon it great favour, Such a man pleaded kindly and boldly for you in your absence, when you was not to speak for your self. As its love to provide a rich inheritance for the child not born, and to fight for the sleeping child that he may not be killed: when we had neither being, action nor vote in Christs undertaking. Obj. Such as are chosen in Christ, such are foreseen beleevers, when they are chosen. Ans. Justly learned and pious M. Bayn denies that: for God choised the noble royall Family, Christ the Head, and all the Branches in Him. Love, eternall love begins at the head, descends to the off-spring: But

 

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not because they are in Christ by faith and actually are foreseen believers, for that is all one. We were in Christ as the tree is in the seed, as all the Rose trees and the Vine trees are in the first Rose tree and the first Vine tree, created of God, virtually. For because Godchoosed us, therefore shall we be in Christ by faith: yea and he choosed us and ordained us to be in Christ by faith, when He gave us to the Son to be keeped by him.

The third considerable act here, is an act of delectation, and the place is observable, Prov. 8. 22. The Lord, Chanani possessed me: Its not Bara, created me: Its not [foreign], as the LXX, have it, but as Aquila, [foreign], in the beginning of his way: as Cartwright, before he had created any thing. 23. I was set up from everlasting. Tremellius, inuncta fui, I was anointed. Aben Ezra, Electa fui, I was chosen. The vulgar Latine, I was ordained, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. 24. When there were no depths, I was brought forth: when there were no fountains abounding with waters. 25. Before the mountains were setled: before the hills was I brought forth, &c. In all which the authority of Christ (saith Cartwright) is proven from his eternity, antiquity, immortality, &c. and all this time He was with God, as is fully, v. 30. cleared: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him.  Chald. Para. I was nourished up as a maid at his side. He will not want his Son out of his eye: I was daily his delight, rejoicing alwayes before him. The Hebr. [foreign] die, die, from day to day. Rabbi Solomon, annor um myriades, myriads of years. The Father and theSon, from eternity, delighted one in another; and were solacing themselves in the works without themselves: and the ratio formatis (as it were) that which took up the love, delight and thoughts of God, when as yet there was no world, no mountains, no depths, &c. is Christas Redeemer delighting himself with the sons of men, 31. I was with him,–rejoycing in the habitable part of his earth: Heb. Sporting or playing with the sons of men: both because of all his works, as Ambrose saith, he most longed for man, and made heaven and rested not, and made the earth and rested not, and made the Sunne, Moon and Stars, and rested not there: and made man, and then rested, as having found the choisest peece of work he so much delighted

 

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  1. So the Fatherand the Son were taken, and (as it were) love, saith Bernard, triumphed over God, and they solated their heart in that great design of love, and from eternity passed over that long and sweet age of myriads of ages, in the pleasant and delighting thoughts of that boundlesse and bottomlesse Ocean of love, to wit, God is to be made sick and to die a love for the sons of men. Love being above and (in a maner) not stronger then the grave only, and then death and hell, but some way (with reverence to his holinesse) mightier then the most High, and brought God down to sick clay: that you may (saith Bernard) see, if you take heed, joy sadened, faith feared, salvation suffering, life dying, strength weakned: and this wisdome was hid up and kept secret since the world began, Rom. 16.25. Hidden wisedome (in the heart of the Lord from eternity) which God ordained before the world, unto our glory, 1 Corinth. 2.7. the like where of the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor hath entered in to the heart of man, v.9. to conceive: So that this mystery of the Covenant between Jehovah and the Son of God was (as it were little enough to busie the thoughts of the infinite understanding of of the highest Lord, God Father, Son and Spirit: as containing the unsearchable riches of Christ, Eph. 3.8. Say there were millions and ten thousand millions of Globs of new whole earths of all gold mines perfect and purest gold, yet should they not all come near to the borders of this riches: and these all were in before there was a Creation, and he lets out of this fulnesse to us, and we are sinfully poor beside Christs gold mines, and dry beside the rivers of wine and milk: and dead, a thousand times, being under the flowings and outlettings of life and of such a life.

Hence, the 12. Argument: If Christ the Son was designed, and fore-ordained with the Father, the Spirit, and his own consent to be the person should pay the ransome of satisfaction, and to be satisfied in his soul with the getting and injoying of the bought, and well payed for and ransoned, yea the over-ransoned sons of men, who ravished love and heart of Father and Son, before the mountains were brought, Prov. 8.22,23, &c. 30,31. forth, and when as yet there were no depths, then was that bargain of love closed and subscribed before witnesses from eternity. For could

 

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the heart of Christ be cold and indifferent to undergoe suretyship for the sons of men: Who warmed and kindled a fire of Redeemers; love in his heart from everlasting? Or was his consent to the Covenant, but as late and young as since Adam fell, or Abraham was called to leave his countrey and his fathers house, Gen. 3, Gen. 12? Ah! its an older love then so: A yesterdayes love, time-mercy, a grace of the age with the world could not have saved me. Nor were our Charters and Writtes of Gospel-grace, first drawn up in Paradice: Nay, but copies and doubles of them only were given to Adam in Paradice. The love of God is no younger then God, and was never younger to sinners; and woe to us, if grace and mercy to redeemed ones should wax old and weaker through age, and at length die and turn in everlasting hatred. I desire to hold me fast by that, Jer. 31.3. I have loved thee with an everlasting love. He meets (as Calvin well observes) with a blasphemous temptation of Sathan, that the people had in their mouth: Ho, the Lord appeared to me of old; but that is a love from one year to another, and its out of date now: the Covenant-love to Abraham is dead and away, and the Lord is changed? No, I have loved thee, not for a year, or a summer: The Covenant-love is older then thy poor short time-love. Obj. But I may leave off to love God; and he loves me no longer then I love him? Ans. Where is then everlasting love? and because he loves us we shall not leave off to love him. Night and overclouding of the Sun, is not a perishing of the Sun out of the world; his love quickens my fainting love.

 

CHAP. VIII.

The differences between the Covenant of Suretyship or Redemption made with Christ, & the Covenant of Reconciliation and of Grace made with sinners. 2. The conjunction of the Covenants. 3. How the promises are made to the Seed, that is, to Christ, the meaning of the place, Gal. 3.16.4.Christ acted and suffered alway as a publick head.

IT is not the same Covenant that is made with Christ and that which is made with sinners. 1. They differ in the subject or the,

 

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parties contracting. In this of suretyship, the Parties are Jehovah God as common to all the three on the one part: and on the other the only Son of God the second Person undertaking the work of Redemption. In the Covenant of Reconciliation the Parties are God the Father, Son, and Spirit, out of free love pittying us and lost sinners who had broken the Covenant of Works. 2. Hence the Covenant of Suretyship is the cause of the stability and firmnesse of the Covenant of Grace. Its true, Psal. 89.19. David is meant, when he sayes, I have laid help upon one that is mighty, I have exalted one chosen out of the people. 20. I have found David my servant. For the grace of election made David mighty in the Lord, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and made him mighty to execute his office; But this is so to be understood (saith Mollerus and others) of David, as it is also to be referred to Christ, upon whom the strength of our salvation is laid, and the strength laid Covenant-wayes upon Christ is the cause why David and his seed stand sure in an everlasting Covenant of reconciliation. Though the Covenants of Suretyship and of Reconciliation differ, yet must they not be separated: but faith principally must be fixed upon the most binding Covenant-relation between JEHOVAH and the Son of GOD. Eye Christ alwayes in the Covenant, else its but the sheath or scabbard of a Covenant, and a letter to us.

  1. There be two parts (as it were) of the Covenant of Redemption. 1. A Covenant of Designation. 2. Of actuall Redemption. The former is eternall; for the Lord does not begin in time to designe Covenant-wayes the Sonto be the Consenter to be our Surety: nor doth the Son in time begin to consent. But the Covenant-consent in, 1. Designing of one Person the Son,and no other. Of 2. Decreeing and fore-ordaining of Him. 3. Of mutuall delighting in love and in eternall thoughts in the sons of men to be redeemed, 1 Pet. 1. 20.Prov. 30. 31. Was closed and concluded in an ended bargain from everlasting: for the Parties were coexistent and together, and rejoicing in one another: and in the common work, to borrow that expression, thinking long till the day of marrying of God and man, and untillImmanuels day should dawn, Joh. 8. Abraham rejoiced to see my day. But as touching the other part, the Man Christ, untill he should be Man

 

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and have a mans will, he could not in two wills close with the Covenant of actuall Redemption.

But the Covenant of Reconciliation is no more eternall, then the creation, which is eternall in the Decree of God, as are all things that fall out in time. But this Covenant was made in Paradice, though it was decreed from everlasting, yet it had no being as a Covenant, nor could have any, so long as the Covenant of Works did stand. But it came in due time, the physick and the Physician Christ the blessed seed, not few hours after Adam was fallen, came to his sick bed, or rather to his death bed: Blessed be his love who redeemed us in our low condition, for Adam had no faith to receive, nor hope of a Redeemer. Christ came, not sought for, not sent for, not so much as desired by us: For how could we desire a thing impossible, to our knowledge? Or could we thirst for a ransome of the blood of Godunknown to Angels or Men? This is preveening grace indeed.

  1. They differ in the subject, matter: The Covenant of Redemption is, 1. who shall be the surety of Redemption to undertake for man? Here am I, saith the Son, thy fellow,Zech. 13.7. 2. What shall be his work? What shall be his wage? He shal Play down his life, that shall be his work: he shall be obedient to-his Father to the death, even the death of the crosse. And his wage shall be, He shall see his seed, and God shall give him a name above every name.But no such work is laid on us, nor such a reward to be expected by us in the Covenant of Reconciliation. Only here life and forgivenesse is promised to us upon condition of beleeving in Christ: and fit it is that Christ be alone, none under such a Commandement as He, Joh. 10.18.
  2. The Covenant of Redemption hath different commands, 2. Promises: 3. And conditions from the Covenant of Reconciliation. The Commands of the Covenant of Suretyship are of two sorts: 1. Some common. 2. Some proper and peculiar. The former is, thatChrist fulfill all righteousnesse,Matth. 3.15. obey the whole Law, being made under the Law.Now the command of being under the Law, is two wayes considered. 1. As laid upon the Son of God, so it is no command, but a voluntary desire: And so his consenting to take on our nature is a consenting to

 

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empty himself, and to be under the Law, but no act of obedience, because he was under no commanding obligation to take on him our nature. But 2. as it is laid upon him now God-Man, and the Word made flesh, he is under a necessity to give perfect obedience, Heb.10.5. Therefore coming into the world: The Son being to enter into the world, and to take on our nature, speaketh to the Father, thus: Sacrifice and offerings thou desirest not, as expiations to take away sin, for they cannot expiate sin; A body thou hast framed to me, which is the only one sacrifice of the true Lamb of God which taketh away sin, Joh. 1.29. and that once for all: And there are not any sacrifices ever to come after, Heb. 9.26,28. And perfect obedience with all the heart was tendered by Christ from a holy nature, he being full of the Holy Ghost from his Mothers womb, so as none could accuse him of sin, Heb. 4.15. Heb. 7.26. Joh. 8.46. and this obedience had influence in Christs obedience. To the 2. to wit, to that proper and peculiar command of suretyship that never man was under, but only Christ. Joh. 10.18. This Commandement (to lay down my life for sinners) received I (and I only) from my Father. Psal. 40.6. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, mine ears thou hast opened,–8. I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea thy Law is within my heart. Now thus we are not either wayes under the commands of the Covenant of Grace: Who in heaven and earth but Christ, could have come under baile and an act of suretyship for us?

  1. There were promises of an higher nature made to Christ in his Covenant, then are made to us in our Covenant of reconciliation, to wit, dominion from sea to sea:A Throne at the right hand of Godis not made to Angels, Heb. 1.8,13. nor to us; nor is there remission and pardon promised to him, as to us, of this hereafter.
  2. The condition of justifying faith, laying hold on him who justifies the ungodly, is required of us in our Covenant: There is no such condition required of Christin his Covenant of suretyship. The faith of Christ is the faith of dependency, but not as a condition of the Covenant of suretyship, but in another account.
  3. But is it not hard, that Christ is in one Covenant, and beleevers in another? Its not hard, when the Lord ChristsCovenant

 

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and our Covenant cannot be separated, and when Christs room in the Covenant of Redemption is to be the designed person Covenanting, who undertakes for us, as the surety, witnesse, and Angel or Messenger of the New Covenant, who makes sure our Writs, makes valid and strong our Charters, Rights, and Evidences of our Inheritance.

  1. How is it that the promises are made to Christ,as to the seed; Gal. 3.16?

Ans. Our Divines, Beza, Piscator, Deodati, the English Divines in their Annotations, expound the Seed Christ, of Christ Mystical, as the Church the body, 1 Cor. 12.12. is called Christ. Judicious Pareus saith, that the Apostle expounds the Seed, not collectivelie of many, and of all the posterity of Abraham, but individuallie of one Christ, from whom flowes to the beleevers, not so much the corporall blessing, as the spirituall, that is, righteousnesse and eternall life: And so saith he, the Apostle saith, that this blessing or the inheritance is given toAbraham and believers, not by the Law, that is by no merit in Abraham, but by the promise, and by faith in Christ. Among Papists, Liranus; the promises are made to the seed, scilicet, Christo, in quo impletœ sunt & non in alio, ideo dicitur semini in singulari numero, that is, to Christ in whom the promises are fulfilled, and in none other; therefore it is said to the seed in the singular number. So also, Cajetan: Semini autem ejus, tanquam & cui promissa sunt, & in quo adimplenda erant promissa. Corn. à lapide: If the word seed, semen, were taken collectively, the promise could not stand; for its sure all the Jews were not blessed in the seed. Yea many of them (saith Calvinwere a curse. Estius saith, the word seed, is a collective name, and notteth many; and hath not in the Hebrew the Plurall Number. Augustine (saith he) will have all Christians following the faith of Abraham to be here noted, for they are that seed to which the promise is made, whereas Christ is properly he in whom the promise is to be fulfilled, and in whom all are one by faith, and all are reduced to the Singular Number.

There is no reason to expound the Seed Christ, of Mysticall Christ and of his Seed. 1. Because the Seed is he in whom the Nations are blessed, both Jews and Gentiles, v. 14. And the

 

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Seed made a curse for us, v. 13. But this seed is only Christ, not mysticall Christ, head and members: for neither are we blessed in Christ mysticall, nor was Christ mysticall the Church made a curse for us: Nor did the Church mysticall pay a price of satisfaction to offended justice for us, v. 19. The word seed seems to have the same signification, v. 16. and v. 19. Consider then, v. 19. Wherefore then serveth the Law? It was added because of transgressions, untill the seed come, to whom the promise was made. Now the seed coming is Christ coming in the flesh to take on our nature. If the seed were taken for Christ mysticall, the Apostle must say, The Law was added because of transgression, untill the seed should come: that is, untill Christ mysticall, his Church should come in the flesh, which is non-sense. 3. Whether the promise be of Canaan,and of life eternall thereby holden forth; Or of Christ to come of Abraham, in whom all flesh shall be blessed; or of righteousnesse by faith, not by the works of the Law; Or of all these coming under the name of the inheritance, the promise is made to many in number like the Stars: For the Lamb and the hundreth fourty and four thousands standing with him on Mount Zion, and the thousands of thousands which none can number, Rev. 7.9. are many, and may well be called seeds; And though they be all one in Christ, yet the Apostle must speak too ambiguously, when he said, The promise of righteousnesse and life is made to the seed, that is, to Christ head and members: for the promise is so made to Christ, especially of life, pardon, righteousnesse, as the blessings promised are fulfilled & given through, & for Christ as the only meritorious cause, as all grant: which way the promises are in no sense made to believers, who cannot come in as joint satisfiers with Christ. & as joint meritorious procurers with Christ of the blessings promised to us. 4. The promise is made to theseed coming in the flesh, and assuming our nature in a personal union, v. 19. as is, by confession of all, expounded. Now this restricts the promise to God incarnate, and must exclude the members. 5. It runs most connaturally to the Text, and comfortably to us, if neither Christ, Gal. 3. 16. be understood as a private man, the Sonne of Mary: nor yet as Christ mysticall, as 1 Cor. 12.12. But as Christ, a publike person, and Head and Lord-Mediator. 1. He represents all the

 

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Elect: and so the word seed is taken individually. He takes all the promises and the weight of the whole Covenant of Grace and Covenant, promises off the Lords hand as the second Adam representing all the Family and House: Behold I and the children that God hath given me.As the weight of the Covenant of Works, and of the promises thereof, was upon the first Adam, as he should manage these promises, so should it fare, ill or well, with all his seed. And so as Christ having the Gospel and Covenant-promises committed to him, so should it be with us: and this Tutor cannot miscarry, and so shall it be well with the Pupils and Minors.

Were it no more but that, Joh. 14.19. Because I live, ye shall live also. ye shall live by promise, the free promise of life eternall: its no small vantage.

  1. The promises are laid down in Christas in a publike Lord-keeper. Christis that excellent Ark in which are the Tables of the Covenant, and the Book of the Law and Covenant, Deut. 31. 26. 1 King. 8.9. and as the first subject of the promises he keepeth them. Yea and Christ is the fountain and originall cause of all the promises: for he merited by his blood, remission, righteousnesse, perseverance, eternall life, all grace, which the Lord makes ours by free promise. 2. In Christ they are made and published to us: so they are dear mercies to Christ: they stand Christ at a dear rate: they are ours freely for no price or hire. 3. Hence nothing hinders, but the promises as made to Christ the first Heir and Son of promise: for Christ is the chief and principall thing promised, and other things that are freely given us (by promise) are given to us, [foreign], with Christ, or after that he hath given us Christ: and assignies, and younger brethren come in under the first Heir. Our blood-relation to the Family stands by Christ, interest to promises comes all this way. The Lords method is, Get first Christ, then all the promises are yours: for they follow him. And Christ well manages Covenant-promises, as they most tend to the good of his own.

And this is specially to be considered that Christ, from the womb to the grave, does act and suffer nothing but as a publike person. For us he was born, Isai. 9.6. For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, Luke 2. 11. Rejoice (saith the Angelfor

 

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unto you (not to us Angels, nay neither for himself) unto you is born a Saviour. 2. Why? For whose sake came he this journey to the earth? Luke saith it was no private business of his own, c. 19.10. He came to seek and to save that which was lost, and to save (saith Paulsinners, I Tim. 1.15.

  1. Why died he? He was made a curse, [foreign], for us,Gal 3.13. Sin for us,2Corin. 5.21. Died for his sheep, John 10. 11. for his friends, Joh. 15.13. was made poor for our sake, 2Cor. 8. 9. is our forerunner who is entred into heaven, [foreign], for us, Heb. 6.20. We have a great high Priest,–touched with our infirmities, Heb. 4.14,15. Who hath entered into the heavens to appear in the presence of God for us, [foreign]. Christs publike Spirit, who breathed not for himself, lived not for himself, died not for himself, nor ascended to heaven for himself, nor enjoyes he heaven for himself, should show us the necessity we have of Christ. The Physician is needfull to the sick, the ransone to the captive, bread to him that famisheth: but Christ is more necessary to the sinner. We know not how many are in Christs debt: for heaven, Angels, Sun and Moon, seas and fountains, men and all things subsist by him, Col. 1.17. Heb. 1.3. Yet most of men judge fire and water more needfull then Christ: and think, they no more need Christ or Covenant-interest in him, then the cart needs the third wheel, or the great Ocean a drop of dew: nor is it every necessity of Christ that we presse. There is a necessity of a Physician to a whole Pharisee: as a dead man stands in need of life; But it is a literall necessity by which the whole (saith Christ, Matth. 9.) needs not the Physician: but it is the sick, paining necessity, such as this, I die a hundreth times, if I get not CHRIST. This takes away sleep in the night, and brings a fixed aim to sell all and buy Him.

 

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CHAP. IX.

The 13. Argument, from the necessity of Gods call. 2. Of Typicall sprinkling of the blood of the Covenant, and of the Testament: The place, Heb. 13. 20. the blood of the everlasting Covenant opened. Of the place, Heb. 7.22. the act of suretyship, the assurance of our state.

AN Argument 13. is taken from the necessity of this Covenant of Redemption. 1. From the call of God: Christ took not on him to be a Priest, nor did he glorify himself to be made an High Priest, but that he said unto him, Heb. 5. Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee:That is, I have ordained thee to have the honourable calling of the High Priest. The Apostle also, Heb. 1. applyeth this in part to the eternall generation of the Son: And Act. 13.33. the Apostle applyes this to Christs rising from the dead, because in these two latter, manifestly appears the God Head of the Son, in that he is true High Priest, who, by offering himself hath taken away our sins, which only God can do. In the other, Rom. 1.4. He is declared to be the Son of God with power,–by the resurrection from the dead. He who took not upon him to be High Priest while God called him, and neither took upon him to be King, while God called him, and said, Psal. 2.6. I have Anointed him my King, upon my holy Hill of Zion, and willingly consented to the call of God; to be King and Priest. He must be made Priest and King by Covenant between him and God: for Priests and Kings were called by Covenant, Mal. 2. v. 5. 2 King. 11.17. 2 Sam. 5.3.

  1. It is necessarie that the promises that are our Writs and Charters of Heaven be in a surer hand then in our own, to wit, in the keeping of Christ:For this is an absolute promise made to us, Ezek.36.26. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh. This promise is not formally made to Christ, yet it is a speciall Covenant-promise, Jer. 31. Ezek. 11. Heb. 8. for there is no stony heart in Christ, yet the promise is laid down in him, and made

 

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to him, eminenter; for by the merit of his blood (for he sanctified the people with his own blood, Heb. 13.12.) he sprinkles many Nations, Isai. 52.15. Some say, as Calvin, Luther, Musculus, by the Preached Gospel: But it is clear, he alludeth to the Law of sprinkling, Exod. 24.8. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the Covenant which the Lord hath made with you, concerning all these words. Now of that blood it is said, Exod. 24.6. And Moses took half of the blood (of the oxen that the young men of the children of Israel offered, v. 5.) and put it in basons, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 1. The half of the blood was divided betwixt the altar and the people, to note (say the English Divines) the mutuall stipulation of God (of Christ God the true Altar) to his people, and his people to him, who were atoned and made one by the blood of Christ, v. 7. (2.) Moses took the book of the Covenant, and red it in the audience of the people: Not the Book of the Covenant of the ten Commandements: for Moses had not as yet brought the two Tables of Stone containing the ten Commandements, down from the mountain. Then it was the Book of the Judiciall Lawes and Promises, Heb. 9.19. For when Moses had spoken every Precept to all the people according to the Law: he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water (lest the blood should thicken and congeal, not being mixt with water: notting also some other mysteries, 1 Joh. 5.6,8.) and scarlet, wool and hysop, and sprinkled both the Book and all the people. Its true there is no mention of wool and hysop and scarlet, Exod. 24. but the Author to the Hebrews adds nothing of his own to Moses: for there’s a ground for these, Num. 19.6. and Moses speaks not of the sprinkling of the Book, but the Book lying upon the sprinkled Altar was also sprinkled with blood; for saith the Holy Ghost, Heb. 9. 22. Almost all things are by the Law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood there is no forgivenesse of sins. There was no guiltinesse in the Book, but these written Lawes and Ceremonies were the hand-writing of Ordinances which was against us, which was contrary to us: which Christ by his bloody death behoved to blot out, take out of the way, and nail to His Crosse, Colos. 2.14.

 

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But another Question riseth, Exod. 24.6. What needed the sprinkling of the people with one half of the blood, and the sprinkling of the Altar, that is Christ the Mediator, with the other; For, 1. Neither the work of dying to redeem man can be divided between Christand the people: nor needed Christ, our true Altar, forgivenesse of sins. Ans. The typicall sprinkling of the people is expounded, Heb. 9.14. the purging of the conscience from dead works to serve the living God, & to obey the Gospel, 1 Pet. 1.3. But the sprinkling of the Altar Christ with the blood, is a far other thing: So the Holy Ghost, Heb. 9. He who is constitute the Mediator of a Testament, his death must interveen to ratify and make valide, in Law, the Testament. v. 16,17. That the friends of the Testator may have right to the goods that are bequeathed to them in the Testament.

But Christ is the Mediator of the New Testament, v. 15. Ergo, &c. Now we are to know that Christs dying is considered; 1. As a paying of ransone for captives, by which, in Law and by way of merite, the ranson of the blood of God exceedeth the worth of the bought captives, or the crime committed by the captives; and so Christs death meriteth to his friends ransoned righteousnesse, life, pardon.

  1. His dying is considered as a Testament of a dying friend. Now the living friends, by vertue of a Testament as a Testament, have not jusand right by buying and selling to the goods tested. The essence and nature of a Testament is saved, whether the goods that are bequeathed in legacy be the free gift of the Testator, not bought with a price by him, or goods of the father of the friend, to which the friend being a German brother hath as good right or the same right, by birth, that the Testator hath. How ever: the comparison holds in this. Christ1. hath bequeathed to believers these goods. 2. The Testament is no Testament, nor valide in Law, except the Testator be dead. No man can sue by Law tested goods, if the Testator himself be living; Nor can we have right to a new heart, forgivenesse, perseverance, eternall life, to grace and glory, except Christ our Testator had died. But because the Tested goods are more then goods left to us in Testament; they are left to us by such a Testament as is both a Testament and a death

 

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perfectly meritorious (this is superadded to the nature of a Testament and beyond all Testaments) yea a death which is a price to ransone us from the wrath to come; Therefore Christ so dying in our stead, of justice meriteth that the friends should have these goods, though they belong by meer grace and free promise, to the friends. Now this is a most clear ground: Christ hath a well purchased right by giving a condign price for the goods and blessings promised in the Covenant of Grace to us: This right he hath by paying a price, laying down his life for us. This buying is not by necessity of nature, of justice, but by a voluntary, free and uncompelled agreement and Covenant, Joh. 10. 18. Isai. 53. 6. No man can exact upon him, Psal. 89.22. (2.) If the Old Testament was confirmed by the blood of beasts, then must the New Testament be confirmed by the blood of Christ prefigured in these. But the Old Testament was so confirmed, Heb. 9. v. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. Ergo, now neither Testament nor Covenant was confirmed by blood simply, but by the blood of a living creature slain.

  1. Hence the making of a Covenant was by cuttinga calf or a beast in twain, and passing between the parts thereof, Jer.34.18. and so they entered into a curse, Nehem. 10.29. devoted themselves to destruction, wishing they might be cut in twain (which is a strange kinde of death, Math. 24.51.) if they should break the Covenant. Hence the Phrase of striking a Covenant. So the Romans slew a sow: So the Romans and Albani made a Covenant, as Livius. A Herauld or Officer at Arms slew the beast and prayed a curse on the people ofRome, that they might be the same way stricken, if they should break the Covenant. Its like they had it from the Jewes. So Christ died to ratifie and confirm the Covenant, Exod. 24.6. This is the blood of the Covenant. Now the Covenant hath no blood. This blood of slain beasts (for it is a figurative speech) is a signe confirming the Covenant that believers shall have remission of sins in that blood of Christ which is shaddowed forth by the blood of these beasts. So Christ the great Shepheard of the flock, Heb. 13.20. is said to be brought from the dead, [foreign], by the blood of the everlasting Covenant. Junius, the Article is understood: Or as the Hebrew Phrase, [foreign] is put for [foreign], as Calvin and Piscator. The question may be, How did

 

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God bring Christ again from the death by the blood of the everlasting Covenant, had the blood of Christ any influence to bring himself back from the dead? Or did he, by dying, merit his own resurrection?

Ans. Some read the word thus, and shun the Question, The God of peace who brought again from the dead the great sheep-herd of the sheep: Understanding, [foreign], being the great sheep-herd or feeder, by the blood of the everlasting Covenant. So Beza, who maks these words, [foreign], to be referred to [foreign] So as Christs right to be Pastor is in, and by his blood and suffering. And the words, [foreign], so is not to be constructed with the particle, [foreign]: But Beza confesseth, that he changed the situation of the words. But if Christ be made a Pastor and feeder of the sheep by the blood of the eternall Covenant: then is he called to be a Pastor by Covenant. And what influence hath his death in his Pastorall Office? Is it by way of merit? Or did Christ merit to himself? Hardly, if not curiously, can we say that, though I nothing doubt but Christ gave perfect obedience as man to the Covenant of Works, and he did merit as man,jure operum, life eternall, the way that Adam should have merited life eternal, so he had never fallen. But the words naturally bear this sense, as Deodatiexpounds them, that Christ is risen by vertue of his death: As it is well said, the just surety hath right and Law to come out of prison, by paying the summe, and neither Justice nor Creditor can keep him in prison: solutus ære est solutus carcere. Christ having satisfied our debt, and payed the ransome of his blood to the death, and being dead, and under the dominion of death by justice, is freed from either remaining in death, or dying any more; he is now justified, not in his person, for Christ in person was habitually righteous, and from the womb, Luk. 1.35. [foreign], That holy thing Jesus was sinlesse, and so never condemned, but justified in his cause and in his condition by Law for us, and so appeareth, [foreign], the second time without sin unto salvation; the second time without sin, hath relation to the first time,without sin, that is, he shall appear the second time no lesse without sin, and so justified in regard of his condition in Law, then he was, when he was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and so that

 

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eminently holy thing born of the Virgin Mary, Luk. 1. 35. that is, as justified as if he had never been made sin, and never had been under the Law-burden of our sins, as Isai. 53.6. And 1 Tim. 3.16. [foreign], He was justified in the Spirit, declared to be just, and the innocent Son of God, by his resurrection from the dead, Rom. 1.4. so that in the Spirit, is, in the eternall Spirit, Heb. 9.14. the Godhead: For he came from under that act and band of Cautionrie and Suretyship without sin, that is, acquit from sin, which he was made, and was laid upon him, 2Cor. 5.21. Isai. 53.6.

  1. We know, Heb.7.22. Jesus, [foreign], He was made the Surety of a better Covenant,as the LXX. ever translate it,of a better Testament.

