A80637:212
A treatise of the covenant of grace, as it is dispensed to the elect…
A treatise of the covenant of grace, as it is dispensed to the elect seed, effectually unto salvation. Being the substance of divers sermons preached upon Act. 7. 8. / by that eminently holy and judicious man of God, Mr. John Cotton, teacher of the church at Boston in N.E.
London: printed by Ja. Cottrel for John Allen, 1659
THE COVENANT OF GRACE, As it is Dispensed to the Elect Seed, effect… › Part 100-150
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 the third time, at the voice of one that stood by, Mat. 26.69. &c. whereas afterward when he lived by faith, he became undaunted. Another failing of his in point of courage we read of, Gal. 2.12. He feared those of the circumcision; and whereas before he did eat with the Gentiles, when certain of the Circumcision came from James, he withdrew, and separated himself, and so dissembled, and others likewise with him, insomuch, that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. Thus the Apostle Peter's most eminent ⟨p. 115⟩gifts did not bring forth their fruits. Know therefore, that the best of all your gifts, faith, meekness, courage, wisdom, love to your brethren, will fail, if you trust in them; and you will be most apt to fail there wherein you do most excel. If a man be wise, he shall fail in that point, and it may be in nothing so much, as in that, even in those things wherein he thinketh he walketh most wisely: and such an one will find most trials in point of his wisdom; and the like will be found in all other graces, and all to this end, to teach the Israel of God to know, that no man liveth by his wisdom, nor by any thing in himself, but by faith in Jesus Christ, whom God hath given unto his people; and who is only able to give new supplies of his Spirit unto his servants to act every gift which he hath given them. I might have mentioned the example of Sarah, a meek and a quiet godly spirited woman, subject and obedient to her husband, and called him Lord; whose daughters you are while you do well, 1 Pet. 3.6. and yet you know one of her greatest failings, was in point of Reverence to her husband, Gen. 16.5. When she saw that she was despised in the eyes of her maid, whom she had given unto her husband, she said to Abraham, My wrong be upon thee, and the Lord judge between me and thee. Where is the reverence of Sarah now? Will you have the daughters of Sarah to imitate her herein? What had her husband done? There was no fault in him in this matter; she had no reason to tax him upon this point; it was her own counsel, ver. 2. that he should go in to her maid, that I may obtain children by her: ⟨p. 116⟩