of Grace, he gives the reward of meere and rich grace, and that to the creature which hath deserved Hell.
This Covenant entered immediately upon the fall, and so may be called a Covenant of Reconciliation, not of friendship. At the very instant, when God holy and true, was pronouncing judgements upon the severall delinquents in the fall, setting downe his sentence against the Tempter, both in his instrument the Serpent, and the maine Author Sathan, he brings in the party who should execute the same, in which execution is unfolded the Covenant of grace for the Salvation of the creature, that the Serpent had destroyed, that God might be knowne in wrath to remember mercy. At the very fall, and before judgement was pronounced upon the delinquents that were tempted, the Covenant of mercy was proclaimed, that by vertue of this Covenant God might prevent further waste of his creature, which Sathan might have wrought upon his new advantage in following his good successe, and that the tempted might have some comfort before their judgement, least they might have been swallowed up of wrath.
The Authour of this Covenant is God, considered as a mercifull and loving Father in Jesus Christ: as a Creator he strooke Covenant with Adam in his integrity; as a Saviour he looked upon the poore creature plunged into sinne, and misery by reason of sin.
The cause that moved the Lord to make this Covenant, was not any worth, dignity or merit in man: for man never had ought, which he had not received; and now by his disobedience, had deserved to be cast off for ever: neither was the present misery into which he had cast himselfe the cause that moved the Lord to receive man into favour: for the Angels more excellent by creation, as miserable by their fall, he hath reserved in chaines of darknesse: The Bonitatis Dei donum est, quod liberare nos voluit: quod verò aliter quam tali modo liberare nos noluit, peccatorum nostrorum est meritum.sole moving cause, why God made this Covenant, was the love, favour and mercy of the Lord. Deut. 7. 7, 8. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, (saith Moses) and he chose their seed after them. Deut. 10. 15. When I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine owne blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live. Ezek. 16. 6. See Ezek. 36. 32. Luk. 1. 54, 55, 72, 78.
This Covenant was made in Christ, in and through whom we are reconciled unto God: for since God and man were separatedby
