A30345:116
A treatise of the covenant of grace wherein the gradual breakings out of Gospel…A treatise of the covenant of grace wherein the graduall breakings out of Gospel…
A treatise of the covenant of grace wherein the gradual breakings out of Gospel grace from Adam to Christ are clearly discovered, the differences betwixt the Old and New Testament are laid open, divers errors of Arminians and others are confuted, the nature of uprightness, and the way of Christ in bringing the soul into communion with himself ... are solidly handled / by that faithful servant of Jesus Christ, and minister of the Gospel, John Ball ; published by Simeon Ash.A treatise of the covenant of grace wherein the graduall breakings out of Gospel grace from Adam to Christ are clearly discovered, the differences betwixt the Old and New Testament are laid open, divers errours of Arminians and others are confuted, the nature of uprightnesse, and the way of Christ in bringing the soul into communion with himself ... are solidly handled / by that faithfull servant of Jesus Christ, and minister of the Gospel, John Ball ; published by Simeon Ash.
London: printed by G. Miller for Edward Brewster, 1645
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.
The parties who are to partake of the benefits promised, are enclosed in the woman as the Mother of the good, or rather under the former term, the woman's seed. For the word seed1 is sometimes taken for one, but often collectively, which must be judged by the circumstances of the place. Now in this Text by the woman is meant Eve, and by the seed of the woman, the posterity of the woman, those, scil. which degenerate ⟨p. 39⟩not into the seed of the Serpent, which is proved2 by the opposition of seeds there made. For as the seed of the Serpent must be taken collectively, so also the seed of the woman, that the opposition may be fit. But by the Serpents seed are meant not only venomous beasts, but wicked men. 1 Joh. 3. 12. And the enmities fore-spoken of do pertain to all the godly posterity of Eve, even from the beginning, so that the faithful who lived before the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, cannot be excluded, but they must be understood under the name of the seed. Christ peculiarly was the seed of the woman, but the faithful are comprehended under that title also; the seed of the woman is to be taken collectively, but so as it doth comprehend them only, who are not the Serpents seed, but opposite to them. Christ properly is the seed by which the Promise is to be fulfilled: the faithful are the seed to whom the Promise is made: The Promise is made to the faithful, and they are and shall be partakers of the Promise•. but Christ only is the cause of the blessing to be communicated. Christ and the faithful are comprehended under one kind of seed spiritual, not carnal: but Christ the principal, who in that seed doth so excel, that in him he doth bring all the seed of Abraham according to the Spirit unto unity; the faithful are the seed also, as they shall inherit the Promise in and through Jesus Christ.
The parties who are to partake of the benefits promised, are inclosed in the woman as the Mother of the good, or rather under the former terme, the womans seed. For the word seed1