Now here is a judiciall and a Law-act of suretyship put upon Christ. 1. He was made Surety, then he was not Surety be nature, but so made by a free transaction and Covenant. For in Christs coming under that act, when he was made Surety, there be two things: 1. His eternall condiscending to take on him our nature, and to empty himself and be a servant. 2. His agreeing and plighting of his faith and truth to take on our condition in Law, that God should lay upon him the iniquity of us all, Isa. 53.6. and that God should make him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, [foreign], in our Law, place and room, 2 Cor. 5.21. not against his Fathers will, nor yet without his own free consent. That is against all reason: For that which God made Christ, that he was not by nature, but that God willingly made him, and that he was willingly and by free Covenant made. But God gave him a body, Heb. 7.5. and God made him sin, [foreign], 2 Cor. 5.11. So a Surety is one that promises to satisfie for another, and comes from a Verbe which signifies to promise by striking of hands, Prov. 22.26. Be not thou among them that strike hands, or, of them that are surety for debts. The Seventy, give not thy self, [foreign], as a Surety. Aries Montan. Inter percutientes side jubendo. The Verbe in the Hebrew is from a root that signifies to mix together: as the owle-light, when light and darknesse after the Sun-set are mixed together. And by a Metaphor it notes suretyship and mixture of persons, as M. Legh: when one is tyed for

 

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another, and mixed with him in his place. As Christ put himself in the bond and writ of blood that we were in: We were in the Law-writ, Deut. 27.26. under a curse, and Christ shifted the beleevers out, and was made a curse by his own consent for us, Gal. 3.10. and was written and acted in the Law-book the sinner, and answered all the demands of Law and Justice, and put in our names in the Gospel writ: And that from everlasting, God was in Christ, [foreign], reconciling the world (of the elect) not imputing their sins unto them, 2 Cor. 5.19. And in time we beleeving, are written blessed and righteous in him, Gal. 3. 13, 14. 2 Cor. 5. 21. And what could more be done by Christ, who substitute himself by Covenant in our place, and put us in his place? Nor is this Suretyship just in debts only, but also what everSocinus, Crellius, and others say on the contrair, in Capitall punishments. For M.Thomas Goodwine, pag.51. Eucritus did ([foreign]) willingly become a surety for Euephenus. Yea, and in hostages and pledges in war, Plutarch saith, that the Thessalians slew two hundreth and fifty hostages. The Romans (saith Livie) did the like to three hundreth of the Volsti, and cast the Taratines over rocks, de saxo Tarpeio: and these were humane people. The children of Tyrants were killed with the Tyrants, by some Cities of Greece, as Cicero, and Halicarnaseus say.Curtius saith, that the Macedonians put to death such as were near of blood to traitors: Marcellinus saith so much also of the Persians. The just Lord punishing the sins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation, teacheth, that conjunction of blood (such as was between Christ our Kinsman, [foreign] Job 19.25. and us) may well make it most just, that Christ be punished for us, the Surety for the sinner, though the sinner be under the hand of the Judge: for he is unable to satisfie Justice, and mercy saith that there is no essentiall reason in Law-justice why the same head which sinned and no other should suffer. But grace may interveen, so that though God need no surety, yet tender mercy, or God decreeing to show mercy, in some good sense, needs such a Surety as Christ.

Neither is it much that justice saith that the Surety ought to have satisfaction made to him and restitution by the broken debter,

 

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because justice gives his due to every man. For 1. if the surety be more then a man, and have absolute soveraignty over what he expends, as Christ hath over his own life, to lay it down, and take it up again, Joh. 10.18. As of free grace he payed for us, so of free grace he pleads not in Law that the broken man pay him back, and make restitution of his losses: and this saith demonstratively that God doth neither punish, nor show mercy, by necessity of justice. 2. When the surety hath a band of relief, and as it were, a back-band, that his soul shall not be left in grave, Psal. 16.10. but that he shall be victorious and more, he may give out, and look for nothing in again.

And the necessity of a surety to say, remove the scaffold, the guilty man shall not die, pleads, that if the Lord shall be merciful to sinners, as he decreed, then must Christ transact so with God, as the everlasting out-goings of mercy, may be with the free consent (as it were) of truth, and righteousnesse.

But it may be said, if Christs dying for sinners remove as a satisfactory punishment, the guilt and obligation to eternall wrath, what way is the reall, and as it were, the physicall inherency and essence of sin removed? Ans. The obligation to wrath is removed only in a legal way by suffering of punishment due to sin, which Christ hath done; But the essence reall of sin is only removed, as every other contrair is removed, by the expelling of sin out of its subject, and by introducing the contrair form, to wit, inherent righteousnesse, and the perfect habit of Sanctification and holiness. Now for this, Christs dying and suffering wrath due to us, suppose Christ should die a thousand thousand times for us, his dying cannot as a satisfying cause, or as a punishment remove this. For 1. a punishment suffered by our Surety can but exhaust and remove the punishment due to the sinner for whom the suretyship is undertaken. But 2. Christs dying cannot as a punishment remove

 

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sin as sin, and as contrair to the holy Law, and make us defiled wretches and servants of sin holy, as the paying of ten thousand Crowns for a forlorn waster, cannot make him to be no waster, and a man that hath obeyed the Law; only it makes that in Law the payment cannot be charged upon him. 3. Christs transacting with God as our Surety is not only then meerly to remove eternall punishment, but to purchase by the merit of his death the healing and sanctifying of our nature, Heb. 10.10. By the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Then our Sanctification is procured to us by the will of God, not simply as his commanding will: for then should all and every one whom the Lord commands to be holy, 1 Pet. 1. 16. be sanctified, which we see is not done: but by the will of the Father, commanding Christ to die, Joh. 10.18. Joh. 14.31. and the will of Christ offering himself once for a sacrifice for sin, is the will which sanctifies us. So Pareus well saith, it is the will with its correlate, for in the willing passive obedience of Christ are we sanctified really by the merit of his death, though this be wrought by degrees. 2. Since the Father consents and wills that Christ die, and the Son willingly offers himself a sacrifie, the number (as judicious and Godly M. Dickson hath well observed on the place) and these all, for whom Christ offered himself, were condescended upon betwixt the Father and the Mediatour. God knew those whom he gave to the Son, to be ransoned: and Christ knew those whom he bought. And the necessity of this Covenant appears in this, that the comfort cannot be solide, if a child of God never have any assurance of his being gifted of the Father to the Son in particular. For two things are clear here. 1. That the Lord knows who are his, 2 Tim. 2.19. and that, if God gave some to the Son, as Joh. 17. then the Son received them in a certain number. And if Christ bought them by Covenant, he must know how many: As one who buyes a flock, but he knows the quality and number of the flock. 2. The knowledge sometime shall be this distinct, that I was by name among them, who loved me, and gave himself for me. And as the offering of every Priest is by way of Covenant and promise, so, if a sacrifice, in the faith of the great sacrifice, be offered to God, then will God accept it (here is a Covenant) so is the Body of Christ,

 

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offered by the Covenanting will, Heb. 10.10. And any doubt that may, or doth arise concerning your self by name: 1. It may as well be moved, in some respect, against the whole number, and no wise man will say that the bargain betwixt the Father and the son was so blind, as the number was not agreed upon. For since all the bought are sinners, and so inclined to sinfull doubting of the bargain, that, which as a doubt is moved by one, may be moved by all severally, and all severally denying themselves to be the men for whom Christbargained: By this sinfull questioning of the transaction, none at all were agreed upon.

  1. Every doubting of Gods love to me once justified, and who have once fled to Christfor refuge, is grounded upon sin and unworthinesse; now none were given by the Father to the Son from eternity upon respect of either faith, or unbeleef, or holinesse, or bad deserving: Its true, it is not known to me but by beleeving, that I was given Covenant, wayes to the Son. But the Question is, if sin be any ground why one justified should cashier himself out of the number of the gifted ones to Christ, and committed to the Mediatour. Its true, it should be mourned for as a thing that doth not a litle hinder Sanctification in its progresse, but should not brangle Justification, nor the faith of our interest in Christ. 4. The necessity of this Covenant appears, in that salvation is taken off free-will, and the slipperyyea,and no, of free-will in the Covenant of Works, and laid upon one that is mighty, upon David, to govern Israel as their King; but Psal. 89.19. upon Christ (as excellently M. Dicksonin all respects more eminently then David, a stronger help, mighty to save, appointed of the Father in all cases,–he is one of our kind, taken out of the people, acquainted with our condition, &c. The lesse of the creatures will, and the more of Gods will, if gracious, as here, be in a Covenant, the better: Because the more grace and stability, even the sure mercies of David, that is, of Christ, Is. 55.3. Eze. 34.23. Eze. 37.24. must be here.
  2. The well-head of salvation (for meer free-will and good pleasure in God,instituted this dispensation) must be here: And most eminent freedome of grace made the bargain; so that the Magna Charta,the great Charter of the Gospel, I will have

 

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mercy on whom I will have mercy, is here eminently, for mercy and free-love began at the head man. For the Covenant of Grace (as notably M. Dicksonis consolidated in Christ our head, and he hath the first right as man to say unto the Father, that which is here said, as Intercessour and Mediatour for the Elect; he shall cry unto mes thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation. As a father binds for his heirs and children: A King subscribes articles of peace and seals them for the land and subjects: The Ambassadour for the Prince and State that sent him, makes answer. So Christacts in the Covenant of Redemption for his Heirs, seed, subjects, people; and if the comparison might be made, Gospel-free grace, as Covenant-mercy is more in the Covenant of Redemption, then in the Covenant of Reconciliation, for principally they are here as waters in the fountain. Hence, in this Covenant, is fountain-love, fountain-grace, all the satisfaction that the Lord craves of sinners, begins at this spring, the old and eternall design of love in the heart of God toward his Son, his everlasting delight, the bosome darling and beloved of the Father, is the designed Prince upon whose shoulder is the Government: Here was mutuall love-delight acted by the Father and Son, Prov. 8.31. My delights were with the sons of men, even before the fountains of waters were created, v. 24. O what everlasting out-goings and issuings of eternall love came from the heart of the Father and the Son in their eternall Covenant-delights towards the sons of men; here was the eternall marriage of the Lamb the Kings eternall Son, and of the not as yet created Bride first written and sealed by the King and his Son, and our not knowing of this, and Gods delighting in us, when we little knew or dreamed of his eternall love, highnesse, his grace. Should the heart of God be taken, and (to speak so) be sick of love for so many Nothings, whom he was to make heirs? Far more being reconciled and justified we need not fear we shall be saved.

Here in this Covenant were first drawen the lineaments and draughts of the free and gracious interest of Jesus Christ to the sons of men: And who should not wonder here at the purest fountain-grace that is in Jesus Christ, which did set on work eternall wise-dome to frame such an eternall peace of God Covenanting with the

 

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Son of God, and love eternall hiring love eternall with the reward (to speak so) of the certain hope of enjoying a soul satisfying seed, and a numerous off-spring of Redeemed ones, if love should die and triumph over justice, which was done by love.

  1. There is here much of the eternall interest of JEHOVAH to the Son, and of the essentiall love of Godto his only begotten Son, Prov.8.24. When there was no depths, I was brought forth.–30. Then I was by him as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoycing alwayes before him. And then may that have been verified, Jer. 30.21. And their noble One shall be of themselves, and their Governour shall proceed from the midst of them, and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engadged his heart to approach rents me, saith the Lord? The love eternall here in JEHOVAH loves and wonders that Christ his Son layes bands upon his own heart to take upon him the Office of Redeemer and Priest: and the Lords saying, Who is this is a note of love and wonder, as Psal. 24. 8. 10. Isa. 63. 1.Cant. 6. 10. and that his heart closes with the Covenant-designe.

Obj. But Arminius himself also teacheth, that there was a Covenant betwixt the Lord and Christ. God required of Christ our Priest, that he would lay down his life for sin, give his flesh for the life of the world,–and he promised, if he should so do, he should see his seed, and be an eternall high Priest after the order of Melchisedeck, and by the exercise of his Priestly Office, he should be exalted to a royall dignity. Christ our Priest closed with the condition, and said, Behold, here am come do thy will, &c. And Socinians, who hold him to be a divine Man only, will agree that Christ was under an obedientiall Covenant to God. Ans. Arminians and others may yeeld to a Covenant between the Father and the Son, but it is a far other; thing then such as we hold: for Christ did close with the condition of laying down his life for sinners.

But when Christ hath ended his work, and payed the price of Redemption, laid down his life for Pharaoh, Cain, for Ægyptians, Syrians, Persians, Chaldeans, and all in whom ever was the breath of life; yet cannot the Lord promise to Christ that he shall

 

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have any seed, or one redeemed one, nor can the Lord either promise or pay wages to Christ: For a promise, if sincere, is of things that are in our power to do, even among men. Can a King promise that to morrow he shall cause the wind for seventy dayes to come, blow out of the North-West? Its not in his power. Now Arminians, Socinians, and all of that Family teach, that God hath no forceable antecedent dominion to bow and determine the free-will of any one man: The Lord then no more can promise, nor give the reward of a seed to Christ, for his work of laying down his life for man, then he can ingage that the Serpent (with reverence to our blessed Lord) shall see his seed. For when Christ hath wrought the same work, payed the same very ransone (as these Sophists teach) for millions that perish, through their own freewill, eternally: What seed hath he of them? Where is his wage? Were not all and every one of mankind promised in the Arminian Covenant, to be the gifted seed of Christ, upon condition that they should repent and beleeve? But Arminians deny that God doth promise faith, or that he is so Lord and Master of the freewill of any, as indeclineably and unsuperably he can make good his promise, and cause them beleeve and persevere therein to the end, and that is it by which they are his seed. Its but said in vain that Godpromises they shall be Christs gifted seed, providing they be willing to beleeve: that is but to say, the Lord promises all shall be his seed, providing they shall be his seed: For willing beleeving makes them his seed. 2. By this also the Lord promises what is in mens power to perform, and it might fall out that all and every one should do the like that multitudes do, who perish eternally, and so shall Christ do his work, and enjoy no seed at all.

But the Covenant of suretyship which we teach, makes not the truth of God to depend upon our faith, or our unbeleef; Yea the Lord promises that Christ without all fail, shall undeclineably see his seed, yea, and shall be the restorer of the Tribes of Jacob, and a light to the Gentiles, and the salvation of God to the ends of the earth, Isa. 49.6. Isa. 54. He shall be King and Lord of the Iles, Isa. 42.6,7. Isa. 60.9. Psal. 2.8,9. A Prince and a sheepherd over his people, Ezek. 34. Ezek. 37.24,25. Psal. 89.25. not upon condition they be willing, over whom he is set, but to meet with

 

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the temptation. Ah! my iron and rockie will shall still resist the Lord; and he shall be King of the Nations, if the Nations shall determine their own will to submit to him, and vote that he be Crowned King: Nay, but the Covenant-promise saith, he shall be King of thy will. This is a part of his raign, Psal. 110.2. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. 3. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, Deut. 30 6. Ezek. 11.19,20. Ezek. 36.26,27. Jer. 31.31,32,33,34,35. Jer. 32.39,40. Neither can there be confidence and faith in God through the sure mercies of David, nor peace, nor solide consolation, nor warrand to pray for the Lords gracious bowing of the will to be his seed, except it be beleeved, Covenanted, that God shall be the God of his people, and their King, not over the element of the sea only to rule it, and over the mountains, and the stones, and rocks, but also over the particular wills, and the willing and nilling, choosing of good, and refusing of evill in the men of the Iles: And how could the Son pray, Father, give the inheritance of the Heathen to me, according to promise? Ask of me, and I will give thee, &c. Psal. 2. If the Father could answer nothing, but what Arminians and Socinians say he answers, as also, the beleever out of the fleshes weaknesse must dictat this return of prayer. Son, with good will, I grant the Heathen, and the ends of the earth to thee in heritage and possession, so they be willing to submit to thee: But, what if they refuse to obey either me or thee? I did never Covenant with thee, Son, to do more then I can, try thy strength, and force their freewill, if thou can; if they be willing, well, and good it is, there is a bargain: My approving and commanding will is that they be thy seed, and thy willing people; but my decree is not to Lord it over their will, that is a fundamentall act of Government, that all my subjects have liberty of conscience, to will or nill, as they please.Nay, but the Covenant of Suretyship includes the sure mercies of David, and the Lord gives band, word, and writ, and seal of blood, and the Oath of God to the Son, Psal. 110.4. Heb. 7.21. for the will. Isa. 53.4. Behold I have given him for a witnesse of the people, a leader and commander to the people. But what if they will neither lead nor drive? Yea the Lord promises

