Page:A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace (John Ball).djvu/144

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A particular explication of the Covenant God made with Israel,

1 King. 8.33,34.
Man as capable of Justification is a sinner; as he actually receiveth Justification a Believer.
ple Israel be smitten downe before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee: and shall turne againe unto thee, and confesse thy Name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house: Then heare thou in heaven, and forgive the sinne of thy people Israel, and bring them againe unto the Land. Moreover, the Lord made himselfe knowne to be the God, that pardoneth iniquity, transgression, and sinne, when he gave this Covenant unto his people. But of this before.

Fourthly, Eternall life is promised in the Covenant: for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living: and therefore the faithfull Jewes, which Math. 22.32have God for their God doe live still, not in earth, but in heaven. Math. 19.17.
Luk. 101.25,28.
The life which is promised to them that keepe the Law, is eternall: but in this Covenant life is promised to them that keepe the Commandements. Psal. 34.12,13.Not only long life and good dayes, in the Land of Canaan, but eternall life is assured by the promise to them that keepe Covenant, as eternall death and destruction is comprehended under Gal. 3.13. the curse denounced against them that breake the Covenant. Expresse mention of the Kingdome of Heaven perhaps is not found in the Old Testament: but eternall life is comprehended under the termes of life and blessing, as eternall death under the tearmes of death and the Curse. Eternall life in heaven, eternall death in hell, the Law noteth, though it doe not expressely name them. Which things unlesse they had been commonly knowne in the dayes of our Saviour, the penitent Thiefe about to die, had not thought of a Kingdome, nor the Lord promised Paradice to him, when he asked a place in the Kingdome of the Messiah.

But all these promises were made of fre grace and of free love accomplished. Deut. 9.4,5.Speake not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousnesse the Lord hath brought me in to possesse this Land: but for the wickednesse of these nations, the Lord doth drive them out from before thee. Not for the righteousnesse, or for the uprightnesse of thine heart, doest thou goe to possesse their Land: but for the wickednesse of these Nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may performe the word which the Lord sware unto thy Fathers, Abraham, Isaak, and Jacob. Vers. 6.Understand therfore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good Land, to possesse it, for thy righteousnes, for thou art a stiffe-necked people. True it is the promises runne up-on