A30345:560
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.
CHAP. III. How Christ hath fulfilled the office of Mediator, or how he is the Mediator of the New Testament.
CHAP. III. How Christ hath fulfilled the office of Mediatour, or how he is the Mediatour of the New Testament.
IN the fullness of time, the eternal Son of God, took unto him our nature, and became God and Man in one person, that he might be an equal middle person between God and man. The necessity of a Mediator appears in this, that man is guilty, and God true and righteous; If man had continued in his integrity, he had stood in no need of an expiation: if God had been unrighteous in the passages of mans sin, there had been due unto him no just debt of satisfaction. But seeing man created good but mutable, did willingly and by voluntary choice transgress that Law, under the precepts whereof he was most justly created, and unto the malediction whereof he was as necessarily and righteously subject if he transgressed: and God was purposed not to suffer sin to pass utterly unrevenged, because of his great hatred thereunto, and of his truth and the Law which he had established against it: of necessity either God must execute the severity of his Law, whereby the creature should everlastingly loose the fruition of him, and he should likewise loose the service and voluntary subjection of his creature, or some course or other must be found out to translate this mans sins on another's person, who may be able to bear them, and to interest this mans person in that others righteousness, which may be able to cover him. Of necessity a Mediator must be found out to stand between God and man, who must have one unto whom, and others for whom and in whose behalf, and somewhat wherewith to make satisfaction to offended justice: In regard of God towards man he must be an officer to declare his righteousness, and in regard of man toward God a surety ready to procure pardon and deliverance, not by favour or request, but by way of satisfaction. He must be one with us in the fellowship of our nature, passions, infirmities ⟨p. 265⟩and temptations, that so he might the more readily suffer for us, who in so many things suffered with us: and one with God the Father in his divine nature, that so by the virtue of his sufferings and resurrection he might be able both to satisfy justice, to justify our persons, to sanctify our nature, to purify and perfume our services, to raise our dead bodies, and to present us to his Father a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle. He must be man pure and undefiled;