A59035:1732
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.
2. Every consent (even) towards Christ, to have him to be ours, and for us to be his, is not the consent of faith: There is a fourfold consent towards Christ which 1is not a consent flowing from Faith, and therefore never unites to Christ.
- 1A fourfold consent which is not the consent of faith. A consent for the future.
1. Consensus de futuro, as this, I do con•ent hereafter to yield up my heart to Christ that he shall be mine, and I will be his; but for the present. I cannot, or I do not close with him: This kind of consent is no other but a present dissent, in which no conjugal union doth consist; for it is only the present consent and acceptance of the person which makes up that union, and which gives propriety and interest. And thus is it in the matter twixt us and Christ; not a future purpose to have Christ, but a present acceptance of Christ makes the match between us and him: When I come to be old, and to be sick, and to dye, then I will be Christs, and then I will own and embrace him! well, but whose are you for the present? your union is where your present choice is, and where your present acceptance is.
2. Consensus involuntarius, an involuntary consent: Properly every consent is 1voluntary, but I call it involuntary, because if the will might use its own liberty with our safety, it would not consent though at present it doth. An involuntary consent I call that which a person would not yield, were he in an estate of liberty and safety; but being in a distress out of which he cannot be helped, unless he now yields, therefore he doth consent or yield: Such a consent doth many a sinner give to take Christ, and to become his, namely in some grievous