 

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they shall not need to be driven, they shall be willing, and run. 5. Behold thou shalt call a Nation that thou knowest not, and Nations that knew not thee, shall run unto thee, because of the Lord thy God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. And a strong reason of this is given, the Gentiles run; Whence comes this forwardnesse of the Gentiles who knew not God? Because (saith Isaiah) of Jebovah thy God (of Christ Mediatour) in Covenant with thee, Psal. 22.1. Joh. 20.20. because of thy God the Holy One of Israel: the running (saith Calvin) notteth the efficacy of the calling, and they run to Christ, because of Jehovah, and the mighty power of God in the Man-Christ. [foreign] Noteth because (saith Piscator.) And another reason, because he hath glorified thee, O Christ, he hath declared thee to be the Son of God by thy rising from the dead, ascension to heaven, given thee a Name above all names, Rom. 1.4. Phil. 2.7,8,9,10. So Musculus, Piscator, Marlorat, Gualther, Diodati: So the running of the Gentiles to Christ is the glorifying of Christ, and a part of the reward; its Christs glory that he hath a seed that runs after him. Then: And M. Dickson upon these words, Ps. 2. Aske of me, after Christs resurrection and declaration of his formerly overclouded Godhead, he should continue in the Office of his Mediation and Intercession, and by vertue of his payed ransone of Redemption call for the inlargement of his purchased Redemption among the Gentiles, for this is the Fathers compact with the Son, saying, aske of me, and I will give thee, the Heathen; so that both by free Covenant, and by merit, Christ challengeth a seed: and it were unjustice in the Lord (with reverence and glory to his Holines) to deny to Christ that for which he hath given a condign ransone and price: But he hath payed a condign Covenant-ransone of his own precious self, and offered blood for his seed. Hence 1. though a weak beleever cannot by merit suit a bowed will and a circumcised heart from the Lord: Yet 1. may he suit it by the band of the Covenant of Redemption between Jehovah and the Son: and a Redeemed one may say, it was an Article of the Covenant of Redemption, that my stony heart should be taken away, and a heart of flesh given to me, and faith hath influence to be supported that God articled Covenant-ways such a

 

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wretch as I am, to Christ: and look, as the book of life, called, the Lambs Book of Life, contains so many by name, head, and in all their individuall properties, Jacob, Paul, &c. that are written and inrolled for glory, so are all (and I by name) in a Covenant-relation given of the Father to the Son, Joh. 17.3,9,11. Joh. 6.39. and that is surer then heaven or the fixed ordinances of nature, Jer. 31.35,36. Psal. 89.37,38. Happy such as can ride at this anchor: Though I mean not that the decree of election and the roll of the Mediatour to me, or the gracious Surety-Covenant between Jehovah and the Son, as relating to me by name, must be the nearest object of faith, or that alwayes a beleever doth read this roll; but his faith often is, and ought, and may be supported thereby.

  1. Christmay suit, by vertue of both the Surety Covenant and by the justice of God, his condign merite to, me, a fixed will to run the way of his Commandements. Christs appearing with blood, Heb. 9. and his prayer as high Priest, Joh. 17. prove that, in Christs Bill for us, there is justice, the merite of blood, and that his Advocation is, 1 John. 2.1. grounded upon justice, and he stands there as Jesus Christ, [foreign], the righteous without sin now imputed, not now made sin, nor made a curse, but by order of strict justice justified and righteous, and the act of Suretyship taken off, and as the hand-writing against us is cancelled upon the Crosse, Col. 2. So the hand-writing of oblidged punishment due to Christ as our Surety is removed, and he now justified in the Spirit, without sin, Heb. 9.28. Such a one as cannot die, Rom. 6.9. Rev. 1.18. and cannot die a death satisfactory for sin, because as beleevers cannot die the second death, Christ having died for them, neither can Christ suffer the second death again, or be twice a curse, for once he died for all. But our faith is so supported not a little in this, I darre not put merit or justice in my suits to God, but I beleeve it is, and must be in Christs bill, and that bill is for me: mercy, and only mercy is in the sinners bill, but the justice of a condign ransoner is in Christs suits, and so faith looks to Christ: As 1. having the first Covenant-right to heaven, as the great Lord receiver of the promises. And then we have a second right in him, 2. Faith looks to Christ as having more right to us, because he hath the right of justice, then we have to our selves; for its free-graces

 

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title which we have to our selves, for we gave no ransone for our selves, and we gave no ransone for eternall life: and therefore all the doubtings and acts of unbeleef in order to the Surety of the Covenant, do resolve upon some apprehended breach between the Father and the Son, that either the one or the other, or both have failed to each other, and have broken the Articles of the Covenant, which is a reproaching of both the Father and the Son: So that nothing is more necessary then to beleeve firmly the Covenant-faithfulnesse of God. 3. What strong bands of beleeving and holy living have we from this Surety Covenant? When 1. goodwill and freegrace is become the ingadger of the faithfulnesse of Gods as he is true God, and with a Covenant-tye to keep sure our salvation, as he will be true to his Son, and so to himself and to his own Holy Nature, that we shall be saved, yea, and not that only, but by Office, as King and High Priest, he hath laid bands upon himself, and made it the duty of his Office to save us: So that any good man thinks his office of a King, and a Prophet, or a Priest, lays bands upon him to acquit himself faithfully in the charge; So that Christs sworn Office of High Priest lays bands upon him to compassionate as a feeling head, all his own, and to be touched with their infirmities: then must unbeleef in these particulars say, we judge that Christ will not do his duty in his Office, and that he shall break his faith of Suretyship, and fail under his band of Suretyship. How needfull then must the firm perswafion of compleat qualifications and fulnesse of anointing of Christ for the compleat discharge of his duty he? O! beleeve him to be the faithfull High Priest, who expiats and heals you in all the measure, kinds, degrees, circumstances of time, place, of the particular transgressions you are guilty of, Psal. 103.3. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities: who healeth all thy diseases. And if a man judge himself ingaged to go about such duties as his surety and ransone-payer in his name hath promised, far more are we to walk as the redeemed of the Lord, since there was an eternall Covenant-undertaking between Jehovah and theSon of God, that we should fulfill the undertaking. And sure it is, Law-faith or beleeving of Law-threatnings cannot have such influence upon our spirits to cause us obey the Law, as the motives of a concluded act of suretyship

 

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and closed compact between the Father and the Son, that we shall obey him: And indeed it is a meditation that morally and spiritually should obtain from us that we be holy as he is holy, and strongly melt the rocky heart. When we remembred that JEHOVAH, as a designed Surety, gave band for the heart of a sinner from eternity, and enters himself Cautioner for our rebellious will, it should put us to beleeve so much, and morally lay bands on our will.

  1. How are we to conceive of the act of Suretyship?
  2. Jehovahfrom eternity decrees that the Son be the designed person who shall take on our nature, and lay down his life for sinners: The Lord promises he shall have a redeemed seed for a reward.

In this offer Jehovah ingadges that we shall be Christs seed, and so shall be, by the immortall seed, born again, and shall beleeve and be gifted to Christ as saved; here Jehovah undertakes that we shall beleeve.

  1. Christagrees to the designed person: It is written of me, and so decreed of God from eternity, I delight to do thy will, I shall lay down my life for these given to me: And here the other party; Jesus Christ coming by his own consent to die, does also undertake, 1. In dying to ransone us from hell, and merit life to us, and make us his purchase. So 2. he being a Saviour by merit, he by his death purchaseth the Spirit, and meriteth the new heart, and so undertakes for us: in this regard, both parties undertake for us. And the Spirit being the same very God with the Father and the Son, also is by his own consent designed comforter and actor in his way by the anointing without measure, that he puts on the Man Christ, and the grace given to his members: But the only formall parties in the compact are the Lord Jehovah and the Son party consenting before time, and his Manhood in time becoming one who imbraces the Covenant of Suretyship, and calls the Lord his God, Ps. 22.1. Joh. 20.17. Rev. 3.12. Isa. 55.5.

Hence, if we imploy faith, and hold out to the Lord the undertaking for us in the Covenant, there is an answer framed to all our temptations from our own frailty: As Adam and the Angels fell, and how can we stand? But God said never of them, as

 

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Psal. 89.19. I have laid strength upon one that is mighty: and Christ was no designed undertaker for Adam, nor was Adam to beleeve such a thing. Therefore it is fit to observe, that not only the Head Christ and the body changes names, as the body is called Christ, 1 Cor. 12.12. and Christ called David, Isai. 53.3. Ezek. 34. Ezek. 37.14. David my servant shall be King over them, So also many things in one Psalm are spoken of David, both in an Historicall and Typicall truth, as Psal. 22. But there are some things, Psal. 16. so spoken of David, that they are true only Typically of Christ, and spoken Prophetically, as David saith, Ps. 16.10. Thou will not leave my soul in grave, neither will suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. And the Apostle Peter denies that this can be exponed of David, for Acts 2.26,27,28,29,30. and Paul, Acts 13.34,35. And as concerning that God raised him from the dead, now no more to return to corruption: he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another place, thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. 35. But David after he had served his own Generation, by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. And it is not to be doubted that the Prophecie, Psal. 22. They divided my garments, they pierced my hands and my feet, is only a Prophecie of Christs being crucified: Nor was ever Davidcrucified. To say in another case David was crucified, will not help: for it might be said in another case David saw no corruption, for all beleevers are delivered from the dominion, curse, and sting of death. Hence, it may well be said, that same Psal. 89. must prove both the Covenant of Suretyship, and the Covenant of Grace: v.3. I have made a Covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant; thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy Throne to all Generations. Though it be called Davids Throne here, Luk. 1.32. Yet we may freely speak of Davids Throne as of Davids body, both saw corruption: there is an end of Davids Throne temporall. But sure the Scripture calls it the Throne of Christ, Heb. 1.8. But unto the Son he saith, thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever. Luk. 1.33. And he shall raign over the house of Jacob, and of his Kingdom there shal be no end. Dan. 7.14. And there was given him

 

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Dominion, and Glory, and a Kingdome, that all Nations and Languages should serve him: His Dominion is an everlasting Dominion which shall not passe away, and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. Isai. 9.7. Of the increase of his Government and peace there shall be no end: upon the Throne of David and upon his Kingdome to order it, and to establish it with judgement and with justice, from henceforth, even for ever.

Obj. But this Covenant is made to, and with David, that Solomon, and one of Davids line, shall sit upon Davids Throne, untill the Messiah, the true beloved shall be born, 2 Sam. 7.12,13.

Ans. Its true, and although these of Davids line sinned, yet by vertue of this Covenant, for Davids sake, God gave a Throne temporall to him, 1 King. 11.32,34. 2 King. 8.19. 2 King. 19.34. But it is as true that this also, to wit, Christs everlasting Throne is here meant:I will build up thy Throne to all generations, for Davids Throne is not builded to all generations, nor can it be said of Davids Throne, which is said of this Throne, Heb. 1.8. But unto the Son, he saith, thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever. Therefore this oath and promise is made to Christ as well as to David: except we say that an everlasting Throne is more properly the Throne of David, then the Throne of Christ.

  1. 19. I have laid help upon one that is mighty, I have exalted one chosen out of the people.18. I have foundDavid my servant. Most grave Divines (and it may be they gathered it from v. 38,39. &c. think that the Psalm was composed upon the occasion of the ten Tribes division from Davids house, as composed by Ethan, 1 King. 4.31. Others, that Ethan lived in the captivity of Babylon after Davids death: But the calamity seems greater then the division of the ten Tribes. Philo refers it to the time of Jehoiakim. Ambrose maketh the mighty to beChrist: So Eusebius and Hieronimus expound the whole Psalm. And our Divines say that the verity must be in Christ, for the help and deliverance of the new afflicted and captive people (for the like of this publick desolation, as v. 38,39,40, &c. never befell David after he was King) can not be laid on a dead man: And though he were now alive, the help of Davids fallen glory, v. 42,43,44, &c. must be the Messiah. Hence, the Covenant must be with him Whose

 

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Throne is built for ever, and shall not fall, v. 3,4. and upon whom as upon a mighty one is laid the help of his fallen Church: This is not David only (though he be not excluded) but Christ principally.

  1. With him the Covenant must be made, in his way, as with Surety, Head, and Redeemer: upon whom the enemy shall not exact; whose enemies shall be plagued,v. 22,23. and, whose enemies shall be made his foot-stool,Ps. 110.1,2. and that is Christ, as well as David.
  2. With him must the Covenant of Redemption be made in his way; of whom Godsaith, v.25. I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. The Chalde Paraphrase expounds his hand to be his power and command, which is to Euphrates: as is promised,Exod. 23.31. Num. 34.3. but fulfilled in ‘David and Solomon, 1 King. 4.8. Solomon raigned from the sea of Sodom the red sea, to the Mediterran sea, and west, and from Euphrates, to the utmost of Canaan, North and South: but specially in Christ, who hath all Nations, Gentilesand Jews. for his own, Psal. 2.8,9. Psal. 22.27. Psal. 72.8,9,10,11. Isai. 2.1,2. Rev. 11.15. Christ Jesus, not David, Zech. 9.10. shall speak peace to the Heathen, and his Dominion shall be even from sea to sea, and from the river, even to the ends of the earth. The Angel and Creator of Angels, who set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth, Rev. 10.2. is this great Conquerour.
  3. With him this Covenant must stand, of whom the Lord, v.26. saith, He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.27. I also will make him my firstborn, higher then the Kings of the earth. Now this cannot well agree to David, at least, most coldly (as Calvine saith) should the Apostle reason and conclude that Christ were above the Angels when he citeth this place, Heb. 1.4,5. For unto which of the Angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shal be to me a Son. In the literall sense, it is meant of Solomon, 2 Sam. 7.14. 1 Chron. 22.10. and is meant here of David. Athanasius proves him hence to be God, the first begotten of many Brethren. Cyprian, Cyrillus, Augustine, Hieronimus, contend against the

 

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Jews, that this is necessary to be understood of Christ, not of Solomon, not of David, who cannot bear the Name of the Lords firstborn, but must be so named as the Type of him who is the firstborn of every creature, &c. Col. 1.15.

  1. So my mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my Covenant shall stand fast with him.29. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his Throne as the days of Heaven. If the Covenant be made with him who hath an eternall seed, then sure, principally with Christ: Without whom (saith Calvine, who otherwise much loves to follow the letter of the word) this Prophecie hath no effect, for eternity is only in Christ, not in David.

