A47489:17
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.
And thus I hasten in order to my Text, with what speed I well could. Although my House be not so with God; a little first by way of Explication: Although my House be not so with God, how is that? i. e. 'Tis not as a Morning without Clouds, nor as the tender Grass springing out of the Earth, by clear shining after Rain; for my Morning (as if he should so say) has been over-cast, dark and dismal Clouds seem to attend my Kingdom, and my Children have not hitherto been like the tender Grass springing out of the Earth, by the sweet Influences of the Sun, and distillation of Rain, but rather like the Grass that withereth away, or is cut down before its due time: I have not so walked with God, as his infinite Mercies obligeth me to do; but have had many Weaknesses and Infirmities attending me, Yet he has made with me an everlasting Covenant. Tho' I have broke Covenant with God on my part, yet God will perform his Covenant with me, my Sins (as if he should so say) he hath pardoned, his Covenant is everlasting, on his part he will keep it, and the Messiah shall come of the Fruit of my Loins, whose Kingdom shall be as a Morning without Clouds, &c. And his Covenant with me he will not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of his Mouth, see Psal. 89.32, 33, 34. He intimateth, that his House or Family, God had not made to grow, increase, or flourish with that Glory, Peace and Prosperity, as he expected; nor had he such clear Evidences of God's gracious Presences, and Communion with him in his Soul, as he might have had, had he not sinned, and grieved his Spirit; but tho' it was thus, yet he saw he was in Covenant with God, and in an everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things, for God's Glory, and for his eternal Good; and this was all his Hope, he foresaw Christ's Blessed Day, with whom this Covenant stands fast, and this was all his Desire, my Soul only hath Comfort in this Covenant, and desires to build alone upon it: For it is (saith he) all my Salvation, I expect Salvation no other ways; 'tis not a part of it, but the whole of it from First to Last;
here began my Hope, and here I stay my self, and will close my Days in the Faith of a dear Redeemer, that shall in due time be revealed, who is my Lord as well as he, shall be, according to the Flesh, my Son, or Off-spring, and this shall be