A80637:238
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.
3. The third Act or work of God the Father which followeth both these: So soon as ever the Lord hath given this self-denying spirit unto the soul, and hath made it like unto a bruised reed, or like a Traveller that is out of his way, and willing to take any man by the hand that will lead him into his way again; when the soul is in such a frame, now God the Father cometh by a third work of actual reconcilement: The first work, was of conviction: The second, was a work of subjection: And the third, of reconciliation. This is the third work of the Father: though there is in all these works a concurrence of the whole Trinity, yet some are more proper unto each person, as our Catechisms teach us, and we are not wont to scruple such expressions in them. God the Father created us; and we cannot expound it, but as God the Father created us at the first, so he doth again create you, or else if we acknowledge it in the one, and not in the other, we do God the Father wrong. Well, he is then reconciled unto us, having given us the Spirit of his Son, and now he doth pronounce us reconciled unto him: this is the work which is spoken of, Rom. 5.10. When we were enemies, we were reconciled unto God, by the death of his Son. And this is the work of God the Father, according to that which is before alleged, 2 Cor. 5.19. God was in Christ reconciling the world, &c. now there are two acts of God, as fruits that follow hereupon, and both of them done at once upon the soul.
3. The third Act or work of God the Father which followeth both these: So soon as ever the Lord hath given this self-denying spirit unto the soul, and hath made it like unto a bruised reed, or like a Traveller that is out of his way, and willing to take any man by the hand that will lead him into his way again; when the soul is in such a frame, now God the Father cometh by a third work of actual reconcilement: The first work, was of conviction: The second, was a work of subjection: And the third, of reconciliation. This is the third work of the Father: though there is in all these works a concurrence of the whole Trinity, yet some are more proper unto each person, as our Catechisms teach us, and we are not wont to scruple such expressions in them. God the Father created us; and we cannot expound it, but as God the Father created us at the first, so he doth again create you, or else if we acknowledge it in the one, and not in the other, we do God the Father wrong. Well, he is then reconciled unto us, having given us the Spirit of his Son, and now he doth pronounce us reconciled unto him: this is the work which is spoken of,