Ver. 30. If his children forsake my Law, &c. a pre-occupation, if an eternall seed be promised to Christ, then although Christ and his Children sin, no matter, the hazard is not great? He Answers, the danger is not to be despised; I will visite the sins, of Solomon and others, 2 Sam. 7.14. with the rod of men: 15. But my mercy (of the Covenant of Redemption, and of Reconciliation) I will not take from him, as I took it from Saul. This is not spoken of Christ, for he cannot sin, but of Christs seed, his spirituall seed, and the businesse is so contrived, as the seed of Christ and his children shall not sin unpunished: but yet there is a difference between the sins of the reprobate Saul, and such like, and of the spirituall seed of Christ. So he takes his mercy, Covenantmercy (but offered conditionally) utterly away from reprobats when they sin, but takes not away Covenant-mercy from the seed of Christ: And the reason is, from the nature of the Covenant, v. 34. My Covenant I will not break, &c. If then the elect and chosen of Christ should fall away, God should break and alter his Covenant: but impossible is the latter. Hence, 1. the questioning of the stability of our state, being once internally in Covenant with God, is a reproaching of God, and to make him a liar. v. 35. Once have I sworn (saith he) by my Holinesse, that I will not lie unto David. Though (1.) we seem to reproach our selves in questioning our state, being once in Christ, yet the truth is, the plea is against God, and his Truth and Holinesse. (2.) Its easier, to beleeve generall truths, then to beleeve particular truths, in which our selves and our own actings are interesled: So spirituall

 

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and wilie a snare is unbelief, that when we think we are unbelievly fearing our own treachery, we are indeed charging treacherie, and falshood upon the Holy Lord. (3.) In our sinfull plea’s with our own state, Ah! I am casten out of his sight, Psal. 31.22. Jona. 2.4. we are overturning the whole Gospel and Covenant of Suretyship and Reconciliation, and we say, God lied to David, and to his Son Christ: contrair to that, Psal. 89.35. Once have I sworn by my Holinesse, I will not lie unto David. 36. His seed, shall endure for ever, for the Lord once justified thee. (4.) We shall find our selves so selfie in contraverting with God in the matter, of fact touching our selves: am I in Christ? Or, am I an Apostate and fallen from Christ? That we are more taken up with a hellish fretting for our falling in a state of condemnation, then we, are grieved for the injurie of unbeleef in traducing the Holy Lord. with a lie. There is a taste here of Judas his fierie unbelief, for he complains more, Mat. 27.4. I have sinned, in betraying the innocent blood, then that God is dishonoured, and Christs love offended: The grief is more for the interest of I, of self, that is entered in the borders of hell, then that his glory who commands beleeving is overclouded. It were good in such a case to go about two things: 1. Be lesse moved that self is under these apprehensions, lost and cast away, then that the spotlesse glory of the Lord suffers: What matter of me, and of self, in comparison of the dishonour done to God? What though I and millions like me, were tormented, if God were not offended. Now God, 1. who hath bought me. 2. Who hath accepted a ransone for me. 3. Hath justified me. 4. Hath witnessed all these, is contradicted in all these: and yet we complain only, Ah I am fallen!

  1. Leave the Question concerning your self, whether ye be cast, away or no, when you cannot come to a peaceable and quiet close, about it, and dwell upon the duty of fiduciall relying on Gods generall Covenant to DavidsSon, Christhis ingadging with him, and Christ his gracious accepting of the condition.

(5.) God sware to the Son of David for the seed, that is, for the whole race, and gave them all to Christ, and gave you among them; and Christ closed with the condition, though ye cannot come to application. Its good to feed the soul upon the solatious

 

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thoughts, I cannot apply, but Christ whose egressions, outgoings, have been from the old, from everlasting, Mic. 5.2. did apply: For Christs everlasting outgoings are not only his eternall generation from the Father, but the decrees, the sweet eternall flowings, emanations, and issuings of Christs holy thoughts of me, of all the individualls, by name, of the seed given and received by Christ, his eternall acts of soul delighting thoughts of every redeemed son of man, Prov. 8.30,31. Rom. 9.11. Eph. 1.4. 1 Pet. 1,2. the eternall acts of love, and love-thoughts to Jacob, David, Peter, Mary, &c. his acts of designing you (if ever you beleeved, and can rub and blow up experiences under ashes, Rom. 5.4. Ps. 77.6.) and the thousands that stand before the Throne, from eternity, his actings of eternall love, appointing and setting Chairs, Throns, Mansions, and dwelling places for this man, and this man, are so many applications of Christ to you: Feed and feast upon these, by beleeving the ancient Covenant, and you cannot but come to quietnesse of peace in your apprehended estate.

 

CHAP. X.

Christ procures the Gospel to be Preached to Reprobats, but undertakes not for them. A necessary distinction of the Covenant as Preached according to the approving will of God, and as acted upon the heart, according to the decree of God: and the differences of the members. The place, Jer. 31. Heb.8. This is my Covenant, opened.

A Question it is, whether Christ undertakes in the bargain with JEHOVAH, for all visibly in Covenant, for as is said before, these in the Visible Church and their children that are baptized, Magus, Demas, and others are in Covenant thus, Act. 2.39. Ans. Christ undertakes in his bargain, only for the elect, and undertakes that the Gospel shall be Preached to them; but because many hypocrites are mixed with the Gentiles, and Christ is given a light to the Gentiles, Preached to a visible multitude, as is foretold, Isa. 49.6. Isa.55.4,5. fulfilled, Act. 13.46,47. Rom. 15.8,9,10,11,12, &c. Therefore he procures to many hypocrites, for

 

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whom, and for whose Redemption, he undertakes not, that the Covenant shall be Preached by concomitancy, because they are mixed with the elect, not as an undertaker for them, but for Church Discipline, Christian Societies, and to render such unexcusable. Hence a necessary distinction of the Covenant of Grace.

The New Covenant must be considered,

  1. As Preached according to the approving and commanding will of God.
  2. As it is internally and effectually fulfilled in the elect according to the decree and the Lords will of purpose.

There must of necessity, differences be holden forth between these two. For, Antinomians, and legall Justitiaries miserably erre in both extremities: The former will have no New Covenant in the days of the Gospel, but that which is made with the elect: The latter will have no New Covenant but such as is made with the whole race of mankind, Pagans not excepted: So Socinians, Arminians, Papists.

  1. They differ in the parties contracters: The parties contracters in the Covenant Preached, are God,and all within the Visible Church, whether Elect or Reprobate, and their seed, they professing the Gospel, Mat.28.19,20. Act. 2.39,40. Act. 3.25. Ye are the children of the Prophets, and of the Covenant which God made to our fathers, &c. and they were not all the chosen of God: This is against the Anabaptists also, and against these who will have the Gospel-Covenant to be made with all the world. But its a rich mercy that Professours are dwelling in the work-house of the Grace of God, within the Visible Church, they are at the pool-side, near the fountain, and dwell in Immanuels land where dwels Iehovah in his beauty, and where are the Golden Candlesticks, and where there run Rivers of Wine and Milk, such are Exspectants of Grace and Glory, to such the Marriage Table is covered, eat if they will.

But the parties contracters of the Covenant in the latter respect are, Jer. 31. Heb. 8. only, the house of Judah, the taught of God, the people in whose heart the Law is ingraven; for as God teacheth not all Nations his statues, nor sends the Gospel to them, Ps. 147.19,20. Act.16.

 

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So neither is the promise of a new heart made to all within the Visible Chuch.

  1. A great difference there is in regard of the Covenant of Suretyship or Mediation, that Christundertakes not for such as are only visible Covenanters, and shall never believe: As he prayes not for such, as High Priest, so he dies not for them, nor came as a designed Covenanting Saviour from eternity under an act of Cautionry for them. How then cometh the Gospel to them? Ans.It comes to them, 1. Not from Christ as their Surety, since he Prays not for any Mediation of his own toward them: But 2. for the Elects sake; so Paul, Act. 13.26. Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and who among you feareth God, to you, [foreign], is the word of salvation, to you and for your cause, that ye may be saved, is the Gospel, sent. 2 Corin. 4.15. For all things, our suffering, our dying, are, [foreign], for your sake.2 Tim. 2.10. Therefore I indure all things, [foreign], for the Elects, sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Jesus Christ, with eternall glory. Hence there is no salvation but that which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, the Author and Cause, [foreign], and meriting Procurer of eternall salvation, Hebr. 5.9. Now, though salvation be offered, yet the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, and merited by the ransone and price of his blood, can be decreed and intended in the Preached Gospel to none but to the elect, except they say that Christ did undertake to lay down his life, and to save, by his death and blood by Covenant-ingadgment, all the Reprobate within the visible Church, for whom he refuses to pray, John 17.

But Christ undertook from the eternity for the fulfilling of the Covenant of Grace, and bestowing salvation upon them for whom he is Surety: for it is he who makes the new Covenant, Jer. 31.31,32,33,34. Heb. 8.10,11.

  1. There is a twofold consideration of Godswill: One is called his approving, commanding, and forbidding will,when God reveals to us what is our obligation and duty, and what is morally

 

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good, and to be done, because he commands it, and what is morally evill, and to be eschewed, because he forbids it. Now whether this good or evill shall come to passe, or never come to passe, it is all one, as to the nature of the approving will of God, for though the repenting of Cain, and saving faith of the traitour Judas never came to passe, yet it is the duty of the one and the other to repent and beleeve, and the Lord commands and approves their obedience as good, though he never decreed by his good pleasure, that the obedience of Cain and Judas should come to passe. But his will of pleasure, his discerning will of pleasure, his discerning will, or his counsell, purpose, or decree, is his pleasure, and appointment of things, not as good and evill, or as agreeable unto, or repugnant, and contrair to an equal and just command of God, but of things as they come to passe, or shall never come to passe. Hence, in a premissive decree, God appointed the crucifying of the Lord of Life, the not breaking of a bone of Christ, but he did never will the crucifying of his Son, but forbids and hates it as execrable murther; as touching his approving will: in a word, his commanding will is of things lawfull or unlawfull, what we who are under a Law, ought to do, or not to do. His will of pleasure is of things fixed and resolved upon, what he purposes, good or evill, shall come to passe, or not come to passe: And by the way we may make good use of the foul sinnes that fall out; for holy and clean is that hand and counsell of the Lord, Act. 2.27,28. which determined what Herod and Pilate should do: Yet did the Jews withwicked hands slay and crucifie him, Act. 2.23. And O what beauty of wisedom and mercy do they see here, who make that foul work of the slayers of Christ the subject matter of a fair Psalm? Rev. 5.12. The thousands before the Throne, sing, worthy is the Lamb that was slain:But were they worthy slew him? was it a worthy fact in the murtherers of the Lord of Glory? No: but grudge not at the beauty of his work, who over rules all; but adore and praise. Let us not wrestle with his holy dispensation, and say, Ah! What an untoward Government of the world is it, that God should suffer Angels and Men to sin, and overturn the whole fabrick of Heaven and earth by sin? Nay, he hath by their fall brought in a more glorious order, when he that sitteth upon the Throne, saith, Behold

 

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I make all things new, Rev. 21.5. and its said, 2 Pet. 3.13. Neverthelesse we, according to his promise, look for new Heavens and a new earth, wherein dwels righteousnesse. Peter and the Disciples were to pray that they should not enter into temptation, Mat. 26 41. and were oblidged not to be offended and scattered by the sufferings of the Lord; but they were not to blame and grudgingly to judge that holy decree Prophecied by Zechariah, and revealed to themselves, Zech. 13.7. Mat. 26.31. I will smite the Sheepherd, and the Sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. His part is clean and holy, even when he throwes the wicked in hell; and they are oblidged to sing the Psalm of the glory of his spotlesse Justice, and that eternally, as these who are before the Throne are to hold up, for all ages, the new song of the glory of his mercy and free-grace.

This ground being laid down, the Holy Ghost speaks of the New Covenant two wayes in Scripture.

  1. According to the approving will of God,as it stands, of promises, precepts, threatnings; and showes both what Goddoth by promises, and what we are oblidged to do in point of duty, Act. 2.39. The promise is to you and to your children. Act. 3.25. Ye are the children of the Prophets, and of the Covenant which God made without fathers. 2 Cor. 6.17. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord,And I will be a Father to you, &c. This is the whole New Covenant, holding out our duty, ordaining those that professe, to be baptized, received members of the Visible Church, the body to the be edified as a visibly Covenanted people: This excludes not, but includes the Lords taking in members to the invisible and mysticall body: which is to be observed against Anabaptists and Antinomians.

The Lord speaks often of the Covenant of Grace not so much as Preached, quâ fœdus annuniciatum (though it so also must be Preached) but as fulfilled by God, and acted in an effectuall powerfull way, upon the hearts of the elect only, and that according to

 

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the Lords decree of election, and will of pleasure: So speaks the Lord of the Covenant, Jer. 31.31,32,33. Jer. 32.37,38,39. Ezek. 11.16,17,18,19,20. Ezek. 36.25,26,27, &c. Isa. 59.20,21. in a pure Evangelick way, and in these places the Lord speaks of the Covenant, not so much as it contains our duty, as principally it holds forth his Gospel promise, what he shall effectually do according to his decree and will of pleasure over-ruling our corrupt will: which Papists, Arminians, and Socinians utterly mistake, and will have it to be spoken of the Covenant as Preached according to the Lords approving and commanding will, whereas there is not one word of a command in these places, and therefore they say that these places speak nothing for the efficacy and mighty power of God in converting sinners. 2. TheAnabaptists from these places say none are to be baptized, but such as are so in Covenant, and as have these promises fulfilled in them, in whom the Lord hath wrought a new heart, and a new spirit; and that there is no externall Covenanting under the New Testament. But then the whole Gentiles, Isai. 55.4,5. Isai. 11.10. Isai. 60.1,2,3. &c. all Nations, Isai. 2.1,2. all flesh, Isai. 40.5. Psal. 65.2. all the Kindreds of the earth, Psal. 22.26,27. the Kingdoms of the world, Rev. 11.15. should be all chosen to life, taught of God, such as have the Law of Godingraven in their inward parts, as Jer. 31,33. Ezek. 36.26. which is most false. Now there are undenyable Prophecies that the Gentiles from the rising of the Sun, to the going down thereof, Mal. 1.11. shall be, under the New Testament, the people of God by Covenant, Isa.19.18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25. Then must the generality and mixed multitude of the Gentiles be some other way in Covenant, then these of whom the Prophets speak, Isa. 59.20,21. Isa. 55.10. Jer. 31.31. Ezek. 11.19. Ezek. 36.26.

  1. The Antinomiansdo also owne no Covenant of grace, but this wherein the new heart is given, and the condition is both promised and given. And D. Crispesaith, All other Covenants of God besides this, run upon a stipulation, and the promises run upon conditions altogether upon both sides.The New Covenant is without any conditions whatsoever upon mans part: Man is tyed to no condition that he must perform, that if he do not perform, the Covenant is made void by him.

 

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Ans. Man is under a condition of beleeving, and tyed to beleeve, so as the wrath of God abides upon him, he shall not see life, nor be justified, if he beleeve not, Joh. 3.18.36. Rom. 10.6,7,8,9. (2.) Man is tyed to no condition which he must perform, say which, he can perform without the grace of God. For have he grace, or have he no grace (the Holy Lord (O if we could plead for him and his High Soveraignty) is debter to no man) he is so oblidged to beleeve as he sins against the Preached Covenant and forefaults his salvation, if he beleeve not, and so breaks the Covenant, but devils or men cannot make it void, he may make it of no effect to himself he being an heir of damnation, but being a chosen vessel God shall work him to beleeve, and the makes it not void to himslef. If it be said, that the New Covenant is without any conditions whatsoever, upon mans part: It says too much for the beleevers being under no debt, no obligation of conscience to beleeve, or to any duty, but as the Spirit their only Law leads them: And if the Spirit breath not upon them to forbear adultery, paricide, sodomie, or to beleeve, pray, praise, hear, mourn for sin, as Peter, and David, they sin not, for sin is a transgression of the Law. And when the Spirit breaths not, acts not, there is no Law: and this is most vilde. Where observe, that 1. Antinomians andFamilists confound the efficient cause of our obedience, which is the Spirit of Grace, and the objective cause, which is the holy rule of the command, promise, or threatning. For though the Spirit be absent, and not given at all to men in the state of nature, yet do they sin committing of Sodomie, and in not praying, for they are oblidged not to sin, and commanded in the first Command to pray to a revealed God. I know Adam was not oblidged before he sinned to pray to Jesus Christ Mediator, as Steven, Act. 7. prayed to him. The Spirit, by grace does help us to obey the command and the Law, but the Spirit is not the Law, nor rule of our obedience.

