A47489:59
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.
Sirs, We shall find the Top Glory of the Covenant of Grace to lie here; was it not infinite Grace and Goodness that moved God to fix upon this way to redeem us, i. e. to propound, offer and accept of a Surety for us, when he might justly have exacted Satisfaction from us, the guilty Debtors and Criminals? Nay, and to choose his own Son to be our Saviour and Surety, and was it not infinite Grace in Christ to accept so readily and heartily of it: 'Tis plain, here began the Covenant of Grace, i. e. God's entering into a Covenant with his Son for us, and thus is God the Father the efficient cause of our Redemption.
Sirs, We shall find the Top Glory of the Covenant of Grace to lie here; was it not infinite Grace and Goodness that moved God to fix upon this way to redeem us, i. e. to propound, offer and accept of a Surety for us, when he might justly have exacted Satisfaction from us, the guilty Debters and Criminals? Nay, and to chuse his own Son to be our Saviour and Surety, and was it not infinite Grace in Christ to accept so readily and heartily of it: 'Tis plain, here began the Covenant of Grace, i. e. God's entering into a Covenant with his Son for us, and thus is God the Father the efficient cause of our Redemption.
2. I would know whether in the Covenant of Grace God is said to enter into Covenant with Man, simply considered as in himself; or whether 'tis not with Christ, and so in him with us; if Christ be the Surety of the Covenant of Grace, then God doth not take Christ distinct from us into Covenant with himself: and certainly, our credit was so lost and gone with God, that he would not trust us, with any Covenant-Transaction any more without a Surety, they continued not in my Covenant, and I regarded them not saith the Lord, Heb. 8.9. I would have no more to do with them in a Covenant way; therefore all the Promises of Grace are in Christ, all is managed ⟨p. 11⟩in Christ, even all the whole Will of God, concerning our Salvation; we are dead till he quickens us, blind till he opens our Eyes; have stony Hearts, and unregenerate, till he breaks our Hearts and renews us by his Spirit: and was not all this comprehended or included in that Covenant our Brethren call the Covenant of Redemption? how then can that be a distinct Covenant from the Covenant of Grace; is dead Man, vile, and depraved Man, capable to enter into a Covenant with God? and is not the quickening and changing of his Heart one great Part of the Covenant of Grace, that God promised upon Christ's Undertakings, that he would do for us, as I have showed.