A30345:610
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.
Sundry answers are made to this doubt. Some say his suffering for a time was more then if all man-kind had suffered eternally, in respect of the excellency of his person. But the worth and excellency of his person, was neither to dispense with time, nor grievousness of his punishments, but to make the passion of one available for many. Otherwise if it might have dispensed with one degree of extremity of punishment due to sin, it might also have dispensed with two, and consequently with all.
Sundry answers are made to this doubt. Some say his suffering for a time was more then if all man-kind had suffered eternally, in respect of the excellency of his person. But the worth and excellency of his person, was neither to dispence with time, nor grievousnesse of his punishments, but to make the passion of one availeable for many. Otherwise if it might have dispensed with one degree of extremity of punishment due to sin, it might also have dispensed with two, and consequently with all.
Others answer, that the punishments of sin eternally remaining, must according to the rules of divine justice, be eternal: but it is no way necessary, neither doth the justice of God require, that the punishments of sin repented of, ceasing and forsaken, should be everlasting. For as Divines note, there are three things to be considered in sin; the aversion from an infinite and incommutable good; the inordinate conversion to a finite good, and the continuing in the same, or ceasing from it: and to these several things in sin, there are three several things answering in the punishment of it. For to the aversion, which is objectively infinite, there answereth the loss of God, which is an infinite loss. To the inordinate conversion of the sinner to things transitory, there answereth a sensible smart and grief intensively finite, as the pleasure the sinner taketh in the transitory things he inordinately loveth is finite. To the eternity of sin remaining everlastingly in stain or guilt, or continuance of it for a time, answereth the eternity of punishment, or the suffering of the same, but for a time. Now our Saviour Christ suffered only for those sins, which he meant to break off by framing the sinners to repentance, and therefore it was no way necessary for the satisfying of divine justice, that he should endure eternal punishment.