A47465:1013
The display of glorious grace, or, The covenant of peace opened in fourteen sermons…
The display of glorious grace, or, The covenant of peace opened in fourteen sermons lately preached, in which the errors of the present day about reconciliation and justification are detected / by Benjamin Keach.
London: printed by S. Bridge, 1698
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.
2. That this is granted only as an Act of God's Free Grace and Sovereign Goodness, through Jesus Christ: Brethren, it is not upon Condition of our doing this or that, that we procure this Blessing 'tis not, as the Promise run to the People of Israel under the first Covenant: But 'tis an absolute Promise if there is any such in all the Word of God; I will be your God, and you shall be my People. Men nor Devils, Ungodly Relations, our own evil Hearts, nor our great Unworthiness shall ever hinder us from being God's People.
3. That God's giving himself to us, is the Spring, the Cause and Reason why we become his People; we have not God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, because we are Believers, or Penitent Persons, but he first gives himself his Spirit,1 &c. God first gives himself in working of Faith (saith Reverend Cotton) before ⟨p. 242⟩Faith can be there. Therefore Faith is called,2 The Fruit of the Spirit; Man is passive in Regeneration, or in God's infusing the first Principle, Root, or Habit of Faith, and of all Grace in him.
- 1Cotton on the Cov. p. 55.
- 2Gal. 5.22.
4. This implies, that we were once not actually God's People (notwithstanding the Design and Purpose of Grace that was in his Heart concerning us;