CHAPTER M. 313 for boasting ; and that the salvation of man might appear to be all from God, and be acknowledged to be a work of mere grace; Rom. iii. 27, 28. Rom. iv. 2, 16. Eph. ii. 9. Therefore, it is of faith and not ofworks that boasting may be excluded. XII. And the apostle adds, therefore it is byfaith, that it might be all of grace; Rom. iv. 11. Therefore, neither the acts of love or zeal, or repentance, or fear, or worship, or any other actions of obedience are appointed to be the mediums or proper means of our justification, under any dispensation of the 'covenant of grace, because these actions carry in them an appearance of our own dying something for God, our answering the demands of some law, and this would make it look like justification by a law of works : But faith or trust is that act of the soul, whereby we renounce our own works as the ground of our justification or acceptance we acknowledge our own imperfection, unworthiness and insufficiency, and give -the entire honour to divine grace by our dependence on it. We are saved by grace that God may baye the glory of all, XIII. It is worthy of our óbservation here, that though the violation of the first covenant or law of innocency exposed us to the curse of God, and brought us under many frailties, afflictions, and death itself, whichare,not cancelled and removed at regene- ration or repentance ; yet by the covenant of -grace all these calamities which continue to attack human nature, lose their sharpest sting, and are sanctified to our advantage; they are made use of to help forward our repentance and sanctifica- tion, and our growing fitness for heaven. Even temporal death itself, which follows ail these painful evils or curses, is also 'turned into a blessing, because it is made a means of delivering our souls from this body of sin and sorrow, and of introducing them into the presence of God, and the commencement of our heaven and happiness. Thus much shall suffice concerning the covenant of grace in general, and concerning the first edition of itA. CHAP. III. The Noahicai Dispensation ; or, the Religion of Noah. I. The second edition of the covenant of grace was the dis- pensation of Noah after the flood : He was the second father of mankind. It is sufficiently evident what an universal taint of re Since St. Paul in his discourses on the Doctrine of Justification to the christians at Rome and Galatia, makes it appear, that the constitution of the covenant of grace represents not only christians to be jústified by faith, but even Jews and patriarchs, David and 'Abraham; I thought it necessary to in- troduce this doctrine, in ray Representation of the First Patriarchal Dispensa- tion, and to dwell something longer upon it here, because it runs through all the dispensations of grace and is common to them all, and adue knowledgeof this, will render the whole scheme easier to be understood.
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