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of his need of Chrift, to beat him off from believ ing on Chrift, is a dangerous device and temptation of the devil. But do thou repel it, faying, O enemy of my falvation, it is true, I do not know whether Christ represented me or not, in the eternal covenant; neither am I obliged nor concerned to know it, in order to my taking hold of that covenant: but one thing I know affuredly, namely, that the cove. nant, in the free promife of life and falvation, upon the ground of Christ's obedience and death allenarly, is held out to me, even to me, to be believed, trusted to, and refted upon, by me, even by me : and therefore I will believe, and lay hold on it; and, upon the infallible ground of the faithfulness of God in the promise, Whosoever believeth shall not perish, but have everlasting life, I will affuredly conclude, that it fhall be made out to me.

QUESTION. But are there no marks or figns whereby a poor finner may know himself to be one of thofe who were reprefented by Chrift in the fecond covenant, and whofe names he put in the bond of furetyship that he gave to his Father from eternity? ANSWER. Yea, there are; but then they are fuch, as although the having of them will prove a man to have been represented by Jefus Chrift in the eternal covenant; yet the want of them will not prove a man not to have been reprefented therein, forafinuch as what one has not now, he may come to have afterwards. And, under this limitation, I offer thefe two marks of the thing in question.

Mark 1. A deliberate and cordial complacency in the covenant. As it was with the reprefentative from eternity; fo it is in time, in that matter, with the reprefented, when once by grace they become capable of perfonal confenting: there is a deliberate and cordial complacency in the covenant being propofed, Pfalm xl. 7. Then faid I-verfe 8.-thy law is within my heart. The children of men difcover them

themfelves to be Adam's natural feed, reprefented by him in the covenant of works, by the inclination and bent of their hearts towards that covenant. There is fuch a bias to that covenant hung upon the minds of men naturally, that Do and live, or Work and win, is the religion of all natural men, fo far as they have any practical religion at all; and they cannot be brought off from it, but by the power of renewing grace. Even fo the elect of God difcover themfelves to be Chrift's fpiritual feed, reprefented by him in the covenant of grace, by their deliberate and cordial complacency in this covenant. The heart touched with divine grace, fays of it, This is all my fal vation, and all my defire, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. The new bias hung on their minds by renewing grace, carries them to a hearty approbation, relifh, and lik ing of the new covenant held forth in the gofpel; they are well pleafed with the parties-contractors, the reprefentative and the reprefentation in it; the conditions and promifes of it; the adminiftrator, the adminiftration, and order thereof. In a word, the covenant is in their eyes a faultlefs contrivance; there is nothing in it they would have out, and there is nothing out of it they would have in. So there they caft anchor for their own fouls. But it is not fo with others: 1 Pet. ii. 7. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be difobedient, the ftone which the builders difallowed, the fame is made the head of the corner; ver. 8. and a ftone of ftumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which ftumble at the word, being difobedient, whereunto alfo they were appointed.

Mark 2. The image of Chrift begun to be drawn on the foul, together with a longing for the perfecting thereof; 1 Cor. xv. 48. As is the heavenly, fuch are they alfo that are heavenly. Ver. 49. And as we have born the image of the earthy, we fhall alfo bear the image of the heavenly. Likeas all whom Adam

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represented, when he entered into the covenant of works in paradife, do afterwards, every one in his time, perfonate Adam, looking as like him as ever child was like a father, acting even as he acted, as I fhewed elsewhere: fo all whom Chrift reprefented in the covenant of grace from eternity, do in time put on Chrift, Gal. iii. 27. perfonating him, and reprefenting him in another fenfe, namely, bearing his image, and walking even as he walked, 1 John ii. 6. It is a promise of the covenant to our Lord Jefus, Ifa. liii. 10. He fhall fee his feed, to wit, as one fees a new born babe. But do not others fo fee them too? Yea, indeed they do. Satan and wicked men see them, as rebels and traitors do with grudge and hatred fee a new born prince heir to the crown. The godly fee them, as in that cafe the princeffes do with a particular fatisfaction fee their new born brother. But our Lord Jesus Christ himfelf fees them, as the king, the father of the babe, does with a peculiar fatisfaction fee him as his own fon, and his own picture. Mean while, as Adam's children do not open out all at once what of old Adam is in them, but by degrees as they grow up; but they are still longing for the perfection thereof, when they shall be grown men fo Chrift's children are but imperfect in this life, as in the ftate of childhood; but they are longing to arrive at perfection, at the measure of the ftature of the fulness of Chrift, the principle of which they have in them, Eph. iv. 13.

