- 7o miles o f the N w- -Covenant. firft Covenant Rate. Hereof the Grace and W ill of God was the only cauCe, Heb. 8. 8. And the Death of Chrift could not be the means of its procurement, For he himfelf and all that he was to do for us, was the fubftance of that Promife. And this Promife as it is declarative of the Purpofe or Counfel of the Will of God, for the Communication of Grace and Glory unto finners, in and by the mediation of Chrift, ac- cording to the Ways and on the Terms prepared and difpo- fed in his Soveraign Wifdom and Pleafure, is formally the New Covenant, though fomething yet is to be added to compleat its Application unto us. Now the fubftance of the firft Promife, wherein the whole Covenant of Grace was virtually comprized, direly refpetted and expreffed, the giving of him for the Recovery of Mankind from fin and mifery by his death, Gen. 3. i 5. Wherefore if he, and all the Benefits of his Mediation, his Death and all the E'ffe&ts of it, be contained in the Promife of the Covenant, that is, in the Covenant it felf, then was not his death the procuring caufe of that Covenant, nor do we owe it thereunto. 2. In the additional prefcription of the way 4nd means whereby it is the Will of God, that we !hall entt r into a Covenant ftate with him, or be intereffed in the Benefits of it. This being virtually comprized in the abfolute Promife ( for every Promife of God dotll tacitly require Faith and Obedience in us) is expreffed in other places by the way of the Condition required on our part. This is not the Cove- nant, but the Conflitution of the Terms on our part, whereon we are made Partakers of it. Nor is the Conflitution of thefe Terms, an effe& of the death of Chrift, or procured thereby. It is a meer effe& of the Soveraign Grace and Wifdom of God. The things themfelves as beftowed on us, communicated un- to us, wrought in us by Grace, are all of them effects of the death of Chrift 5 but the Conflitution of them to be the Terms and Conditions of the Covenant is an Mt of meer So- veraign
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