  1. Not only will they have the Spirit to be all the beleevers Law and word, and the letter of the command to lay on no obligation, but the Spirit as actually breathing and giving actuall influences must be the Law: For though the naturall conscience or habituall light say that the man should not commit this wickednesse,

 

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nor omit this duty, seeing present necessity of one starving for want, of one drowning in a water crying for my help, is a call of God to perform the duty. And if the Spirit give inward warning that I should do the duty, yet if the Spirit actually breath not and contribute not his actuall influence, the man hath no warrand of any command or Law to act without his rule, since the Spirit acts not at all: and cannot so be guilty in the committing of the most vile abomination; for where no Law is, no sin is.

  1. Crispepag. 160. brings this Argument, The Covenant is everlasting: if the Covenant stand upon any conditions to be performed by man, it cannot be an everlasting Covenant, except man were so confirmed in righteousnesse that he should never fail in that which is his part, but he daily fails, & so daily breaks the Covenant?

Ans. To the first act of beleeving, which is a performing of the condition of the Covenant, there is no other condition required then that, Ezek. 36.26. I will put in you a heart of flesh. 27. I will put my Spirit in you, and cause you walk in my statutes. Zech. 12.10. I will powre upon the house of David, the Spirit of grace and supplication, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, that is, they shall beleeve in me: That is a strong confirmation, to wit, a promise that he will work the condition in us. And so is that, Joh. 6.37. All that the Father gives unto me, shal come unto me (that is, beleeve in me) and him that cometh, I will in no wise cast out. 2. It is to question the perseverance of the Saints to say, that God shall not confirm them into the day of the Lord, as he promiseth, 1 Cor. 1.8. Phil. 1.6. 1 Pet. 1.4.5. (3.) Our daily doubtings of unbeleef will not prove that we so break the Covenant, as our fails and daily slips of unbeleef should render the Covenant void, and null, so as it should leave off to be an everlasting Covenant, for such failings are indeed sins against the love of the Redeemer and Surety of the Covenant, for his love should constrain us to beleeve at all times, and to hope to the end. Nor does the eternity of the Covenant depend upon our beleeving, but upon his grace who gives us to beleeve: but its otherwayes in the Covenant of Works.

 

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  1. Crispe,pag. 162. in Jer.31. Ezek. 36. Heb. 8. and other passages where the Tenor of the Covenant is contained, there is no word of a tie, pag. 163,164. there is not one word that God saith to man, thou must do this. But God takes all upon himself, and saith he will do this: Yea, if faith were the condition of the Covenant, the fault of the broken Covenant should be his who works, not faith in us.

Ans. Here is the mistake of many who imagine that, Jer. 31. Ezek. 36. Heb. 8. the Holy Ghost setteth down the whole intire summe and tenor of the new Covenant, which he doth not. For 1. he speaketh nothing of the whole parties of the Preached Covenant, which is all within the Visible Church: these he speaks of here, are only beleevers in whom he works a new heart. 2. He speaks nothing of Covenant commandements, nothing of Covenant duties directly. 3. Nothing of the condition required of us. 2. He speaks not of the Covenant under the reduplication as Preached, or as a treatie offered to elect and reprobate, as Math. 21.31,32. Luk. 1.72. Act. 2.39. and as every where holden out as a visible Covenant made with Abraham and his seed in both Old and New Testament, according to the approving will of God.

But he speaks only of the fulfilling of some speciall promises of the Covenant, heart teaching, and the efficacy of the Covenant. 2. Only upon the elect who shall persevere to the end, Jer. 31.35. Jer. 32.40. Isa. 59.20,21. (3.) Only according to the Lords decree and will of pleasure, not what we ought to do, but what the Lord by his powerfull grace will do in us. As 1. I will ingrave my Law in their heart. 2. I will be their God. 3. They shall be my people, to wit, effectually as gifted with a new heart, and such as shall never be casten off, but shall persevere to the end, v. 35,36,37. Jer. 32.40. otherwise by externall calling all the carnall and stiffe hearted Jews were his people in Covenant, Isai. 1.3. Isa. 5.25. Ps. 81.8. Ps. 50.7. Deut. 7.7. as is in every page almost of the Old Testament. (4.) They shall be taught of God, 31,34. (5.) I will forgive their iniquitie, v. 34. (6.) I will give them perseverance, and never cast them off, v. 35,36,37. so that the covenant is a metonymie. This is my Covenant that I will make with them: that is, these are effects, fruits, and

 

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blessings of the Covenant which I shall by my effectuall and mighty grace work in them.

  1. The Apostleto the Hebrewshath no purpose to expone the Covenant of Grace made with Abraham, that Covenant (saith he) they break: Yea it is contrair to the scope of the Apostle to set down the Doctrine of the Covenant of Grace. He purposes in the Epistle to theHebrews to exalt Christ above the Angels, Ch. 1. above Moses, ch. 3. above all the Priests, the High Priest, and above all the Sacrifices, Bullocks, Lambs, Goats, &c. he through the eternall Spirit, once offered himself to God. And ch. 8. he proves Christ to be a more excellent High Priest, a Minister of a more excellent Tabernacle, and a more excellent Ministry, Because he is Mediator of a better Covenant: he is a days-man who layes his hands upon both parties at variance, both upon God and man, to bring them together: See Job 9.32,33. that is, a Mediatour of a Covenant; So that here he saith, Christ is ingadged to the Father in a more spirituall and heavenly Covenant. None could ingrave the Law of God in the heart but Christ: one might say, was not the Law ingraven in the heart of some, and their sins pardoned? Were not Moses, Aaron, and many of the people of God, sanctified, pardoned, and justified according to that Covenant? Ans. They were justified and sanctified, but not by the letter of the Covenant of Grace, nor by sacrifices, shadows, conditionall promises, threattens, but by Christ, I the Lord Redeemer will write my Law in their heart, &c. It is then contrair to the Apostles scope, Heb. 8. to enter the discourse of the Doctrine of the literall Law-Covenant, or the conditionall Covenant of Grace, it strongly concludes his point, to speak but of the half (though the choisest half) of the Covenant, as fulfilled in the elect, and that exalts Christ and his Ministry, that he hath a Ministry upon the heart. Now it is a shame to lay the blame of our not beleeving on Christ, be it a condition of the Covenant, or be it none: Christworks all our works in us, and by this reason it must be his fault (hallowed by his Name) that we sin at all, because he works not in us contrair acts of obedience. But to whom is the Soveraign Lord debter? And therefore this Antinomian way must be refused.

 

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CHAP. XI.

Of the promises made to Christ in the Covenant of Mediation, not to Christ God, but to Christ God and Man the Mediator, and these of twelve sorts.

TO Christ-God promises of reward cannot be made, nor can Christ-God suffer, but they are made to the person God-Man, for the incouraging of the Man Christ, and he incourages himself therewith, Isa. 50.7,8. Christ-Man lived the life of faith by depending upon Godfor the joy set before him, and therefore did run, Heb. 12. our life should be sweeter, should we fetch all our comforts and actings from his influences by the faith of daily dependency. Faith here promises to it self good, Isa. 26.12. Is. 30.31. Ps. 11.18.10,11. Ps.16.9,10,11.

If the kinds of promises made to Christ be asked for: Then 1. no such promise as remission of sin can be made to him, but a twofold Justification must be promised to him, A Law Justification, this do and live: For the promise was made to the first Adam, so wit, that he should be justified and live, if he give consumate, and perfect obedience to the Law; now this Christ did in all things. 2. There is a Justification of Christ from the hand of suretyship, he having compleatly satisfied for our debts, this was due to him, and promised, 1 Tim.3.16, Justified in the Spirit. Rom. 1.4. Declared to be the Son of God, by the resurrection from the dead: That was judiciall declaration. Acts 2.24. Having loosed the pains of death, [foreign], as King by authority and judicially looses a prisoner from his fetters, having no more to say against him. Psa. 105.20. The King sent and loosed him. Isa. 50.8. He is near that justifies me, who is he that contends with me (in judgement?) Rom. 6.9. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death shall no more have Lordship or Lordly dominion over him [foreign]. So the word, Luk. 22.25. The Kings of the Gentiles bear dominion over them, Rom. 14.9. Death had some Kingly dominion in Justice and by Law over him: But Christ by Law of satisfactory payment, who was also the mighty Son of God, wrought himself out of the grips and fetters of death: So

 

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in Christ death hath lost Law-dominion over the beleever. It is against Justice and the just Covenant between Jehovah and Christ, that we should be for ever among the worms and not at length be loosed from the sting and victory of the grace: O death, thou shalt, thou must let the captives go free, 1 Cor. 15.55. Hos. 13. the prison must be a free Jayle, when iron gates and fetters are broken. We have in Christ a good cause, the cause and action of Law is win and carried on our favours.

  1. There is a promise of heavenly influences made to Christ, Isa.50.4. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.5. The Lord hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious. Some great Divines say, Christ had no sleepy nor closed ear: he must there speak of Isaiah. But so there was no sinfull drynesse in Christ; Was He not therefore anointed? Isa. 42.1. I will put my Spirit upon him. Then all influences are promised also, Isa. 11.2. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him:–3. And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, and he shal not judge after the sight of his eyes, &c. 2. Christ was assured he could not sin, and so of influences to duties, Joh. 5.30. Joh. 8.26,27,38,50,55. Joh. 10.38. though he wanted influences at a time, as touching consolation and the felt fruition of God, being forsaken for a time, Psal. 22.1 Luk. 22.44. Math. 27.45. But Adam, as he was not to beleeve perseverance, nor yet sinfully to fear falling: so neither was he to beleeve influences to all acts of obedience, they not being promised to him. Yet was not Adam to beleeve his own reprobation; for it was neither true nor a revealed truth. Then the only nearest way against deadnesse and drynesse, is to have recourse to the fountain and fulnesse of life that is in Christ. Literall quickning of our selves, miskenning Christ, out of whose fulnesse we receive, produceth but literall fardinesse. 3. The speciall and cardinall promise (I will be his God, Psal. 80.26. and be shall cry to me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.) is bound up with Christ in the Covenant of Suretyship, and is the key and corner stone of the frame and building of the covenant of Grace, Joh. 20.17. Go to my Brethren, (faith Christ to Magdalenand say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and to your Father, and to my God and

 

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your God. Its comfortable talking that Christ saith to us, I and you Beleevers are the Children of the same Father, and have one Covenant-relation to one God: though, as is said, Christ bear the relation of a Surety-Covenant to God, and we of a Covenant of Mediation; and notwithstanding of the differences, yet it may be said that Christ and Beleevers are in one writ, and one letter of acquittance dischargeth both from condemnation, Christ from condemnation of punishment, us from condemnation of inherent guiltinesse and punishment. Blessed we to be unite to him every way, and to joine our Amen and consent to the Covenant: yea, and in regard of profession, we should subscribe and write our names to it, Isa. 44.1,2,3. Our maimed and broken and half consent proclaims an overly and cold Covenanting. Its true, parties are but once married, once Covenanting by oath is as good as twenty: but frequent and multiplied acts of marriage-love adde a great deal of firmnesse and of strength to the Marriage band, they are confirmations of our first subscription. Renewed acts of faith to take Christfor Jesus and Redeemer, and renewed acts of love, do more and more ingadge the heart to Christ as Lord and King. Little conversing with Christ deadens marriage-love. Rare visits and thin bring on worn out acquaintance. We are apt to complain he visits us seldome: that is because we have not the childish hire of consolation and feeling, we refuse to work, and yet we should look at comfort for the duty, and not on the duty for the comfort, when its a duty to our Father; And who looks upon the comfort both as a comfort and a duty? 1 Thes.4.18. Comfort one another with these words: and so must they comfort themselves. Comfort is mainly for beleeving, Colos. 2.2. Heb. 6.18. and there is a feast and a fill of joy in beleeving, Rom. 15.13. We seek but a comfort and a joy of chearing and solacing our selves, and that is all.

  1. There is promised to Christa seed, Isa.53.10. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. Heb. 2.13. Behold I and the children that God hath given me. Jacob by Covenant served for Rachel: Christ also served, suffered and died of love for his Spouse, Eph. 5.25,26. Isa. 53. he shall be satisfied. A Redeemed seed was his end, and we endure hard labour for a desired end, and we are sick till we get the great end we aim at.

 

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Its true the honour of God was the speciall end, Joh. 12.28.0.17.1. Yet it was heart satisfaction to Christ to have all his off-spring and children with him, Joh. 17.24. How should Christ not be our end? See if ye do all, and suffer all, to fetch this shoar, Phil. 3.8,9. Examine comparative ends, by ends, self ends. Its impossible a man can be ignorant of his last and main end, so strong an impulsion it hath upon his heart.

  1. There’s not onely a feed, but a rich conquest, the heathen promised, and the ends of the earth, Psal.2.8,9. Dominion from son to son, Zech.9.10. Psal. 72.8. Dan. 7.14. and both this and the former satisfies Christ. There is not a sight so desirable to the eye of Christ,as to see all his Redeemed ones conquering and last in the fields, and fairly landed on the shoar, passed Gun-shot and reach of all temptations. We satisfy our unbeleeving hearts too much; Ah! who can stand, temptations are so strong. But as JE HOVAH fully satisfies Christs soul, his hope, his aim and intended end in all the Articles of the Covenant of Redemption: so fear not, JEHOVAH cannot break off the Treaty with his Son, nor oan Christ be left unsatisfied.
  2. The Lordpromises help to Christagainst his enemies, Psal. 89.21. With him my hand shall be established, mine arm also shall strengthen him. There be many against Christ, but he hath a divine furniture of strength. Hence protection is promised to him in the discharge of his Office, Isai. 49.2. In the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft: in his quiver hath he hid me. The outlettings and manifestations of strength and furniture that is in the head redounds to a seasonable supplie of all his afflicted ones, that they shall not be overwhelmed.
  3. Victory is promised to Christover all his enemies: The Lord will not leave his soul in grave,Psal. 16.10. Therefore (saith the Lord speaking Covenant-wayes, Isai. 53.12.) will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong: because he hath poured out his soul unto death. He shall triumph over principalities and powers, Col. 2.15. Luk. 11.22. and shall make all his enemies his footstool, and subdue them, so that he shall fill the pits with the dead bodies, Psal. 110.1,6. and plague all his enemies, Gen. 12.3.Psal. 89.23. I will beat down his foes

 

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before his face, and plague them that hate him. It supports not a little our faith, that when we tremble before temptations from Satan and the mighty of the world, the Lord hath written & Covenanted to Christ all his and our enemies destruction. Our turning away our eye from the Covenant is the cause why we succumb; Christ, under his forest assault with hell and hels pursevants and officers, devils, and the felt anger of a forsaking God, dowbles his grips on the Covenant, my God, my God, Psal. 22.1. Mat. 27. O my Father, Mat. 26. Psal. 89.26. He shall cry to me, my Father, my God. A Covenant is (as it were) more then a promise, being a solemn promise in condiscension of mercy: So the Church, Psal. 89.38,39. and Jer. 14.21. and the afflicted people, Isa. 63.16. and Dan.c. 9.4,5,6. Ezra 9.6.10.15. Hezekiah in a day of rebuke, Isa. 37.16,20, the slain Church, Psal. 79.9. Psal. 80.1. flee to this shoar in their stormes, and the Lord professes he will be broken, intreated, and holden by his Covenant, Lev. 26.41,42.

