A09990:484
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
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.
that even as you see the Sun, when it applies its beams to a fitly disposed matter, and stays upon it, when it pitcheth its beams upon it with any continuance, it begins to beget life and motion in it, and makes it a living creature: so doth the Covenant of Grace, when it is applied to the heart of a man, it begins to beget life in him, and to make him a new creature, it makes him another man: there is that power in the Covenant of Grace, in the promises of the pardon and forgiveness of sins, that it begets another life in a man, it makes him a new creature, it makes him a living creature to GOD, which before he was not; the ground of which you shall see, 2 Cor. 3. 6.1 He hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Mark it, the meaning of it is this, when the Covenant of works is delivered to you, that is, when you hear the Law, the Commands, the duty you cannot perform, there is no more delivered to you but the bare letter, that is, you know the duty, and no more. And what doth this duty do? what ⟨p. 98⟩do these Commandments and precepts do, when they are applied to the heart of man? Saith he, they kill. Now that which kills, fights before it kills, and that which fights must needs be an enemy: so then the Commandment is an Enemy, that is, every man esteems it as an enemy to himself, and therefore hath an enemy-like affection to it again; that is, he hates it, he would be rid of it, he wisheth there were no such Law or Commandment, he desires it should be dealt with as he would have an enemy dealt with, he would have it utterly taken away; when they grow in enmity one with another, as indeed they do, the naked Commandment and the heart are at enmity: for the Commandment would have one thing, and the heart would have another; there are contrary wills, and there is a striving between them, the one striving this way, the other that way, the one resisting the other, and in the end, the Law and the Commandment gets the victory; because the sting of the Law is sin: now the Law is the cause of sin, as a straight Rule is the cause of crookedness; for without the Law there should be no sin: now it causeth sin; for if there were no Law, you know there could be no fear, no transgression;