N00556:81
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.
CHAP. 6. When this Covenant was made.
THE next enquiry is when this Covenant was made? This question seems to be here super••uous, since we have already taken notice that it was an Eternal Transaction: and being before time, it must needs also be without beginning: Jesus Christ therefore speaking of this design, saith, I was set up from Everlasting, Prov. 8.23. and for this reason it is said of him, that he was Foreordained before the Foundation of the World, 1 Pet. 1.20. It was agreed upon before time was between God the Father and the Son, that he should in time accomplish the Salvation of the Elect; but yet because, though in eternal Acts there is no succession, yet, as we before observed, there is an order, it may not be unprofitable to consider in what order this Covenant stands, and that for two reasons.
1. Because of the Sublapsarians, who though they acknowledge the Eternal ⟨p. 37⟩Predestination of men to an Everlasting State of Happiness or Misery, do yet place it in order after mans Apostasy, and build it upon that.