The Covenant of Life Opened, Part 2 · Chapter 7
CHAP. VII. The Covenant of Redemption is explained in three eternall acts. 1. Designation, decree or ordination, and delectation in the work. 2. Mercy and peace, truth and righteousnes are agreed in this Covenant. 3. The designed sending of the Spirit cannot be a Covenant as this was. 4. The twelfth Argument. 5. The thoughts of eternall love.
THe Covenant of Redemption is two wayes considered. 1. As transacted in time between Jehovah and Christ, in his actuall discharge of his office of King, Priest and Prophet. 2. As it is an eternall transaction and compact between Jehovah and the second Person the Son of God, who gave personall consent that he should be the Undertaker, and no other. And these three acts are considerable in the Persons in this latter consideration:
1. Designation of one.
2. Decree and destination.
3. Delectation in the work.
As to the first: There must have been a Person, either the Father, or the Son, or the Spirit. 1. By God, from eternity set apart, separated, and designed: And 2. This person must have given an actuall consent from eternity to the designation: Now the person designed was the Son only, this lot eternally (to speak so) fell upon only him who was, foreign, the Lamb fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, 1 Pet. 1.20. And because Christ-God equall with the Father, does not begin to consent and agree to the designation in time, nor can Christ-God will any thing in time, which he did not will, and consent unto, from eternity; therefore he was present with the Father, and consented unto the designation, and closed the bargain from eternity: upon which account, Christ had the glory of a designed Saviour with the Father, before the world was, and prayes that he may, God-Man, be glorified, as touching the manifestation of that glory to Angels and men, with the glory that he had with the Father before the world was, The most sweet providence of God in designing a Physician to us before we be sick.Joh. 17.5. and here is an eternally closed Covenant between JEHOVAH and the Son, with the consent of parties. And who sees not our debt of love, for a foresight and providence of pure grace? Behold a designed Physician before we be sick, and Christ with his own consent, writing himself the repairer of the breaches before the house fall, and the healer and binder up before the bones be broken.
2. Christ is chosen and predestinate the head, the first born of the house, and of the many brethren, and sayes Amen to the choise, and we are chosen in him, as our head, and he was fore-ordained the Mediator, and the Lamb before the foundation of the world was laid, to be slain for our sin. Hence, 2. offended Justice by the breach of the Covenant of Works in all the three Persons pleads that man should die, and that pleading is most just, and the Law cannot be broken nor repealed. The soul that sins must die, Ezech. 18. the threatning, Gen. 2.17. must be fulfilled. 2. Mercy pleads (not having a Throne higher then justice,Armin. de Sacerdatio Chri. pag. 14, 15. as Arminius saith) that so many chosen ones may find mercy, and peace calls for reconciliation to sinners.
3. Infinite wisedome also requires that justice and righteousnesse (under the name of mercy we comprehend free and rich grace) may meet, and peace and righteousnesse may kisse each other, Psa. 85.11. Hence all these Attributes of glory must come forth, that a Throne may be set up and a Psalm may be sung, Rev. 5.12. and the thousands of thousands may cry, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisedome, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. 13. And every creature which is in heaven (saith John) and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, honour, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. Hence 1. there is no conflict between mercy and justice (as Arminius saith) nor any naturall desire in God to have all Angels and men saved, which is hindered by justice. Job sayeth truely, c. 23. v. 13. He is of one (minde) and who can turn him? (from this end which he intends, as if he could not compasse it to another end) and what his soul desires (in saving or destroying) even that he doth. 14. For he performeth the thing that is decreed for me (and all creatures, and his decrees are most free, Eph. 1.11.) and many such things, or many the like things are with him. Therefore it pleased his most free, soveraign and absolute Counsell to bring forth to Angels and men,The harmony of the Attributes of God in the declaration of mercy, truth, justice, &c. is sweetly made out by this Covenant. to heaven and earth, to sea and to all creatures, the glory of justice, truth, mercy, peace, grace, power, wisdom, Rev. 5.13. and in Christ the decreed and appointed Mediator, the Lamb fo…e ordained, as Peter, 1 Pet. 1.20. to be slain, and who agreed to the decree, and in an eternall compact took the burden upon him, to fulfill that of Psal. 85.10. Mercy and Truth are met together, Righteousnesse and Peace have kissed each other. 11. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and Righteousnesse shall look down from Heaven. So that in this transaction, the Father and the Son and Spirit, let out to men for their salvation the glory of all th…se Attributes.
