Reformation the great duty of an afflicted people. Setting forth the sin and danger…

Before I come to a more particular discoursing upon this matter, it will be requisite that I remove an Objection out of the way; Viz. It may be, and it is said by some, that these terms here proposed are Legal, and therefore not proper to be applied to us in Gospel times, who are under another Covenant, and treated by God with other manner of dispensations towards us. To which let me briefly reply, that, though there were many and great differences in the manner of Gods dispensing of Himself to his People before and after the coming of Christ in the Flesh, on the account of which diversity that is more than once called the Old Covenant, and this a New one; the former being suited to the Childish, the latter to the Virile Age of the Church, as the Apostle illustrates it in, Gal 4. begin. Among which this was one, that God then treated them more with Terrors, and now more with Promises; Children needing more of severity to be used with them, than such as are grown to years ⟨p. 7⟩of a riper understanding: whence the moral Law was revived on Mount Sinai with Thunderings and Lightnings, and amazing terrors, which put a Consternation into the People; and Moses is usually more large in the Minatory than the Promissory part of the Covenant. God also then more insisted on the External Considerations of Temporary Favours and Afflictions, whereas in the Gospel such as are Spiritual are more inculcated: yet the Covenant which God entered into with His People then, and that which He makes with us in the days of the Gospel, is, for the substance; one and the same. All the Covenants which ever God made with men, are reducible to one of these two, Viz. either the Covenant of Works, or of Grace: and it is certain, that whatsoever Transaction there hath been in a Covenant way between God and man since Adams Apostasy, is of Grace, that of Works being by the Fall, made unable any more to give Life unto man, Gal. 3. 21. and hence, though the Moral Law was renewed with this People, and Solemnly proclaimed unto them, yet it was given in the hands of a Mediator, Gal. 3. 19. and it is to be Observed, that Gods Public Transactions with any People, considered as they are a Body, referring to Mercies and Judgments, are restrained to this Life and World.

Before I come to a more particular discoursing upon this matter, it will be requisite that I remove an Objection out of the way; Viz. It may be, and it is said by some, that these terms here proposed are Legal, and therefore not proper to be applyed to us in Gospel times, who are under another Covenant, and treated by God with other manner of dispensations towards us. To which let me briefly reply, that, though there were many and great differences in the manner of Gods dispensing of Himself to his People before and after the coming of Christ in the Flesh, on the account of which diversity that is more than once called the Old Covenant, and this a New one; the former being suited to the Childish, the latter to the Virile Age of the Church, as the Apostle illustrates it in, Gal 4. begin. Among which this was one, that God then treated them more with Terrors, and now more with Promises; Children needing more of severity to be used with them, than such as are grown to years