Gospel reconciliation, or, Christ's trumpet of peace to the world

There is yet another Scripture for this which is very remarkable. It is in the 17. John. you shall find in that chapter many expressions to that purpose; that those that did believe in Christ were such as God the Father had given him: and you may find by divers expressions there apparently, that there was an agreement, a transaction between the Father, and the son, long before the thing was done; verse 16. I have manifested my name to the men thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word; he doth not speak merely of giving them at this time; but of Giving them to ••e son before now, for he makes that to be the ground of their belief; he ⟨p. 149⟩doth not make their givi•• ••em to him to be believing; but he makes their believing, and the keeping of the word of faith, to be a fruit of Gods giving them to his Son, the fathers giving them to his Son is the foundation of their believing, and hence it is that in time they come to believe; because God the father hath from all eternity given them to his Son: that is the argument of Christ & this indeed makes the difference between some that believe, & others that do not believe. There are some that are of mean parts, poor people, and young ones that believe in Jesus Christ, and the great mysteries of the Gospel; others that have more understanding, that are learned men, they do not believe. That which makes the difference is this: that God the father gives some to his son to reconcile, and he doth not give others: and this is the argument of Christ in that 17, John. he makes the foundation of their faith to be God the fathers giving of them to the Son. So that it is apparent in Scripture, that there hath been (before we come to believe, yea a before the world was) a transaction between the father, and the Son about our reconciliation. God was reconciling himself to the world, So that our Reconciliation with God, and the having our sins not imputed must be considered in three periods of time. The first is (if we may call that a period of time, which rather was before time) that which was from all eternity with the Son; there God was reconciling himself unto us. Secondly; when Christ came into the world, and was upon the Cross, and suffered; there was an actual imputation of the sins of all the Elect unto him, and a laying of them upon Christ;