A59035:1421
The bowels of tender mercy sealed in the everlasting covenant wherein is set forth…
The bowels of tender mercy sealed in the everlasting covenant wherein is set forth the nature, conditions and excellencies of it, and how a sinner should do to enter into it, and the danger of refusing this covenant-relation : also the treasures of grace, blessings, comforts, promises and privileges that are comprised in the covenant of Gods free and rich mercy made in Jesus Christ with believers / by that faithful and reverend divine, Mr Obadiah Sedgwick ... ; perfected and intended for the press, therefore corrected and lately revised by himself, and published by his own manuscript ...The bowels of tender mercy sealed in the everlasting covenant wherein is set forth the nature, conditions and excellencies of it, and how a sinner should do to enter into it, and the danger of refusing this covenant-relation : also the treasures of grace, blessings, comforts, promises and priviledges that are comprized in the covenant of Gods free and rich mercy made in Jesus Christ with believers / by that faithful and reverend divine, Mr Obadiah Sedgwick ... ; perfected and intended for the press, therefore corrected and lately revised by himself, and published by his own manuscript ...
London: printed by Edward Mottershed for Adoniram Byfield, 1661
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.
That a man may be made a child of God, and yet may become the child of the Devil; that he may be grafted into Christ, and yet may be broken off from Christ; that he may have true faith and grace, and yet he may lose true faith and grace; that he may find love and mercy from God, and yet may so sin, as actually to forfeit (and that for ever) all the love and mercy of God. Certainly this is a very sad assertion, that any person should be translated from death to life, that he should be delivered from the power of Satan, and translated into the Kingdom of Christ, that he should be effectually called, and become a believer, and thereupon a Son of God, and heir of glory; that he should for a while believe and rejoice in his God, and be sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, and yet upon a sudden (notwithstanding all the love and promises, and engagements of God unto him in Covenant) his Sun should set at noon-day, he and his God should part and be utter enemies again, that he should cast off God from being his God: and God should forsake and cast him off from being any of his people; and as it is a sad opinion, so it is an opinion utterly inconsistent with this truth of the everlastingness of the Covenant of grace. A relation which ceaseth to be, that relation is not everlasting; and that agreement or Covenant which is broken and frustrated, that Covenant is not everlasting; to be temporary, and to be everlasting, are questionless, inconsistent; neither will that evasion of a temporariness on our part, and everlastingness of the Covenant on Gods part, any way patch up the business, because there is no such Covenant of grace which God hath made with his people. Jer. 31. 31. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. Ver. 32. Not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of Egypt, which my Covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord; Mark the place, God makes no such Covenant as shall be broken on our part, but such a Covenant as shall hold and be kept on our part, as well as on his part; verse 33. But this shall be the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel;
That a man may be made a child of God, and yet may become the child of the Divel; that he may be graffed into Christ, and yet may be broken off from Christ; that he may have true faith and grace, and yet he may lose true faith and grace; that he may finde love and mercy from God, and yet may so sinne, as actually to forfeit (and that for ever) all the love and mercy of God. Certainly this is a very sad assertion, that any person should be translated from death to life, that he should be delivered from the power of Satan, and translated into the Kingdome of Christ, that he should be effectually called, and become a believer, and thereupon a Sonne of God, and heire of glory; that he should for a while believe and rejoyce in his God, and be sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, and yet upon a sudden (notwithstanding all the love and promises, and engagements of God unto him in Covenant) his Sun should set at noon-day, he and his God should part and be utter enemies again, that he should cast off God from being his God: and God should forsake and cast him off from being any of his people; and as it is a sad opinion, so it is an opinion utterly inconsistent with this truth of the everlastingnesse of the Covenant of grace. A relation which ceaseth to be, that relation is not everlasting; and that agreement or Covenant which is broken and frustrated, that Covenant is not everlasting; to be temporary, and to be everlasting, are questionlesse, inconsistent; neither will that evasion of a temporarinesse on our part, and everlastingnesse of the Covenant on Gods part, any way patch up the businesse, because there is no such Covenant of grace which God hath made with his people.