  1. There is a promise of glory, of a Name above all names made to Christfor his sufferings, Psal.16.9,10,11. Isa. 53.12. Act. 5.31. and to such as suffer with him, and overcome, Luk. 22.29,30. Rev. 3.21. Rev. 2.10. As also, he shall bear all the glory of his Fathers house, Isa. 22. Zech. 7.13.
  2. The Lord promiseth forbearing-mercy to the children of Christ,if they sin, he will correct them in measure, and in a Fatherly way give them repentance, but not remove the Covenant-mercy. So hath the Lord Covenanted and articled in the writ with his Son, a rod to children, to difference them from bastards, Heb.12. And he that hath his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, writes this up as a Covenant-mercy, that he will not suffer them to perish with the world. Hence, the rods of the wicked stand booked in the Covenant of Works among the curses of the book of the Law, Lev. 26. Deut. 28,15,16,17, &c. our rods are Covenanted mercies in the compact between the Lord and Christ, and written in the Gospel-book of the Covenant of Grace.
  3. All the promises of the Gospel, are first (as it were) promised to Christ; the Gospel is put over in his hand. Jesusis the Angel,Rev. 10.1 choathed with a Cloud, and a Rain-bow on his head. v.2. And hath in his hand a little book open; the Testament,

 

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and the book of all promises to dispense them to such as the Father hath given to him, to give his Spirit to his own, to interceed and advocate for them, to ratifie and seal them with his blood.

  1. There is promised to him an head-ship, and power of judgment, over man and Angels, with an oath, that to him all knees shall bow, Rom.14.11. Isa.45.23. Phil. 2.10. and that he shall adde his seal to Gospel-hell and vengeance inflicted upon the despisers of the Gospel, Luk. 19.14. Mat. 26.64. The threatnings against Gospel unbeleef are put in the hands of Christ, not as Redeemer and Surety, but as a refused Surety and King, whom unbelievers will not have to raign over them.
  2. Adambrake the whole frame of heaven and earth: and to the Second ADAM the whole broken and marred lump of the Creation is promised, that he may be the repairer of the waste places. Isa. 49.8. I will preserve thee, and give thee for a Covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherite the deselat heritages. Ps. 72.16. Under the raign of the Messiah, There shal be an handfull of corn upon the top of the mountains, the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon. Jer. 31.12. Therefore shall they come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together for the goodnesse of the Lord (Christ) for wheat, and for wine, and for oyl, and for the young of the flock, and of the herd.
  3. The Lordmade all things at the beginning very good, Gen.1.31. Heaven, Earth, Sun, Moon, Beasts, Birds, &c. being all made servants to man, were in a manner fellow-Covenanters in their kind with man in the Covenant of Works: As a King covenants with a great Family, his servants and dependers have the benefite of the Kings Covenant-peace, all obeyed Adam without jarring: but when Adam sinned, war between the Lord, and between the Master and the Servants is denounced, the earth is cursed for his sake, Genes.3.17,18. and Lions and wild Beasts rise against him like loose borderers. But in the Covenant of Grace, Hos. 2.18,19,20. the beasts of the field, the fowls of the heaven, the Sun which shall not smite by day, nor the Moon by night, Ps. 121.6. are by the Surety of the Covenant brought in a new league: yea the stones of the field, Job. 5.23. are compartners of the peace,

 

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and Christ the King takes off the forefaultry upon all, and looses the arrestment of vanity that by sin was laid upon the Creation, which was made sick like a woman travelling in birth, Rom. 8.20,21,22. Hence are they blessed in Christ to the Saints, Deut. 28.4,5. Levit.26.4,5,6. and the Angels come in under their Head Christ, Col. 2.10. and serve the new restored heirs, Heb. 1.13. for their Heads sake.

  1. Godhath appointed Christ the Heir of all things, and Heb. 1.2. hath given a Charter to Christ and put in bread, garments, houses and all to the Believer in Christ the first Heir: his great evidence is, 1 Cor. 3.21. All things are yours.
  2. He makes all things new, Rev.21.5. This Christmends the broken gold ring which was broken by the first unattentive and rash Heir Adam; So that now Heavens, Earth, Mountains, Isai. 49.13. sea, trees, fields, Psal. 96.11,12,13. are commanded to sing a Gospel-Psalm of joy, because Christ the new King and Restorer of all is come to the Throne: yea let the floods clap their hands, Psal. 98.9. and he purposes to purge with fire the great Pest-house infected with sin and under bondage of corruption, Rom. 8.21. 2 Pet. 3.10,11. that he may set up the new world in Gospel-beauty, the new heavens and the new earth, 2 Pet. 3.13. Isai. 65.17. Isai. 66.22. Rev. 21.1. Oh what a life to have a cottage and a little yard of herbs in that new World, and how base to be but Citizens of this World!

 

CHAP. XII.

The condition and Properties of the Covenant of Redemption.

  1. WHat need is there of any condition to be performed by Christ,or of any Covenant? Ans. The same Question may be of the need of an oath to Christ, Psal. 110. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, Thou art a Priest, &c. 2. The same necessity, in regard of infinite wisedome that our Redeemer should be obedient to the death of the Crosse, Phil. 2.8. and be under the Law, Gal. 4.4. and keep his Fathers Commandements, and abide in his love, Joh. 15.10. requires also a Covenant of obedience upon the part of Christ Man; for all men being born under

 

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the Law and Covenant of Works, Christ-Man also must be under the same. And then Christ the Mediator was to give obedience to a particular Commandement of laying down his life for sinners, and this required an ingadgement by way of Covenant, and so a condition of obedience to perform what this peculiar Law of Suretyship required of him, to wit, to lay down his life.

  1. Its not a condition of indifferency which is required of Christ, such as is required of Adam,in which there is a hazard of failing and coming short of the reward. AdamsCovenant had both threatnings and promises, and so hath our Covenant of Reconciliation, though in another way: see Psal. 89.30,31,32. But the Covenant of Suretyship hath promises most large that are made to Christ: but no threatnings are laid before the Man Christ that are to be read in the Scripture. There was no hazard nor possibility, in regard of the Personall Union, that Christ could sin: yea, in regard that Christ from the womb was both a Traveller, a Viator and an enjoyer and Comprehensor, and had the Spirit above measure from his birth, as Man he had gifted to him the confirming grace which is now given to the Elect Angels in their Head Christ; And therefore there was somewhat like a condition necessary, and as the members enter to glory through obedience, so also the Covenanted Head, Luk. 24.26. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter in to his glory?
  2. 2. What was the speciall condition of the Covenant of Suretyship?

Ans. The Covenant being a bargain of buying a people to God, then the payed price and ransone must be the duely formall condition. As for obedience to the Morall Law, it was the condition of the Covenant of Works, to which the Man Christ, as Man, was oblidged, that he might have right to Law-justification and life eternall, jure & merito fœderali operum, by the Law and federall merite (I mean merite by paction and faithfull Law-promise, not of condignitie) of the Covenant of Works, that he might be saved.

But this Law-holinesse had influence in that most solemn act of obedience in offering himself a sacrifice to death for our sins. And the Law-holinesse of the Man Christ did not exclude supernaturall grace as the Law holinesse of Adam: for it was the perfect

 

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conformity of Christs nature, his soul, understanding, will, affections, and all his actions internall and externall with the holy Law of God.

Hence the heart and inclinations of Christ stood ever right and stright to the Law. He exercised no affection in pur is naturalibus, his anger came not out in pure naturall anger and no more, but it came out in acts of zeal; Nor his joy in pure naturall joy, though sinlesse, but in joy of the Holy Ghost. And in the whole Man Christ was a perfect masse, and, as it were, a compleat body of all gracious qualifications.

Isai. 11. He received the Spirit of knowledge and was ignorant of nothing he ought to know: Disputed with the Doctors being of twelve years old: The world knew not his School or Teacher. Hence his wisedome and practicall understanding of the Law of God and practicall conclusions, He had the Spirit of connsel, as the greatest of Statesmen for Government, Isa. 52.13. Behold my Servant shall deal prudently. And so, when we are in perplexities and know not what to do, he can lead the blind in a way they know not, Isai. 11.1,2. He hath the Spirit of might and courage, an undantoned Spirit, yet conjoined with counsell, no fool hardinesse, but the resolute ventoriousnesse of faith, Isai. 42.4. He shall not fail nor be discouraged: Heb. broken, till he have set judgement in the earth. Our softnesse of unbeleef, at the blowing of a feather or stirring of a leaf, brings on falling of Spirit and swooning. He hath the boldnesse of faith to beleeve victory before the battell, Isa. 50.9. Lo they all shall wax old as a garment, the moth shall eat them up. He hath hope from the womb, Psal. 22.9.Thou art he that took me out of the womb, thou didst make me hope when I was on my mothers breasts. And for the joy set before him, he endured the crosse and despised the shame, Heb. 12.2.

And the Spirit of the fear of the Lord made him quick in understanding, that is, the high and reverent apprehensions of God made him quick to smell or sent (so the word imports) the snares and temptations in the work of Redemption plotted by men and devils. So excelled he in righteousnesse, which as a gindle went about his lomes, both in judging, and in discharging the trust out upon him by the Lord who laid the key of David and the Government

 

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upon his shoulder: his obedience to his Father, and continuing in his love, Joh. 15.10. and thirsting to do the will of the Father, Joh. 4,34. His zeal to his Fathers house should be a fair coppie for us to follow. He was meeknesse it self, Isa. 53.7. 1 Pet. 2.23,24. much in praying, beleeving, rejoicing in spirit, Luk. 6.12. Psal. 16.9,10,11. tender to the weak of the flock, Isa. 40.11. He shall feed his flock like a sheepherd, he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosome and he shal gently lead these that are with young. Isa. 42.2. He shall not cry, nor lift up (a shout) nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 3. Abruised reed shall he not break, and the smoaking flax shall he not quench.

He was most compassionate to sinners, inviting them to come, Mat. 11.28,29. crying and shouting with a loud voice to the thirsty, Joh. 7.37. journeyed from heaven to seek and to save the lost, Luk. 19.10 came to serve them with his heart blood, Mat. 20.28. his bowels were turned with compassion to perishing fouls that wanted the feeding Pastors, Mat. 9.36. He sighed deeply in his Spirit, at the perverse unbeleef of his deadly enemies the Pharisees, Mar. 8.12. wept and shed tears at the foreseen destruction of Jerusalem, Mat. 23.37. Luk. 19.41,42. and yet that City slew him. Loved as the tender Physician, to be much in company with sick sinners, Mat. 9.11,12. Luk. 15.1,2,3. Luk. 19.1,2,3,9,10. O what rejoicing! when he layes the lost sheep on his shoulder, Luk. 15.5. When, v. 20. he sees the home-coming sinner, he ran, fell on his neck, and had compassion upon him, and kissed him, and made a feast, and sang and danced for joy. There is no humility like his, to wash the feet of his servants: there is no patience like his, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again: when he suffered, he threatned not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, 1 Pet. 2.23. As a lamb dumb before the shearer, Isa. 53. How gaining of souls was he, who preached in the Temple, in the Synagogues, in the Villages, in the Ship, at the Sea side, at every Table he came to, at every Feast, at every confluence of people, at every way side, and stood still and talked with a woman, and wanted his dinner upon that occasion? And thought he dined well when he gained to the Lord the soul

 

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of a woman, and of them of Samaria, who hated him and refused to lodge him? How faithfull and free in rebuking the Pharisees and Rulers, and in declaring the truth of the Gospel, that he was the Son of God, though they attempted to stone him for his free Teaching? None mortified to honour as he that refused to be a King, Joh. 6.15. and was willing to be worse lodged then birds and foxes, Mat. 8.20. and being rich, for our cause became poor, 2 Cor. 8.9. and endured the crosse, despised the shame, suffered the contradiction of sinners,Heb. 12. and did run and fainted not: And was he not a patern of love, who laid down his life for his friends, Joh. 15.10. even when we were enemies, Rom. 5.10? He pleased not himself, Rom. 15.3. honoured his Father, Joh. 8. sought not his own glory, v. 49.50. and saith true, Joh. 5.30. I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. Joh. 8.29. I do alwayes these things that please him. He faithfully expounded the Law, Mat. 5. refuted heresies, Mat. 22. glorified God with his miracles, he was subject to his Parents, Luk. 2.51. payed tribute to the Prince himself, Mat. 17.27. and taught others to obey law-full Governours, Mat. 22.21. would not usurpe the place of a Judge, Luk. 12. v. 13,14. and witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate, 1 Tim. 6.13. and was for that cause born, and for that end came he into the world, that he might bear witnesse unto the truth, Joh. 18.37. none so self-denied, he pleased not himself, sought not his own glory, nor his own ease, nor his own ease, nor his own will, but submitted to the will of God.

In all which, we are 1. to look upon Christ who went about doing good, Act. 10 as one who 1. was Covenant-wise designed of God and anointed with the Holy Ghost and power to do what he did, and to be what he was, for our good: and its much for the establishing of our faith, that Christ was all this for our salvations sake, by counsell and Covenant. These gracious qualifications Christ-God undertook to have for our good: and they were not given to Christ as personall and proper for himself, but as head; for we may here distinguish the grace of the person and the grace of head-ship, though they must not be divided. But as the light and heat of the Sun is not (if we may so speak) private or personall for the Sun it self, but for the earth, and all that live and grow out

 

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of the earth that need the influences of the Sun and have eyes to injoy the light thereof. The water of the fountain is not for that hole or cave of the earth from whence the fountain doth issue, but it is very often to run in streams to be a river for the use of the whole land. All these excellencies and graces are in Christ, not as his (to speak so) personall induements, but as the publick treasure, that we may receive of his fulnesse. We should think it a strange exorbitancy in nature, if all the trees, flowers, herbs on earth should refuse to receive influences and growing from the Sun, and deny to be oblidged to the Sun for light and heat: and our unwillingnesse to receive from Christ the publick grace that is made his by Covenant, when a publick consignation by compact is made for our good, proclaims our unbeleef and our wicked estrangement from Christ, as if we had said, let Christ be gracious for Christ, only I shall not be his debter. Nor is it from the naturall connexion between head and members, or because simply Christ is man as we are, though the humanity be ground thereof, nor is it because Christ simply is anointed with the fulnesse of the Spirit, for he is head of the body, and Lord, Generall, Captain of his people, not by nature only, nor because of grace simply, but by Covenant-purchase. Rom. 14.9. [foreign], For this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. There’s a Covenant between the Father and the Son that Christ should die, not simply, but for, and in the name of the heirs of glory, such as are designed friends (for his dying is a relative and a legall binding and buying by Covenant of so many certain persons) and upon this he is made Head and Prince, and exalted to give of his fulnesse, to give repentance and forgivenesse of sins to the house of Israel, Act. 5.30,31. Ah! how do we love to be beholden to nature? to self? for Heathen and Pagan vertues by education, and morall exercise, which is but wild corn? and we see not how unwilling we are to trade with Christ, or to buy from him fine gold, yet it was given to him without measure, as to the universall fountain and head, for all his. 2. All these are in Christ, that he should be a living coppie which we must follow: And he is a more lively example then the Gospel it self, for Christ is the acted Gospel. And if ye look on Christ, loving, beleeving,

 

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hoping, praying, there comes more life and warmnesse from his actions, then from the word: when we consider that as God would have the humane nature a chariot to convey to us the fulnesse of merite by satisfaction, so must it be the mean of carrying to us the fulnesse of grace by sanctification, and then, when God Covenants with the Man Christ, that love, faith, hope, meeknesse, humility and grace shall live, speak and act in Christ out to us, we are more strongly convinced to follow the footsteps of so blessed a guide. Christ is a living glasse in which we see the beauty of grace. As also his meeknesse and humility is the meeknesse and humility of God, and all these graces have a seat and lodging in our Immanuel God with us, they have a drawing and an alluring desirablenes from the Person the Lord Jehovahour King, the mighty God, the Father of ages, in whom they reside.

