Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
The blessed God hath evermore delighted to reveal and communicate himself by way of Covenant; he might have done good to man before his fall; as also since his fall, without binding himself in the bond of Covenant. Noah, Abraham, and David, Jews, Gentiles might have had the blessings intended, without any promise or Covenant, but the Lord’s heart is so full of love (especially to his own) that it cannot be contained so long within the bounds of secrecy, viz. from God’s eternal purpose to the actual accomplishment of good things intended, but it must aforehand overflow and break out into the many streams of a blessed Covenant, the Lord can never get near enough to his people, and thinks he can never get them near enough unto himself, and therefore unites and binds and fastens them close to himself, and himself unto them by the bonds of a Covenant.
And therefore when we break our Covenant, and that will not hold us, he takes a faster bond, and makes a sure and everlasting Covenant; according to grace, not according to works, and that shall hold his people firm unto himself, and hold himself close and fast unto them, that he may never depart from us. Oh the depth of God’s grace herein, that when sinful man deserves never to have the least good word from him, that he should open his whole heart and purpose to him, in a Covenant; that when he deserves nothing else but separation from God, and to be driven up and down the world, as a vagabond, or as dried leaves, fallen from our God, that yet the Almighty God cannot be content with it, but must make himself to us, and us to himself more sure and near then ever before!
For the reference, see:
reformedcovenanter.wordpress.com
And therefore when we break our Covenant, and that will not hold us, he takes a faster bond, and makes a sure and everlasting Covenant; according to grace, not according to works, and that shall hold his people firm unto himself, and hold himself close and fast unto them, that he may never depart from us. Oh the depth of God’s grace herein, that when sinful man deserves never to have the least good word from him, that he should open his whole heart and purpose to him, in a Covenant; that when he deserves nothing else but separation from God, and to be driven up and down the world, as a vagabond, or as dried leaves, fallen from our God, that yet the Almighty God cannot be content with it, but must make himself to us, and us to himself more sure and near then ever before!
For the reference, see:
Thomas Shepherd on God holding his people in the covenant of grace
The blessed God hath evermore delighted to reveal and communicate himself by way of Covenant; he might have done good to man before his fall; as also since his fall, without binding himself in the …
reformedcovenanter.wordpress.com