Thus far of the first head, the Parties in the covenant of grace.

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The MAKING of the Covenant of Grace.

Aving confidered the parties in the covenant
of
grace, we come now to take a view of

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the making of that covenant betwixt the parties contracting therein. And here we find ourselves at the fountain-head of the falvation of loft finners, the origin and rife of the glorious plan, laid from eternity in the fecret council of the ever-bleffed Trinity, for remedy of man's mifery. And this is a manifold myftery, the feveral folds of which we are not able fully to difcover. With God it was all one piece, if I may fo phrase it; for with him all things are together and at once; and not one thing before, and another after, as with us. Howbeit, we cannot conceive of it but in parcels; firft one piece of the mystery, and then another; and that because of the weakness of our capacity, as we are creatures and much more, as we are creatures under fpiritual darkness. Wherefore we muft of neceffity addrefs ourselves to the confideration of it in parcels; but ftill remembering we are in the eternal mystery, tranfacted in the eternal decree of the holy Trinity all at once, by one eternal act of the divine will: in which, neverthe lefs, we are allowed to conceive a certain order, fince otherwife we cannot take up the mystery.

We have already feen, that the Father, the partycontractor on Heaven's fide, is in that matter to be confidered as an offended; but purpofing to manifeft the glory of his mercy in the falvation of fome of mankind loft; yet withal as a juft God, who cannot but give fin a juft recompence: and alfo, that Jefus Chrift, the party-contractor on man's fide, is to be confidered therein as the laft or fecond Adam, reprefentative of a feed. Wherefore, firft of all, we are to enquire, How Chrift the Son of God became fecond Adam? and then, How the covenant was made with him as fuch? the former being as it were preliminary to the latter.

First, How Chrift the Son of God became fecond Adam? This we may take up in two things. 1.The Father willed and defigned, that his own D 2

Son

Son, the eternal Word, fhould, for the purpose of mercy toward mankind loft, take on their nature, and become man. He faw that facrifice and offering would not answer the cafe; the debt was greater than to be paid at that rate; the redemption of fouls could not be managed but by a perfon of infinite dignity; wherefore, having purposed that the darling attribute of mercy fhould be illuftrated in the cafe of loft mankind, he willed the human nature to be united in time to the divine nature, in the perfon of the Son.

And hereunto the Son, as the eternal Word, the fecond Perfon of the glorious Trinity, having no nearer relation to man than as his Sovereign Lord Creator, readily agreed: Heb. x. 5. Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me. -Verfe 7. Then faid I, Lo, I come (in the vo lume of thy book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God. The eternal Word confented to be made flesh, that all flesh might not perish: he confented to become man, to take into a personal union with himfelf a human nature, to wit, a true body and a reafonable foul, according to the eternal destination of his Father. This was an inftance of amazing condefcenfion. The highest monarch's confent to lay afide his robes of majesty, to clothe himself with rags, and become a beggar, is not to be compared with it. Nay the highest angel's consent to become a worm, is not to be named in one day with the eternal Son of God, the Father's Equal, his confenting to become man: for the distance between the divine nature and the human is infinite; whereas the distance between the angelic nature, and the nature of worms of the earth, is but finite.

Now, the effect of this was, that hereby the Son of God was conftituted fubftantial Mediator, or Mediator in refpect of nature, between God and man. Being from eternity God equal with the Fa

ther,

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