A treatise of the covenant of grace, as it is dispensed to the elect…

I said before, God did receive Abraham and his seed into this Covenant: I mean the faithful seed; and they are received into the second sort of blessings of the Covenant, which are truly saving: for the Lord receives them into inward fellowship with his Son, so as that they shall be justified, sanctified, and glorified. But are the carnal seed then rejected? no, but they partake in many bounties of God, and grow up and live in his sight; what? in the enjoyment of outward blessings only? no, of spiritual blessings also: I, but the Lord gives them not the spiritual blessing of saving grace by the Covenant: doth he not? and why is it? not because he doth not offer it to them: but because they fall off from it upon such terms, wherein there lay no necessity upon them, that they should so fall off: Ishmael needed not have mocked Isaac; Esau needed not have sold his birthright for a mess of pottage: never let them pretend the necessity of corrupt nature; corrupt nature putteth no such necessity upon us, to sell away such blessings upon such terms. And for others that trusted in their own righteousness, had not the Lord convinced them, that it was not their own righteousness that could save them? did not David say, If thou Lord mark iniquity, Lord who shall stand? Psal. 130.3. and in thy sight shall no flesh living be justified, Psal. 143.2. so that, it is not the blindness of ⟨p. 226⟩mans nature that excuseth, but this flows from a malignant, and affected self-confidence; therefore now they are justly disinherited: for the Jews were not rejected until it was made plain to them, that their righteousness would not stand before the Lord; therefore saith the Apostle, Act. 13.46. It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken unto you; but seeing you put it from you, &c. and he had said before, They contradicted and blasphemed; and why was it necessary that the word should be spoken unto them? truly, that God might be faithful in his Covenant; for if all the children of Christian Parents, may not have liberty in the means of grace, then the Lord should be wanting to his Covenant: so that if they be Jews by nature, the Lord is bound by Covenant, that they shall not for want of means perish; nor upon such grounds as are far above the nature of creatures to reach unto: