A09990:46
The new covenantThe nevv covenant
The new covenant, or the saints portion A treatise unfolding the all-sufficiency of God, and mans uprightness, and the covenant of grace. delivered in fourteen sermons upon Gen. 17. 1. 2. Whereunto are adjoined four sermons upon Eccles. 9.1. 2. 11. 12. By the late faithful and worthy minister of Jesus Christ John Preston. Dr. in Divinity, chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, master of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolns Inn.The nevv covenant, or the saints portion A treatise vnfolding the all-sufficiencie of God, and mans uprightnes, and the covenant of grace. delivered in fourteene sermons vpon Gen. 17. 1. 2. Wherevnto are adioyned foure sermons vpon Eccles. 9.1. 2. 11. 12. By the late faithfull and worthie minister of Iesus Christ Iohn Preston. Dr. in Divinitie, chaplaine in ordinary to his Maiestie, maister of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolnes Inne.
London: printed by I. Dawson for Nicolas Bourne, 1629
Part › Sermon 1: OF GODS ALL-SUFFICIENCY.Part › Sermon 1: OF GODS ALL-SVFFICIENCY.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
First consider that all that is in the creature,1 all the comforts, all the excellency, all the beauty that is to be found in them, it is but borrowed, and derived: God is the primitive, he is the original, he is the first, the universal cause, the general cause of all: hence we gather this, that there is an All-sufficiency in him, and in him only, he is All-sufficient exclusively: so that no creature hath any sufficiency at all in it self: for (Beloved) you must know, that the creature adds nothing at all to his sufficiency, but all sufficiency is comprehended in him; for if they be all derived and borrowed things, then they are in the creature, but as far as it pleaseth him to communicate the ⟨p. 28⟩same to them: now that it is so, see Jer. 2. 13.2 My people (saith the Lord) have committed two evils, they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and (secondly) have digged to themselves pits that hold no water: Where we may briefly observe: First, that God is the spring, from whom all comforts come originally, the pits, you know, have the water, but borrowed and derived from the fountain; secondly, there is something in this, that he calleth them pits, that is, the comfort in the creature is a mixed comfort, it is like water in a pit, it is muddy, and not pure and clear, like the water in the fountain: That is, the comfort that comes merely from the creature (if you receive any comfort in the creature, and Gods hand be not in it) it is alway mixed with some sorrow, with some evil, but if it come from the Lord, it is a pure comfort: he gives riches, and no sorrow with them, Thirdly, the comfort that is in the creature, it is but a dead comfort, compared to that which is in the Lord, and therefore he is said to be a fountain of living water, that is, running water. The comfort that is in the creature, it is able to do little, it is quickly spent, and when it is spent, there is no more in it: but the comfort that is in God, it is like water that cometh out of the spring, which is still renewed from day to day, and therefore it is called living water, there is no end of it, but still it flows more and more. Last of all, they are broken pits that cannot hold the comfort that they have, thought there be comfort, yet it is like liquor in a brittle glass, that is not