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THE

Doctrine of Baptism,

AND THE

Distinction of the COVENANTS;

A Plain Christian Treatise, explaining
the Doctrine of Baptism, and the two
Covenants made with Abraham, and
his two-fold Seed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Second Covenant is an Absolute Covenant

An Absolute Covenant Defined

An absolute Covenant, is a Covenant without any conditions required in the creature, but what God Himself performs, as Jer. 32:40, "I will make an everlasting Covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me." Where you see, God undertakes both;

first, that He will not leave or forsake His people, but do them good;

secondly, undertakes that He will plant His fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Him.

As in that eighth of Hebrews He engaged that "He will write His Law in their hearts, and that He will be their God, and they shall be His people, and that He will teach them to know Him, and will pardon their iniquities, and their sins He will remember no more."

The Second Covenant Contains Nothing But
What God Himself Will Perform or Work

Now here is nothing but what God has undertaken to perform, and to work in the creature as further appears in Ezekiel 16, latter end:

For thus saith the Lord God, I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the Covenant. Notwithstanding I will remember my covenant with thee in the day of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant."

As He says afterward, not by thy covenant, but by My covenant, so that which He calls thy covenant, was that which they broke, and therein despised the Oath as he says plainly, holding forth that it was a Covenant of Works answerable to that in Neh. 10:29. "They clave to their Brethren the Nobles, and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God's Law, which was given by Moses the servant of God."

The Two Covenants Discerned

In which case you may discern here Two covenants, the one, God calls His covenant, and another, that was their covenant, a Covenant of Works which they broke. Likewise you have further the Covenant of Eternal Life, opened in Ezek. 36:25-27:

"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from your Idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new Spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my Statutes, and you shall keep my Judgments and do them."

God's Performances

Here you have this New Covenant wholly lying on God's part that He would first cleanse them from all their Idols and iniquities. Then He undertakes to give a new heart, to take away the heart of Stone, and to give them hearts of flesh. And that He will give the soul His own Spirit, and thereby came these to walk in His ways whom He calls to the obedience of His truth.

No Failures on Man's Part

If they sin, He binds Himself to pardon their sins, and to remember their sins and transgressions no more, so that it is impossible that this covenant should be broke, or that a soul shall ever miscarry who is once in this covenant in respect of his everlasting estate.

David's Testimony

To this purpose David very eminently speaks in 2 Sam. 23:5:

"Although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, for this is all my salvation, and all my desire; although he make it not to grow."

Where you have David setting out the Covenant of Grace and the mercies in it to be in all points perfect and sure.

Isaiah's Testimony

To this purpose the Prophet in the 55th chapter of Isaiah, and the third verse, inviting souls, and persuading them to come to Christ, says, "Incline your ear, and come unto me; Hear and your souls shall live, and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David."

David Is A Type of Christ

that is,

God will give a soul those New Covenant mercies, which are most sure,

no way depending upon any condition to be performed in the creature,

but wholly upon the Lord, as appears in Psalm 89:28-37:

"My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of Heaven. If his children forsake my Law, and walk not in my Judgments; if they break my Statutes, and keep not my Commandments; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes. Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not entirely take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My Covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing which is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, His throne as the sun before me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah."

The Covenant of Eternal Life Made with Christ and His Spiritual Seed

Now in these words you have the Covenant of Eternal Life made with Christ and His spiritual seed,. David and his seed were types of this covenant which is a sure covenant to all those to whom it is once made. To this does the author to the Hebrews allude, when he says in chapter 6:17,18:

"Wherein God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us."

Both the Promise and the Oath of the Covenant

Now in this covenant before spoken to you have both the promise and oath. Here in this covenant must needs be discovered the immutability of God's counsel because this is as David says, a covenant that is in all points perfect and sure. James, in his Epistle, alluding to these New Covenant blessings or gifts, says:

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning; and that he does here speak of the New Covenant gifts, does appear in the next words he says, Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures."

How God Works In The New Covenant

Consider well, that in this covenant there is nothing that He requires, but He engages Himself to enable us to accomplish.

If He commands us to pray, He promises to give His Spirit to help our infirmities.

If He commands us to walk in all His ways, as you have heard, He promises that He will put His Spirit in us to cause us to walk in His ways.

Objection

Why Though the Covenant of Grace be Absolute, Yet the Promises Are Held Forth Under a Condition.

