Page:A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace (John Ball).djvu/130

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

118
Of the Covenant of Grace under Moses till the

the Land of Egypt, because they continued not in my Covenant, and I regarded them not saith the Lord. For this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those dayes, saith the Lord: I will put my Lawes into their mind and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. But what Law was it, which the Lord promiseth to write in the hearts of his people? was it not the Law given before by Moses? concerning which also Moses expresseth the same promise that Jeremy doth; Deut 30.6.The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soule, that thou mayest live. Now that Law Exod. 34.1,27.God himselfe had delivered in writing, and commanded Moses also to write the same. Therfore the words of the Prophet as touching the writing of Gods Law in our hearts, can import nothing but this, that the Lawes which were before by the ministery of Moses delivered only in Inke and Paper, Ezek. 36.26,27.
2 Cor. 3.1,2,3.
should by the power of the holy Ghost, through the faith of Christ be wrought and written in the affections of the heart: that God in Christ would not only administer outwardly the letter of the Law, whether in writing or preaching, but would by the regeneration of the Spirit, give grace inwardly to the obedience thereof. And as the Law written in the tables of the heart, and ingraven in tables of stone, is one for substance: so is the new and the old Testament. The Law is not opposed to the Law: but the writing to writing. Writing in tables of stone pertained to Moses or to the Old Testament: writing in the heart to Christ, or the new Covenant. The Law is the same, but otherwise administred in the hand of Christ, then in times past in the hand of Moses. Moses gave the Law in tables of stone, but could not give power or ability to doe what the Law required: but Christ writeth the Law in the heart, and inableth the faithfull in some measure to doe what he commandeth. And in the same place the Lord by the Prophet sheweth, Jer. 31.32.that when he made this Covenant with the Fathers which they brake, he declared himselfe to be an husband unto them, or joyned himselfe in marriage unto them. But God never Jer. 3.14.joyned himselfe in marriage unto a people, but by the Covenant of grace. It may be said the Apostle sheweth the former Covenant to be faultie, or that another Covenant was lacking. But that is not mentioned to prove the Covenants to betwo