A30345:471
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.
And may we not argue more probably, that seeing they are exhorted to take heed to the things they had heard, therefore salvation had been preached unto them, and in some sort received by them. God so 1loved the world (as we read in the Evangelist) that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into ⟨p. 210⟩the world to condemn the world: but that the world through him 2might be saved. And, I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. Here the motive from which the gift of Christ is derived is3 common love. The word World cannot be taken for the elect only: for then it will be as if it had bin said, God so loved the elect, that he gave his only Son, that whosoever of them believed in him should not perish. The world that Christ came to save, was that world into which he came; and that comprehended both believers and unbelievers: and in the same place, it is divided into them that shall be saved, and them that shall be damned: and there should be no force of reasoning in the latter place, if the world did not comprehend unbelievers under it. Thus these passages are urged for universal redemption. But the principal texts speak plainly4 of the days of grace, when God sent his Son into the world, and when according to the prophesies and promises made before, the Gentiles were to be called to the faith, added to the Church, and received into Covenant. And the world is taken communiter & indefinitè, for the world, as it is opposed to the Jewish Nation alone, not universaliter pro singulis, for every man in the world of what time or age soever, or of this time in special. The sense then is, In the fullness of time, God manifested so great love unto the world of Jew and Gentile, not of the Jew alone, That he gave his only begotten Son, and in the Ministry of the Gospel, seriously invited them to believe, and entered into Covenant to bestow life and happiness upon condition of their unfeigned faith on Jesus Christ. As God loved Israel, whom he chose to be his peculiar people under the old Testament: so in the times of grace he extended his love to the world of Jew and Gentile.