A47489:110
The everlasting covenant, a sweet cordial for a drooping soul, or, The excellent nature…
The everlasting covenant, a sweet cordial for a drooping soul, or, The excellent nature of the covenant of grace opened in a sermon preached January the 29th, at the funeral of Mr. Henry Forty, late pastor of a Church of Christ, at Abingdon, in the county of Berks, who departed this life Jan. 25th 1692/3 and was interred at Southwark ... : to which is added, An elegy on the death of the said minister / by Benjamin Keach ...The everlasting covenant, a sweet cordial for a drooping soul, or, The excellent nature of the covenant of grace opened in a sermon preached January the 29th, at the funeral of Mr. Henry Forty, late pastor of a Church of Christ, at Abingdon, in the county of Berks, who departed this life Jan. 25th 1692/3 and was interr'd at Southwark ... : to which is added, An elegy on the death of the said minister / by Benjamine Keach ...
London: printed for H. Barnard, 1693
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Now 'tis questioned, (saith Reverend Cotton,) whether the Promise wherein the Lord giveth himself, be Absolute or Conditional? Faith to receive Christ is ever upon an Absolute Promise. If you will say, it is a Promise to a Condition, what kind of Condition was it? There is no Condition before Faith, but a Condition of Misery, a lost Condition; or if a gracious Condition, it is a Condition subsequent, not pre-existent, no Condition before it, whereby a Man can close with Christ: and if it was a Condition after Faith unto which the Promise was made, then Faith was before; and thatsoever followeth Conversion, is no ground of Faith, but a fruit and Effect of it: therefore I say, our first coming to Christ cannot be upon a Conditional, but an Absolute Promise.
Now 'tis question'd, (saith Reverend Cotton,) whether the Promise wherein the Lord giveth himself, be Absolute or Conditional? Faith to receive Christ is ever upon an Absolute Promise. If you will say, it is a Promise to a Condition, what kind of Condition was it? There is no Condition before Faith, but a Condition of Misery, a lost Condition; or if a gracious Condition, it is a Condition subsequent, not pre-existant, no Condition before it, whereby a Man can close with Christ: and if it was a Condition after Faith unto which the Promise was made, then Faith was before; and thatsoever followeth Conversion, is no ground of Faith, but a fruit and Effect of it: therefore I say, our first coming to Christ cannot be upon a Conditional, but an Absolute Promise.
And indeed (saith he) if ever the Lord minister Comfort unto any Man, true Comfort upon good grounds, it is built upon a Promise of Free Grace, […] be unto Justification received: it is true indeed, a gracious Qu•••••tion and a Promise to it, may give a good Evidence of its Aposteriore: Cotton's Treatise of the New Covenant, p. 56, 57. and again (he saith) God doth give himself in working Faith, before Faith can be there; and therefore it is the Fruit of the Spirit that Faith is wrought in the Soul, and this Faith doth receive the Presence of the Lord Jesus Christ himself by his Spirit, and doth receive also Justification and Adoption: Again (saith he) a man is passive in his Regeneration as in Generation, only the Lord giveth us his Spirit and that doth unite us unto Christ, which is received by Faith, together with Justification; and yet by the Act of Believing we are justified, also Gal. 2.26. that is manifested to be justified in our own Consciences, p. 55. thus far Mr. Cotton.