Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulness of sin. The life…Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life…

But to return to that from whence I have digressed. Manifest it is that God will do more for the magnifying of his mercy, then •or the multiplying of his wrath, because to be merciful he will new publish the Law, which for enlarging his judgements he would not have done; but would have left men unto that reign of sin & death which was in the world between Adam and Moses. Notabl• to this purpose is that place which I have before […] touched, and shall now […] again more particularly to unfold, with submission of my judgement therein unto the better learned. It i• Gal. 3. beginning at the 15. vers.▪ Brethren I speak-after the mann•r of men: though it be but a mans covenant, yet if it b• c•firmed, no man dis•ulleth or addeth thereto.▪ The Apostle before mentioned the covenant of Promise and Grace made to Abraham, and in him as well to the Gentiles as to the •ewes; unto which the consideration of the Laws insufficiency to justify, and by consequence to Bless, had led him. In these words he doth by an Allusion unto ⟨p. 375⟩humane contracts prove the fixedness and stability of the Covenant of mercy even from the courses of mutable men. If one man make a grant, and covenant to another, do gross, sign, seal, take witnesses, and deliver it to the o•her for his benefit and behoof, it becomes altogether irreversible and uncancellable by the man which did it. If a man make a Testament, and then die, even amongst weak and mutable men it is counted sacred; and impiety it is for any man to add, diminish, or alter it. But now, saith the Apostle, God is infinite in wisdom to foresee all inconveniences, and evil consequences which would follow upon any covenant of his, and so if need be to prevent the making of it. Things future in their execution and issuing out of second causes, are yet all present to the intuition of God; and so any thing which might after happen to disannul, or void the covenant, was present and evident to his Omniscience before, and therefore would then have prevented the making of it. If then men, whose wills are mutable, whose wisdoms may miscarry, who may repent and be willing to revoke their own covenants again, do by their hand, seal, and delivery disable themselves to disannul their own act, when it is once past: