The doctrine of the covenant of redemption. Wherein is laid the foundation of all…

1 If faith in Jesus Christ were only propounded in the Covenant of Grace, for our Justification, we could not possibly reconcile the Law and Grace, if there were no farther discovery made of the reason and ground of this. If God had not stood engaged in the first Covenant to the terms of it, and his Holiness and Justice been concerned in that engagement, it had not been so hard to understand how he might acquit the sinner by bestowing of a Free Pardon upon him, and there would have been no need for us to look any farther than to Grace in it, supposing it consistent with Sovereign Holiness thus to have done. But when we remember that there was such a Covenant, and that both Gods Holiness and Justice, and truth were deeply concerned in it, to see to the complete performance of it, and that therefore the breach of it must be satisfied for, or else there can be no pardon ⟨p. 130⟩or acquittance given; how shall we take up satisfied in such an Offer, until we see how or in what way this satisfaction can be made? and when we are Convinced, that neither our Faith nor Obedience can be Meritorious, or answer the Demands of the Law, we must needs look yet farther?

1 If faith in Jesus Christ were only propounded in the Covenant of Grace, for our Justification, we could not possibly reconcile the Law and Grace, if there were no farther discovery made of the reason and ground of this. If God had not stood ingaged in the first Covenant to the terms of it, and his Holiness and Justice been concerned in that engagement, it had not been so hard to understand how he might acquit the sinner by bestowing of a Free Pardon upon him, and there would have been no need for us to look any farther than to Grace in it, supposing it consistent with Sovereign Holiness thus to have done. But when we remember that there was such a Covenant, and that both Gods Holiness and Justice, and truth were deeply concerned in it, to see to the compleat performance of it, and that therfore the breach of it must be satisfied for, or else there can be no pardon ⟨p. 130⟩or acquittance given; how shall we take up satisfied in such an Offer, until we see how or in what way this satisfaction can be made? and when we are Convinced, that neither our Faith nor Obedience can be Meritorious, or answer the Demands of the Law, we must needs look yet farther?