The properties of the Covenant of Suretyship are, 1. Freedom. 2. Graciousnesse. 3. Eternity.

As to the first: Nothing could compell, nothing could hire Christ For eternity to ingadgo his Name in such a band, since he well knew what it should cost him, how dear it should stand him, and saw what indignity, shame, pain, curse, and all these conditions before him. And what could move the father, since he might have followed the Law-course of Works?

  1. The first draughts of free-grace and the Lords unsearchable riches appears in the sure mercies of David,in an everlasting Covenant, Isa.55.3. and Ps. 89.1. I will sing the mercies of the Lord.–2. For I have said, mercy shal be built up for ever:–Why? v.3. I have made a Covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant. 4. Thy seed will I establish for ever, &c. The giving of the Covenant. 2. The design of a Redeemer. 3. The sending. 4. Anointing. 5. The consenting of Christ. 6. His coming. 7. Dying, are all acts of grace. God was no debter to the Man Christ, or to any of his kindred and blood-friends, more then he was to David and his seed, but God would act grace in Christ, and make him a samplar and the first coppie of free-grace to all his brethren, that they might share with him therein. But though he made Christ also a coppie of his Justice, Rom. 3.29. and spared not his Son, Rom. 8.32. yet, Mal. 3.17. the Lord deals not so with us: And they shall be

 

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mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my Jewels, and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son, that serveth him. And of Christ it is said, Ps. 72.13. He shall spare the poor and needy. And, O what riches of grace and mercy, and plenteous Redemption hath he manifested to us? and therefore the more grace he shews to us, the more freely and sonly should we serve him, with lesse hirednesse and servile disposition: If we could love God and Christ with a heart abstracted from heavens hire, at least the pleasure of it (for pleasure maks not any conform to God, but holinesse doth) and the heart not legally fearing the burning torment of hell it were good: for since Christ hath freed us from the Law-wrath, he takes it not well that we darre approach too near to the mount burning with fire; nor doesChrist allow our affections of fear and sorrow, & sadnes to act upon feared everlasting wrath, (we being justified by faith) any other way, then in a Gospel-consideration, being casten down for our Law deserving, but so as we highly value our ranson-payer, and serve him with godly fear, [foreign] which word, Heb. 12.28. must note a difference between the fear and trembling and terrour upon devils, for the torment of hell, Mat. 8.29. Jam. 2.19. and the [foreign], the godly fear of believers, Heb. 12.28. which is also given to Christ, Heb. 5.7. in whom there was no fear of hell torment, and therefore the fear of him that can cast both soul and body in hell (though it be another word, Mat. 10.28.) which Christ commands, cannot be a servile fear legall, for hell such as is in devils and men, but a godly fear, such as is consistent with the faith of deliverance from the wrath to come: for Christ, Mat. 10.28. commands that fear, fear (saith he) to deny Christ before men: Why? fear him who can cast soul and body in hell. And immediatly, v. 31. Fear not therefore: the same word that is, v. 28. then he must forbid a fear opposite to servile fear, and which stands with the faith of sons who are to beleeve the care of a father, which is more toward his children then toward sparrows, v. 29.30. And that the word notteth a godly fear, which is, Heb. 12. beside other Greek Authors: See Heb. 5.7. see Luk 2.25. Act. 2.5. Act. 8.2. Act. 23.10. and Heb. 11.7. Noah moved with fear, [foreign], built an ark: sure the fear of everlasting torment in hell, moved not Noah to build the ark, for by faith which is saving, he builded it, v. 7.

 

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  1. Eternity is a speciall property of the Covenant of suretyship: For 1. the parties are eternall; Jehovahthe Lordand the Son of God never began to agree upon the designation of the Redeemer for that work, it was a bargain closed from everlasting: Only the question is, when the Son shal render the Kingdom to the Father, 1 Cor. 15. whether or not the Covenant shal then cease. For 1. Christ shal then end his work of Redemption, and shal fully and finally have purchased what his soul desires, and shall have received his wages, and injoy with his conquished bride an eternal sabbath. 2. He shall interceed no more for sinners, for the sinning of his redeemed ones shall have an end.
  2. The Son (saith Camero) shall leave off to raign, quod attinet ad regnandi actum,according to the act of raigning, but as touching the Kingdom it self, there shall be no end of the Kingdome.

But it may appear as there was a time when it was said of Christ, Phil. 2.7. [foreign], He emptied himself, and took on him the form of a servant. So there is a time opposite to that, v. 9. Therefore God hath highly exalted him: which is not fulfilled in his resurrection, ascension, and sitting only at the right hand of God, but when all power, friends, and unfriends, and the Man Christ shal be subject to the Lord, yea even the Son, not as God, for Christ-God is equall with the Father, not as man, for so in the days of his flesh as man, he ever was, and is, and shall be subject to God, but the Son shall be subject, as touching the Office of a formall Mediatour. 2. Another distinction is here needfull, as Augustine and Ambrose: he shall render the Kingdom to the Father, not that he shall leave off to raign, but that he then shal declare that he raigns not of himself, but that he hath his power of raigning from the Father, and he shall professe this before men and Angels) and so shall glorifie the Father. Its not to be rejected that Hilarius, lib. 1. de Trinit. 11. August. lib. 1. de Trinit.c. 8. he shall render the elect back to God, as now saved, and present to the Father his ransoned ones now perfected, so Eph. 5.27. 3. Taking the word of raigning, for this, to excell in eminency of power above all, so Christ shall raign eternally, but taking the word of raigning as it notes the exercise of royall authority, so and so by gathering a Church, by the Preached word, sighting against enemies, and overcoming them, to make them his

 

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foot-stool, until which time he raignes, Ps. 110. And so it may be, and is said by some, he raigns, not after the day of the universall Judgement: but these are but the second acts of a King, and the not exercising of these acts proves not but Christ is a King, actu primo, and essentially, for the exercise of such and such acts are often extrinsecall to the office. But the question shall remain whether he be not for ever and ever a Mediatory King, and does retain his headship over the Church; so as the Angel say, Luk. 1.33. He shall raign, [foreign], and of his Kingdom there shall be no end. And as Dan. 7.14. Cameron, and others say, the meaning of that, that his Kingdom shall have no end: is only, it shall not be destroyed by externall violence, as worldly Monarchies that are made away, and others rise in their place, but that Kingdom (say they) may well be called eternall, though the King leave off to raign, when he leaves off to raign through no weakenesse and want of power, but because he needs not raign, there being no need of laws, because the subjects are perfected, and there are no enemies to be subdued, and the King hath obtained that eternall end, a glorified people, for which he was fighting.

But yet this seems not to satisfie, 1. Circumeision, and the ceremonies, and the Priest head, Exo. 40.15. lev. 16.29. that in the seventh month, shall be a statute, [foreign], forever Lev. 6.18. All the males of the sons of Aaron shall cat the remainder of the meat-offering, it shall be a statute for ever in your generations: so Lev. 17.7. Lev. 7.34,36. Lev. 23.14. Num. 23.11.23. yet those Ordinances can hardly be called eternall, as the Kingdom of Christ is: And yet they cease when the body is come, and they are not destroyed as humane inventions, the hay and the stubble that are builded upon the foundation Christ.

  1. These reasons prove that Christshall not exercise such and such acts of royaltie upon such and such enemies, for they shall be no enemies: Yet we say not, as Camero,that such a Prince leaves off to raign even as Mediatour. Chirsts rendering of the Kingdome dispensatory or Oeconomick to the Father may well be a rendering of an account of his subjects, and a presenting of them to God perfected, Eph. 5.26.27. without spot and wrinkle: Christ having brought them out of danger, so as they need not Word, Sacraments, for a

 

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Temple. And so, 1 Cor. 15.24. He shal put down all rule, all power, and authority, all Magistracy and Government that now is in either Church or State: and so saith pareus, the Son shal be subject to the Father, having subdued all the rebels, as his Fathers Deputie, he shall return to his Father the Kingdom now reduced to subjection and made peaccable, and lay down his Mediatorie Commission, and so be subject to the Father, having ended the deputed and delegated charge. And it is sure, the Son as Mediatour is sent, and is a Servant, an Angel, or Messenger of the Covenant, Mal. 3. and the laying down of his written Commission is a sort of subjection, and God doth not now actually raign in such a Mediatory way as in the days of Christs flesh; he did raign in Christ, but now after the last Judgement, God is all in all,that is, not because he is not now all in all, and is not the Lord of lords, and King of kings, but because it, doth not so appear to be, many now rise against him and contradict him, and persecuting his Mysticall body, do persecute Christ. 2. He shal be all in all by change of the Oeconomick Government, then the Father, Son, and Spirit, shal immediatly glorifie the Church, Rev. 21.22. And I saw no Temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb is their Temple. 23. And the City had no need of the Sun, neither of the Moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did inlighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

But that Christ shall leave off to be Mediatory King after the last Judgement, I deny. For there is a twofold Mediation, one, of uniting sinners to God, and mediating between God and them. This shall cease, and all the royall acts thereof, but these, with reverence, are but second operations and acts of royaltie. There is another Mediation substantiall, by which our natures glorified, stand in a substantiall union with God for ever: for to what end shall Christ stand glorified in our nature in heaven, but to be the substantiall mid-man betweenGod and us, glorified for ever? If any say that Christ-God-Man after that day is no Mediatiour of reconciliation because there shall be no sin then: Its true: Nay, but even now in the intervall between his ascension and second appearing to Judge the world, he acts not as Mediatour of reconciliation to expiate our sins, and to satisfie for them, for only he did upon the crosse by dying for us, so mediate. And we will not say he is acting

 

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the part of a Priest formally by sacrificing for us in heaven, as Socinians teach: for he can offer no expiatory sacrifice for us in heaven, for he died but once, & that was on the earth only. Obj. But now he Advocats for sinners, 1 Joh. 2.1. therefore as now in heaven glorified, he is a Mediatour for sinners. Ans. True, he is a Mediatour and Intercessour now, applicatione, non expiatione, by applying his blood, but not by shedding of it: And he is an Advocat, but called, [foreign], Jesus the Righteous, and an Advocat as just and righteous, supposeth a right and just cause, and that sufficient satisfaction and payment is given to God for the sins of these for whom Christ interceeds; the Advocation of Christ is not to plead that beleevers may sin, or their sins may be excused as no sins: But his intercession is to plead, 1. that for his blood we may stand as accepted of God, and freed from condemnation. 2. That the Spirit procured by the death of Christ, may be given to us, that we may repent and beleeve. But again, after the last Judgement Christ stands as Mediatour, not to apply his death, nor to interceed for sinners, when there shall be no sinners, but Christ eternally shall appear for us as a paund of a perfect satisfaction once given, and as a pledge and hostage of peace, and Christs appearing for us for ever is an allusion to the Ambassadours sent by forrain Princes, who standing in Court before the Prince they are sent unto, are speaking tokens that the confederacie of peace stands, and that no acts of hostilitie can be done by either of the States, and because God is eternally and not by fits just, as if he were now angry at sin, and then satisfied and pacified when the satisfaction is gone, therefore the Lord Christ stands in that Body and Nature in which he once suffered, before God, for the acquiescing of Justice for ever in the once payed ransone. As also, Christ remains the substantiall and naturall Head (though nature be now glorified) of the Mysticall glorified body for ever, and of these members under the Covenant of Redemption eternally, though all be done and performed in regard of the purchased redemption: yet we then glorified, once brake the Law; and therefore cannot even then stand in our Law-righteousnesse, but must stand in our Lord Jesus Christs Righteousnesse, which garment shall never cast the collour nor lustre.

  1. That love to redeemed ones, and the soul satisfaction of

 

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Christ in his seed is eternall, looking back to the bargain he hath once made as Mediatour, he cannot leave off to be satisfied in soul with what he hath done, for that were a retracting of his love, and a repenting of his royall and Princely tendernesse, that as King, he once did bear to his conquered subjects whom he hath made his own for ever.

  1. The soul of God must be eternally well pleased with his Son eternally God-Man,and he stands resting in his love, Zeph.3.17. and delighting for ever in all his Sons actings and transactions in the work of Redemption, if therefore God have once given to him, God-Man, the Throne of David to raign over the house of Jacob, he must make empty that Throne, if he shall leave off to raign. And the Angel, Luk. 1. speaks of his birth and conception. 31. Thou shalt bring forth a son, and he shall be great, and the Lord God shall give unto him the Throne of his Father David, and he shall raign over the house of Jacob for ever: And he speaks of the eternity of Davids Throne over Jacobs house, so that as he shall be a man (and he shall never lay down our nature) so shall he be a King upon Davids Throne for ever and ever.
  2. To triumph eternally over enemies, the devils, Malignant opposers of his raign, sin, and hell is an act of a Mediatory King; when head and members do both triumph, no lesse then it is a part of his royall Mediatory power to crush them all, and make them his foot-stool, Psal.110. But Christand the Armies of heaven, when the Marriage-Supper of the Lamb shall come, shall ride upon white horses, and triumph over enemies for ever, Rev. 19.7,13,14,15. and the eternall living of Christ in our nature with all his, is a triumphing over the grave, and death, 1 Cor. 15. and who can prescribe a period and an end of that triumph?
  3. The River of Water of Life shewed to John,Rev. 22. proceeds out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb; then hath the slain Lamb a Throne for ever. v.3. And there shall be no more curse there: the Law of Works as threatning a curse, shall no more be there,Gal. 3.10,11,13,14. Deut. 27.26. but the Gospel blessing shall be there, and the Throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it. v.5. And they shall raign for ever and ever.
  4. If the glorified sit with the Lamb on a Throne, as he is set down

 

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with his Father upon his Throne, as is promised, Luk. 22.29,30. Rev. 3.21. If Christs Throne be removed, the Throne of the glorified cannot stand: And all alongs where the state of the triumphing Church is discribed, the Lord Jesus keeps the name of the Lamb, in reference to the Mediatory sacrifice of the Lamb of God slain for the sins of the world, Joh. 1.29. as, Rev. 5. The Beasts and the Elders stand round about the Throne,saying, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches and wisedome, &c. Rev. 7.15. Therefore are they before the Throne, and serve him night and day in his Temple, and he that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among them.They shall hunger no more, nor thirst any more.–17. For the Lamb that is in the midst of them shall lead them unto the living fountains of waters. Though this be expounded of the Church Militant, Isa. 49.10 yet it hath not its perfect accomplishment, but of the Church before the Throne: for all tears are wipt from that Church only. And whereas it is said, that Christ acts not as Mediatour in heaven, its true, he acts not as now be acteth for sinners; but even then the Lamb, v. 17. is the midst of them, and leads them, when they need neither Temple, nor Sun-light, beside that, the Lord God Almighty is their Temple, Rev. 21. The Lamb is their Temple, v.22. And the Lamb is their light, v. 23. Now what sort of leading, and what influences of worship and light comes from the Lamb is another question. And it weighs much with me, that its impossible that the precious Ark, God Man, and the union personall can be dissolved.

  1. Christsaith, I will be a God to the overcomer, and he shall inherit all things, Rev. 21. And if he be the God of Abraham, being dead, in regard of the soul that lives, far more shall he be a God in an eternall Covenant with Abraham, in soul and body glorified, though the acts of Christs raigning, and the actings of his Covenanted people must be suteable to a glorified state. Come Lord Jesus.

 

FINIS.