N00556:275
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.
4. Here we may read the Faithfulness of God to his own Word and Promise made to his Son; when we find our selves Converted, and made partakers in saving Grace; and so we may be led up to the true reason of our accepting of Christ, by faith in him, not to be in us, or any natural good dispositions of ours, but in the fidelity of God. If he should have let us alone to our selves, and not have sought us up and brought us home to Christ, as we should never have come to him, so we could never have accused him of falsehood; for we did not know our selves to be the Subjects of those promises, till by the effect he made it known to us. But because he had promised it, therefore he fulfilled it: and this is the reason why the Gospel which became a savour of Death to others, was made a savour of Life to us: the same means that hardened others in their sins, softened us, and brake us off from our sins, and brought us home to God; and this will help to confirm us in the assurance that the same Faithfulness will do the rest that remains to be done for us, in ⟨p. 157⟩the accomplishment of our complete Salvation.
4. Here we may read the Faithfulness of God to his own Word and Promise made to his Son; when we find our selves Converted, and made partakers in saving Grace; and so we may be led up to the true reason of our accepting of Christ, by faith in him, not to be in us, or any natural good dispositions of ours, but in the fidelity of God. If he should have let us alone to our selves, and not have sought us up and brought us home to Christ, as we should never have come to him, so we could never have accused him of falshood; for we did not know our selves to be the Subjects of those promises, till by the effect he made it known to us. But because he had promised it, therefore he fulfilled it: and this is the reason why the Gospel which became a savour of Death to others, was made a savour of Life to us: the same means that hardened others in their sins, softned us, and brake us off from our sins, and brought us home to God; and this will help to confirm us in the assurance that the same Faithfulness will do the rest that remains to be done for us, in ⟨p. 157⟩the accomplishment of our compleat Salvation.