A30345:137
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 Head upon whom this Covenant is settled, both as Undertaker and Confirmer, Purchaser and Treasurer of all good things promised therein, is Jesus Christ: which is more fully expressed ⟨p. 49⟩and often repeated in this second breaking forth of the Covenant. Gen. 17. 3, 4. and 18. 18. and 22. 18. In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed: which cannot be understood of the seed collectively but singularly, scil. of Christ, as the Apostle expressly proveth, saying, Now to Abraham and his seed was the promise 1made, he saith not to the seeds, as speaking of many, but of one who is Christ. But we must not conceive the Apostles argument to be taken from the Grammatical use of the word-Seed: for that is often put collectively in the singular number: but from the quality of the blessings there promised, which could not be accomplished in any other but in Christ alone. And this is evidently holden out to be the literal sense in other places. Acts 3. 24, 25. But where shall we find mention of the passion of Christ in this expressure of the Covenant unto Abraham, which in the first manifestation was clouded in the phrase of bruising his heel: and is essential to the Covenant of Grace in any overture of it, as containing the price and ransom by which all hinderances are removed, as the Apostle saith, Christ was made a curse for us, that the blessing of 2Abraham might come on the Gentiles. Some answer, that this is thrice put on in the passage of this Covenant with Abraham; first, in the federal confirmation by the figments with the smoking furnace, and burning lamps, which passed between those pieces, Gen. 15. 8, 9, 17. which howsoever it typified the dividing of Abraham's seed in Egypt with their fiery labours and sorrows: yet primarily the type expresseth the torment and rending of Christ Abraham his prime seed, and by the furnace and fiery lamp, the wrath of God that runneth betwixt, and yet did not consume the rent and torn nature. Secondly, they conceive this perpession of Christ was expressed in the blood of the Circumcision.