N00556:42
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
Chapter 3: Scripture Evidence that there is such a Covenant of Redemption.
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. Gods ultimate end in this Design, being the advancement of the glory of his Grace; hence by a wise and blameless Counsel, he ordered the permission of man to fall into such a State of Misery, as to put him into an absolute need of a Redeemer. That mans Fall came within the compass of the Decree, must needs be concluded, except we will assert some things to come to pass against or beside Gods Will; which is to deny his actual Supremacy over the whole Creation; or how is that Eph. 1.11. true? Man therefore had not Fallen, if he had not purposed to permit it; In which he acted ⟨p. 14⟩his holy Sovereignty beyond the capacity of any Impeachment by the Creature. His spotless Holiness so ordered it, that no Iniquity could be laid to his Charge on this account, Psal. 141.17. That the glory of his Grace was the end of this, so far as his Elect were involved in it, herein appears, because he took the occasion from hence, for the Illustration of that precious Attribute, Rom. 5.20. and but for it the whole concern of Gospel Grace had been excluded; and that this Fall of Man put him into an absolute need of a Redeemer is manifest, both from the rigour of the Law, exacting death of all its Transgressors, without any abatement, Ezek. 18.4. Matth. 5.17. the utter impotency of man, by the deadly influence of the Apostasy, to do any thing towards his own delivery, being left by it without strength, Rom. 5.6. and the dreadfulness of the misery which he was under the efficacy of, and must undergo, if there were no Redemption for him, Rom. 6.23. either he must perish with an Everlasting Destruction, or there must be a powerful Redemption laid in for him. This is the fearful condition in which this whole Race is involved.
3. Gods ultimate end in this Design, being the advancement of the glory of his Grace; hence by a wise and blameless Counsel, he ordered the permission of man to fall into such a State of Misery, as to put him into an absolute need of a Redeemer. That mans Fall came within the compass of the Decree, must needs be concluded, except we will assert some things to come to pass against or beside Gods Will; which is to deny his actual Supremacy over the whole Creation; or how is that