Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shown the connection…Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shewn the connexion…

2. That Christ in fulfilling for his People all the good which respects the Means, bears a constant eye to, and aim at the end: The sum and substance of the business lying on his hands, is, to bring his own to be there where He is, John. 17.24. To bring many Sons to Glory, Heb, 2.10. And if he do this, he hath accomplished that part of the Covenant in which God stands engaged to us, and for which he is his Father's Surety. If a Believer be brought safe to heaven, be it by what means soever, he hath no ground to complain that God hath not fulfilled the whole Promise for him: If the means fail not of reaching to the end, God is no Covenant-breaker, though we (through darkness and diffidency may) sometime be ready to say as David, Doth His Promise fail for evermore?

2. That Christ in fulfilling for his People all the good which respects the Means, bears a constant eye to, and aim at the end: The summe and substance of the business lying on his hands, is, to bring his own to be there where He is, John. 17.24. To bring many Sons to Glory, Heb, 2.10. And if he do this, he hath accomplished that part of the Covenant in which God stands engaged to us, and for which he is his Father's Surety. If a Beleever be brought safe to heaven, be it by what means soever, he hath no ground to complain that God hath not fulfilled the whole Promise for him: If the means fail not of reaching to the end, God is no Covenant-breaker, though we (through darkness and diffidency may) sometime be ready to say as David, Doth His Promise fail for evermore?

3. Hence, Christ reserves a great latitude in his dispensation of temporal good to us. The Blessings of this Life (having no other consideration in the Condition ⟨p. 48⟩required of us, then a faithful improvement of them so far as God shall bestow them upon us, and a contented wanting them when He withholds them from us) may be variously dispensed to us without any infringement of the Promise. It is not necessary to our being brought unto Glory that we be thus or so rich, healthy, abounding in Creature Comforts, &c. Poverty, Disgrace, Sickness, &c, will be no objection against any one in the great day, why they may not enter and possess the Kingdom. Again, abundance of these things, is often to fallen Man an occasion of many temptations, to forget God and Glory, to neglect his Work and Duty, and thereby would obstruct his main end, if God in Wisdom did not prevent. Furthermore, it is not absolutely necessary that a Believer should have any of these things, only hypothetically. Christ can take them hence to Glory when He sees meet. Hence though, when God gives us any of these things, it is our duty to accept and improve them as Covenant-Mercies; yet, when he withholds them, we have no reason, either to think our selves therefore strangers from the Covenant, or him to have forgotten what he hath promised; much less when we find a great deal of outward bitterness in the enjoyment of them: For Christ hath tacked a cross to this part of the Promise,