N00556:227
The doctrine of the covenant of redemption. Wherein is laid the foundation of all…
The doctrine of the covenant of redemption. Wherein is laid the foundation of all our hopes and happiness. Briefly opened and improved. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Three lines from Psalms]
Boston: printed by Benj. Harris over against the Old-Meeting-House, 1693
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.
1. That those Promises are not of Universal Application. They do not engage God to all men universally: they are not made to Sinners as Sinners; i. e. none can challenge the application of them to themselves on that account, or for this reason, because they are Sinners. But they are confined to the Election of God, or to those who are comprehended in the Covenant of Redemption; and they only do obtain them, Rom. 11.7. The Election hath obtained. It is not for every one that reads these Promises, to confide and lot upon it, that they are made unto him, and to take them to be the ground of his Faith, and to conclude that by virtue of them, he shall be Saved. God only knows whom they belong to, before such time as there is a particular application made of them by his Spirit, Rom. 9.6.
1. That those Promises are not of Universal Application. They do not engage God to all men universally: they are not made to Sinners as Sinners; i. e. none can challenge the application of them to themselves on that account, or for this reason, because they are Sinners. But they are confined to the Election of God, or to those who are comprehended in the Covenant of Redemption; and they only do obtain them, Rom. 11.7. The Election hath obtained. It is not for every one that reads these Promises, to confide and lot upon it, that they are made unto him, and to take them to be the ground of his Faith, and to conclude that by vertue of them, he shall be Saved. God only knows whom they belong to, before such time as there is a particular application made of them by his Spirit, Rom. 9.6.
2. That no man can challenge thes• Promises as his own, till he be brought under the Covenant of Grace, and the Conditions of it are wrought in him. These Promises do not discover any other way of Salvation unto men, than that which is Revealed in the Gospel