Obj. Did not the Holy Ghost also from eternity, say Amen, and agree to be sent by the Father and the Son, to lead the Saints in all truth, to sanctifie, to comfort them? And did not the Father and the Son from eternity decree to send the Spirit? And did not the Spirit also consent to the decree before the world was? And so shall there be also a Covenant between the Father and the Son sending the Spirit, Joh. 14.26. Joh. 16.13, 14, 15. and the Spirit who is sent?
Ans. Every mutuall agreement between the blessed Persons concerning their actions without, cannot be called a Covenant,The sending of the Spirit, and the Spirit his free consent to come, is not a proper Covenant. nor need we contend about names. What if we say that there is some Oeconomicall and dispensatory agreement of sending and being sent, yea even in the Works of Creation, Redemption and Sanctification, though two things stand in the way to hinder us to call such an agreement with the name of a voluntary compact or Covenant? 1. It seems naturall and not voluntary, that there is such an admirable order of working as the Father creates by the Son, as by his eternall wisedome, but yet a person, a suppositum, different from the Father, and by the Spirit, as his mighty power: a third Person. 2. The Son is decreed with his own consent to be the Person, to empty himself, to be in time cloathed with our nature, and to put on the state and legall condition of a Covenant-Obeyer of God to the death, the death of the crosse, and is made a little lower then the Angels: and this may well be called a Covenant-transaction, and a course of Covenant-obedience in the Mediator, which condition the Holy Ghost comes not under. And what should man say when the votes of the Three carries it, that our iniquities should be laid on the Son, Isa. 53.6. and the Son should be sent, Gal. 4.4. and he from eternity should step out. Lord, send me, here am I to do thy will. Joh. 3.13. No man (no person) foreign, hath ascended up to heaven, Gods love in acting for man in time.but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. These votes of love fell not upon Angels, but upon man. And how should it break my rockinesse that Christ spake for me, undertook for me, took all my diseases upon him, before I was, and before my disease had being? We reckon it great favour, Such a man pleaded kindly and boldly for you in your absence, when you was not to speak for your self. As its love to provide a rich inheritance for the child not born, and to fight for the sleeping child that he may not be killed: when we had neither being, action nor vote in Christs undertaking. Obj. Such as are chosen in Christ, such are foreseen beleevers, when they are chosen. Ans. Justly learned and pious M. Bayn denies that:Paul Bayne Comm. on Eph. 1. v. 4. for God choised the noble royall Family, Christ the Head, and all the Branches in Him. Love, eternall love begins at the head, descends to the off-spring: But not because they are in Christ by faith and actually are foreseen believers,The Lord choosed us not in Christ, because he saw us in him by faith. for that is all one. We were in Christ as the tree is in the seed, as all the Rose trees and the Vine trees are in the first Rose tree and the first Vine tree, created of God, virtually. For because God choosed us, therefore shall we be in Christ by faith: yea and he choosed us and ordained us to be in Christ by faith, when He gave us to the Son to be keeped by him.
The third considerable act here, is an act of delectation, and the place is observable, Prov. 8.22. The Lord, Chanani, possessed me: Its not Bara, created me: Its not foreign, as the LXX. have it, but as Aquila, foreign, in the beginning of his way: as Cartwright, The mutuall delights of love between the Father and the Son, in their thoughts of the Covenant-love to man.before he had created any thing. 23. I was set up from everlasting. Tremellius, inuncta fui, I was anointed. Aben Ezra, Electa fui, I was chosen. The vulgar Latine, I was ordained, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. 24. When there were no depths, I was brought forth: when there were no fountains abounding with waters. 25. Before the mountains were setled: before the hills was I brought forth, &c. In all which the authority of Christ (saith Cartwright) is proven from his eternity, antiquity, immortality, &c. and all this time He was with God, as is fully, v. 30. cleared: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him. Ambros. hexa. l. 6. c. 16. Deus fecit Coelum, & non lego quod requierit, fecit terram nec lego quod sic requieverit: fecit solem, lunam & stellas, nec ibi lego quod requieverit; lego quod fecit hominem, & quod tunc requieverit.Chald. Para. I was nourished up as à maid at his side. He will not want his Son out of his eye: I was daily his delight, rejoicing alwayes before him. The Hebr. foreign die, die, from day to day. Rabbi Solomon, annorum myriades, myriads of years. The Father and the Son, from