A80637:316
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 150-200
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.
It is not a Divine Testimony, Answ. unless the Spirit of God bear witness in and by it: for are not the heavens and the earth Divine works, which the power of the creature cannot reach unto? all are Divine works, even to the least hairs of our head; for we cannot make one of them, white or black: and yet an argument from the creature is no Divine Testimony, unless the Spirit of God set it home: if it be from the least work, when the Spirit of of God beareth witness in it, there is a powerful Testimony: the Magicians of Egypt do profess, when Moses brought the Plague of Lice, that it was the finger of God; when as in greater works they did not acknowledge it, but thought they could do the like: and what was the reason that they were confounded in the Lice? truly, because the Spirit of God would on purpose breath in that work to confound them in so mean a creature: all which showeth us thus much, that it is not in the power of Divine works, though they be never so immediate, that are able to work Divine faith in us, unless the Holy Ghost breathe in them; and then, though it were but some creeping work, or word, it would breathe a strong testimony to some former work of God: so that it is the Spirit of God, that doth make Divine Testimony both in heaven, and in earth; otherwise howsoever the judgement may be ⟨p. 190⟩by some means convinced, yet a lively faith will not be wrought. To speak something unto particulars: the Father beareth witness, and the Son beareth witness of himself, and many great works which He wrought bear witness of him all his life long. Take you now the Father's work, which is to draw the soul unto Christ, through a spirit of bondage to make us sensible of our need of him; for every man that hath heard and learned of the Father comes unto Christ, Joh. 6.44. and no man can come unto Christ, except the Father draw him: so Mat. 16.17. Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven: so Gal. 1.15, 16. When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me; now though these be the work and witness of the Father, yet doth he not work them immediately, but by his Spirit, as he saith expressly, 1 Cor. 2.9, 10