The Covenant of Grace, the grand foundation of all saving mercy to lost sinners of Adam's race.

1. It is the foundation of the first saving mercy that a poor sinner meets with ; and that is the first grace given to the dead soul, viz. spiritual life, the new heart, the first resurrection, by which the soul is enabled to believe and embrace Jesus Christ: Ezek. xxxvi. 26. "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." This is saving mercy: Tit. iii. 5. "According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." Upon what bottom can this stone in the building be laid, but. on the covenant betwixt the Father and Christ ? No doing of the sinner can be pretended here, for life and salvation, since the sinner is really dead spiritually, and can do nothing ; but it is a performing of the promise of the covenant to Christ: Eph. ii. 5. "Even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us together with Christ."

2. It is the foundation of the middle saving mercies. Look to the soul's actual believing; it is the budding of a promise, a branch of that covenant; Psal. xxii. 29. 31. "None can keep alive his own soul. They shall come and shall declare his righteousness." Compare John vi. 37. "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me." Justification is the fruit that grows upon it, Isa. liii. 11. "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many." So is sanctification ; they are sanctified in Christ Jesus, in virtue of that covenant, as they were corrupted and defiled in Adam by virtue of the breach of the first covenant, 1 Cor. i. 2. compare Ezek. xxxvi. 25. "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you." This is an absolute promise with respect to the sinner. All their obedience itself, and persevering in holy obedience, are fruits of the covenant, ver. 27. "I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them;" Jer. xxxii. 40. "I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me"; and so belong to the promise of it, and are no part of the proper condition of it, which must go before partaking of the fruits of it.

3. It is the foundation of the crowning mercy, eternal life in heaven : Tit. i. 2. "In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, promised before the world began." To whom could this be promised before the world began, but to the Son of God in the eternal compact ? So that the sinner comes to be partaker of it in him, as he is of death in Adam: John xvii. 2. " Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." Hence, notwithstanding of all the good works of the saints, wrought all their life long, they receive eternal life as freely, and as much a gift, as if they had clone nothing: Rom. vi. 21. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Hence they who have done most for God, are as deep in the debt of free grace for their crown, as the thief on the cross, who believed in Christ, and then expired. For all is made over to the several persons of the seed, upon one bottom of the covenant, the proper condition of which was fulfilled by Jesus Christ.

To confirm it, consider,

(1.) The justice of God could not admit of mercy to lost sinners, but upon the ground of this covenant; whereby the repairing of the honour of the law by obedience and suffering was sufficiently provided for, Psal. xl. 6, 7. The first covenant being broken, the breakers must die without mercy, Heb. x. 28. unless salvation to them be brought about by another covenant, that shall repair the breach ; which could be no other but that made with the chosen One.

(2.) All saving relation betwixt Christ and us is founded on that covenant. Christ obeyed and died; but what benefit have the fallen angels thereby ? They are left hopeless for all that, and must encounter with unatoned justice. Why ? Not that Christ's doing and dying was not able to save them; the blood of infinite value can have no bounds set to its sufficiency: but because their names were not in that covenant, it had no relation to them, but to lost sinners of Adam's race: Heb. ii. 16. "For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham."

(3.) The very design of making that covenant was, that it might be the channel of saving mercy, in which the whole rich flood of it might run, for the quickening, purifying, blessing, fructifying, and perfecting of an elect world, lying under the bands of death and the curse by the breach of the first covenant; Psal. lxxxix. 2. "Mercy shall be built up for ever;" compared with the text, I have made a covenant with my chosen. It was the Father's design ; and it was the Son's design, Cant. iii. 10. Men are apt to devise unto themselves other channels of mercy: but this being the only channel designed by infinite wisdom, here the sinful creature will find saving mercy flowing freely, but all other channels he will find quite dry.

(4.) It has been the ground of all the saints expectations and hopes of mercy, in all ages. It was first published in the promise made to Adam, Gen. iii. 15. " The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent," and that was the stay of the souls of the faithful till Abraham's time: then it was more clearly discovered in the promise given to him, Gen. xxii. 18. "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." The ceremonial law, and the prophecies of Christ, pointed out very fully. And thus believers under the Old Testament built their faith of mercy on it. And since that time it has been most clearly and full discovered in the gospel; and so the New Testament church have raised their faith of mercy on it.

RETURN TO THE BEAUTIES OF BOSTON

RETURN TO THE THOMAS BOSTON HOMEPAGE