11 'The Parties in the · Integrity, if they would. Thus, from etern1ty, the eo• vena,nt ofworks in all the parts and appurtenance9 thereof, Jay before the eternal Mind; rho' being mad11 with a meer man, it could not actually be entred in· ', to, till once ~an was created .Bu.t, ' known unto Goi are all his works from the beginni~g ,of the world,' ~a~ xv. 18. 2 . He decreed aHo horn eternity, to per· . mit the lirfi man, the reprefentative of the whole fa– mily, to fall, and fo to break the coven:lnt, and in– volve himfelf and all his pofterity in ruins. It is evi– dent fi·om the fpotlefs holinefs of God;. and the n4ture of the thing, that the Divine permiilion was not the taldfe of man's fall ; a~d from the neceffary depend– frice of the ct;eatme upon the Creator, that, without h, he could not have falled. .But the fovereign Lord of the creatures pennitted the fall of man, for his own · holy endsF purpofing to bring about good from it. Now God the party·contracrer on Heaven's f!de in the covcmant of grace, is · to b.e confidered in that r,natter, in '.1 threefold view. Fir/1, . He is to be confidered in it, as an offended God ; offended with all the fins of all mankind, ori· ginal and actual.' LQoking upon the~children ofmen,' the whole mafs of mankind appeared, in .the eyes of his glory, cor'tupt and lothfome, the very reverfe of • his holinefs : He faw them' all gone afide, together heco1ne .filthy, none doing goqd, no not one,' .Pfalm xiv. 2, 3· In the firfl covenant, God contracred with · ' man himfdf, as a friend ; without the InterpoSition of ;. Mediator. But,.in the fecond covepant, it was not fo; and it ~ouJd not be fo ; for, in it, man \ >\'aS, confidered; as a'J~llei? creature, a tranfgreffor ofthe law, and an enemy -to God; and, it is .a covenant of reconcili– ation, a covenant ofpeace for thofe who had been ~t war with Heaven. , , ~econ.dly, But with~, God is to be confiderecl here– in, as a G0d purpofing and decreeing from eternity, tQ 1~anifdt the gl<i>ry of his.free gra(e, love, and mer- · ~ I cy,
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