A59035:754
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.
4. They have immunity or freedom from justification by the Law, from all legal 1trials for life: Although you are not freed from the Law as it is a rule for life, yet you are freed from the Law as it is a Covenant of life; although you are not freed from the Law as it is the image of the good and holy will of God, yet because you are under the Covenant of grace, you are freed from the Law as it is a reason of salvation and justification. The Covenant of grace takes you off from that Court and that Bar which pronounceth life upon your own good works; and pronounceth death upon your own evil works; Rom. 3. 28. We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law. Gal. 3. 11. No man is justified by the Law in the sight of God, for the just shall live by faith. As the Law calls for perfect and personal righteousness of our own; so the Law will not justify you, it will not give life unto you, unless it finds that righteousness in you; you live not, if you be not perfectly righteous; absolution is pronounced upon your own perfect innocency, and condemnation is pronounced upon any defect or breach: And verily upon this account, no man living can or shall be justified; therefore here is comfort, that being in Christ, and in this Covenant of grace, ye are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses; See the Apostle, Acts 13. 39. Your life doth not lie now in your own righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ; nor doth it depend upon your own works, but upon the obedience of Christ. That expression of Luther is an excellent expression, Christus solus me justificat contra mea mala opera, & sine operibus meis bonis. Though my works have been very good, yet not those, but Christ doth justify me; and though my works have been very ill, yet the righteousness of Christ can and will justify me; my evil works shall not damn me, and my good works cannot acquit me; it is Christ, it is Christ, and not the Law which justifies me.
4. They have immunity or freedome from justification by the Law, from all legal 1tryals for life: Although you are not freed from the Law as it is a rule for life, yet you are freed from the Law as it is a Covenant of life; although you are not freed from the Law as it is the image of the good and holy will of God, yet because you are under the Covenant of grace, you are freed from the Law as it is a reason of salvation and justification. The Covenant of grace takes you off from that Court and that Bar which pronounceth life upon your own good works; and pronounceth death upon your own evil works;