N00263:156
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…
Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shown the connection which there is between the promise, on God's part; and duty, on our part, in the covenant of grace: as it was delivered in several sermons, preached in order to solemn renewing of covenant. / By Samuel Willard teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Seven lines from Deuteronomy]Covenant-keeping the way to blessedness, or, A brief discourse wherein is shewn the connexion which there is between the promise, on God's part; and duty, on our part, in the covenant of grace: as it was delivered in several sermons, preached in order to solemn renewing of covenant. / By Samuel Willard teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Seven lines from Deuteronomy]
printed by James Glen, 1682
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. Though it is in no ways to be denied that every true Believer is under a firm Promise, which God will never Repent of, and hath therefore in him a certain evidence of his Salvation, which God, that cannot lye hath promised to bestow upon him, and hath also an undertaking Surety, viz. Jesus Christ, who will certainly bring him unto Glory, yet in some respect the Promise may be looked upon as Conditional to such an one, viz.
3. Though it is in no wayes to be denyed that every true Beleever is under a firm Promise, which God will never Repent of, and hath therefore in him a certain evidence of his Salvation, which God, that cannot lye hath promised to bestow upon him, and hath also an undertaking Surety, viz. Jesus Christ, who will certainly bring him unto Glory, yet in some respect the Promise may be lookt upon as Conditionall to such an one, viz.
1. If he have a grounded and apprehended assurance of his Title to the Promise, he hath gained, and doth keep it by discerning and apprehending of the Condition wrought in him: If he knows that these Mercies are his, he first knows this, that he is (by Grace) made such an one as they do belong to by Promise. To make the Promise it self to be an evidence of our interest in the Promise, What is it else but to make the question it self the third argument by which it is proved? Then which way of arguing what can be more foolish and ridiculous? if it be known, it must be known by the Condition: So the Apostle John argues, 1 Joh. 3.14.
2. Upon supposition (for we may suppose things that never shall be) that a true Believer might fall from the Condition of the Covenant totally and finally, it is certain he should lose, or miss of Salvation, and not inherit those everlasting Mercies,