eternity, delighted one in another, and were solacing themselves in the works without themselves: and the ratio formalis (as it were) that which took up the love, delight and thoughts of God, when as yet there was no world, no mountains, no depths, &c. is Christ as Redeemer delighting himself with the sons of men, 31. I was with him, — rejoycing in the habitable part of his earth: Heb. Sporting or playing with the sons of men: both because of all his works, as Ambrose saith, he most longed for man, and made heaven and rested not, and made the earth and rested not, and made the Sunne, Moon and Stars, and rested not there: and made man, and then rested, as having found the choisest peece of work he so much delighted in. So the Father and the Son were taken, and (as it were) love, saith Bernard, triumphed over God ▪ Bernard. Serm. 64. in Cant. Quid violentius triumphat de Deo.and they sola…ed their heart in that great design of love, and from eternity passed over that long and sweet age of myriads of ages, in the pleasant and delighting thoughts of that boundlesse and bottomlesse Ocean of love, to wit, God is to be made sick and to die a love for the sons of men. Love being above and (in a maner) not stronger then the grave only, and then death and hell, but some way (with reverence to his holinesse) mightier then the most High, and brought God down to sick clay: that you may (saith Bernard) see, if you take heed, joy sadned, faith feared, Bernard. hom. … Super missus est videas si attendas (in Christo) tristari laetitiam, pavere fiduciam, salutem pa…i, vitam mori, fortitudinem infirmari.salvation suffering, life dying, strength weakned: and this wisedome was hid up and kept secret since the world began, Rom. 16.25. Hidden wisedome (in the heart of the Lord from eternity) which God ordained before the world, unto our glory, 1 Corinth. 2.7. the like whereof the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor hath entered in to the heart of man, v. 9. to conceive: So that this mystery of the Covenant between Jehovah and the Son of God was (as it were little enough to busie the thoughts of the infinite understanding of of the highest Lord, God Father, Son and Spirit, as containing the unsearchable riches of Christ, Eph. 3.8. Say there were millions and ten thousand millions of Globs of new whole earths of all gold mines perfect and purest gold,The strength of Gods love to man, which we too little value. yet should they not all come near to the borders of this riches: and these all were in before there was a Creation, and he lets out of this fulnesse to us, and we are sinfully poor beside Christs gold mines, and dry beside the rivers of wine and milk: and dead, a thousand times, being under the flowings and outlettings of life and of such a life.
Hence, the 12. Argument: If Christ the Son was designed, and fore-ordained with the Father, the Spirit, and his own consent to be the person should pay the ransome of satisfaction, and to be satisfied in his soul with the getting and injoying of the bought, and well payed for and ransoned, yea the over-ransoned sons of men, who ravished love and heart of Father and Son, before the mountains were brought, Prov. 8.22, 23, &c. 30, 31. forth, and when as yet there were no depths, then was that bargain of love closed and subscribed before witnesses from eternity. For could the heart of Christ be cold and indifferent to undergoe suretyship for the sons of men: Who warmed and kindled a fire of Redeemers love in his heart from everlasting? Or was his consent to the Covenant, but as late and young as since Adam fell, or Abraham was called to leave his countrey and his fathers house, Gen. 3. Gen. 12?No lesse everlasting love could save us. Ah! its an older love then so: A yesterdayes love, time-mercy, a grace of the age with the world could not have saved me. Nor were our Charters and Writtes of Gospel-grace, first drawn up in Paradice: Nay, but copies and doubles of them only were given to Adam in Paradice. The love of God is no younger then God, and was never younger to sinners; and woe to us, if grace and mercy to redeemed ones should wax old and weaker through age, and at length die and turn in everlasting hatred. I desire to hold me fast by that, Jer. 31.3. I have loved thee with an everlasting love. He meets (as Calvin well observes) with a blasphemous temptation of Sathan, that the people had in their mouth: Ho, the Lord appeared to me of old; but that is a love from one year to another, and its out of date now: the Covenant-love to Abraham is dead and away, and the Lord is changed? No, I have loved thee, not for a year, or a summer: The Covenant-love is older then thy poor short time-love. Obj. But I may leave off to love God; and he loves me no longer then I love him? Ans. Where is then everlasting love? and because he loves us we shall not leave off to love him. Night and overclouding of the Sun, is not a perishing of the Sun out of the world; his love quickens my fainting love.