But some may object and say, that we find the Gospel is held out upon condition of Faith and Repentance.

Answer

It is true the promise of salvation and remission of sins, is held out with a condition to the world, by means of preaching and tendering of the Gospel, because it is God's free mercy to work that condition in the hearts of his Elect, and in them only.

Cannot Attain by Our Own Abilities

We are not to think that this grace of Faith and Repentance, are qualifications that persons unto which the Gospel is tendered are to attain by their own abilities.

The Lord Works the Condition

In the New Covenant, the Lord undertakes to work the condition, and also to give the salvation tendered upon that condition. For He says, "I will be unto you a God, and you shall be unto me a people." In particular He says, "He will put his Law in their hearts, and in their minds will he write them, and he will teach them to know him."

The Law of Faith and Repentance Is A Part Of The Covenant

Now doubtless, the Law of Faith and Repentance are here included, according to those Scriptures, Eph. 2:8, "For by grace are you saved through Faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."

Faith Is the Gift of God.

Here God holds forth that though Faith be an instrumental means of our salvation, yet it is God's free gift wrought in us. Therefore, faith is surely a covenant gift, and upon this ground in Phil. 1:29, Paul says, "It is not only given us to believe, but to suffer for his name's sake;" where to believe is given of God. So in Acts 18:27, speaking of Apollo, Luke says, "that when he came, he helped them much who had believed through grace." In Heb. 12:2 Jesus is said to be both "the author and the finisher of our faith."

All which passages do show that faith is as well given in the New Covenant as the Salvation tendered upon that condition

Repentance Is The Gift of God.

So is also repentance a New Covenant Gift, as well as remission of sins which is tendered upon that condition, as you find in Acts 5:31. "Him hath God exalted with his own right hand to be a Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins:" Acts 11:18, "When they heard those things they held their peace and glorified God, saying, then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."

God's New Covenant Israel is Given New Covenant Gifts

Here observe that to God's Israel, both of Jews and Gentiles, God does grant and freely give repentance as well as salvation and remission of sins, promised upon the condition of repentance, as likewise appears in 2 Tim. 2:25 where the ministers of God are commanded "in meekness to instruct those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will at any time, give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth," which does plainly prove that though repentance and faith be the condition the Gospel is tendered upon, yet you see the Lord does in the New Covenant, give faith and repentance as well as remission of sins and eternal life.

The Covenant of Grace Obscurely Delivered to Our First Parents.

Further I shall make it appear that this Covenant of Grace to eternal life was first more obscurely and darkly revealed to our first parents. God directed His speech to the Devil in Gen. 3:16 for the greater terror of the Devil and the greater comfort of His Elect says, "I will put enmity between thy seed and the seed of the woman, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel."

Genesis 3:16 Contains the Substance of the Covenant of Grace

This speech contains in substance, the Covenant of Grace. Christ the true spiritual seed being here promised, Who in Scripture, is held forth to be the very substance and marrow of the New Covenant.

God's Gift of Jesus Christ is Called The Covenant

Therefore, the Lord says in Isaiah 42:6, speaking of Christ, "I will give thee a Covenant of the people, a light to the Gentiles:" where the very gift of Christ is called a Covenant, because where He is promised, all heavenly and spiritual blessings in Him are there given, all the promises being in Christ, Yea, and in Him Amen, 2 Cor. 1:20. All spiritual and heavenly blessings are in Him, Eph. 1:3.

God's Created Gifts In The Seed of the Woman Are Hated By The Devil

He says that He will put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, which must needs have this much in it.That God would put or infuse in the seed of the woman His created gifts of holiness and purity and that precious love of God whereupon it must needs be, that this new nature would be hated by the Devil as being opposite to him, and also must needs hate the Devil with his evil nature.

The Psalmist says, "Ye that love God hate evil," Christ tells us in Matt. 10:34, "Think not that I come to send peace on earth, I came not to send peace, but a sword; for I am come to set a man at variance against his Father, and the Daughter against her Mother, and the Daughter-in-law against the Mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household." Luke 12:52 says, "five in one house shall be divided, three against two, and two against three." What should occasion this division but that new nature which the Lord infuses into His own seed or children, which cannot comply with the seed of the serpent. So Peter says, "they spoke evil of us, because we run not with them to the same excess of riot," 1 Pet. 4:4.

So, that I understand that in the third of Genesis is the whole New Covenant included.

INTRODUCTION

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