A30345:715
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.
Seventhly, This preparation is neither saving grace, nor a thing between nature and grace, done by the external aide of the Spirit. It is not saving grace, because it is that, whereby God is pleased to bring us to Christ, and not that, whereby we are renewed to believe, or engrafted into Christ. Nor a thing between nature and grace; as if the Spirit without any habit of grace, did lift us up to the supernatural acts of belief, hope, love: for then we should be-lifted up to acts of life without the habit, which is to make a blind man see without sight, and to make us bear good fruit without sap, or before we be good trees.
Seventhly, This preparation is neither saving grace, nor a thing between nature and grace, done by the externall aide of the Spirit. It is not saving grace, because it is that, whereby God is pleased to bring us to Christ, and not that, whereby we are renewed to believe, or engraffed into Christ. Nor a thing between nature and grace; as if the Spirit without any habit of grace, did lift us up to the supernaturall acts of beliefe, hope, love: for then we should be-lifted up to acts of life without the habit, which is to make a blinde man see without sight, and to make us bear good fruit without sap, or before we be good trees.
Eighthly, These things may dispose us to faith, but not to justification immediately: because the smart of the wound may provoke to seek a plaster, but serveth not to the curing of it. Justification ⟨p. 340⟩is of the free grace of God through the blood of Jesus Christ, and not through any habit of grace infused into us: much less through fear of hell, or initial hope, or desire, or such like.
Eighthly, These things may dispose us to faith, but not to justification immediately: because the smart of the wound may provoke to seeke a plaister, but serveth not to the curing of it. Justification ⟨p. 340⟩is of the free grace of God through the bloud of Jesus Christ, and not through any habit of grace infused into us: much lesse through feare of hell, or initiall hope, or desire, or such like.