perfect obedience is exacted, so that if there be but the least failing in any jot or title, and that but once, a man can never be justified thereby, nor can the breach be made up by any repentance: But in the Covenant of Grace obedience is required, repentance admitted, and sincerity accepted: If a man sinne and goe astray, if he returne unfainedly, he shall be received into favour. In the Covenant of Nature obedience and workes were commanded as the cause of life and justification: in the Covenant of Grace, Faith is required as the instrumentall cause of Remission and Salvation, obedience as the qualification of the party justified, and the way leading to everlasting blessednesse. The object of obedience in the Covenant of Nature was God: in the Covenant of Grace God in Christ.
4. They differ in the speciall consideration of the Subject. The first Covenant was given to man pure, perfect, intire and sound, able to do what God required: But the Covenant following was made with man a sinner, miserable and by nature the child of wrath. And so that was a Covenant of friendship, this of firme Reconciliation.
5. In the speciall and peculiar respect of the end. For the former Covenant was made for the praise of Gods wisdome, goodnesse, bounty and justice. But the Covenant of Grace was made to declare and set forth the riches of Gods grace and mercy. In it the wisdome, goodnesse, power and justice of God is more illustrious then in the former: and the mercy, long-suffering and rich grace of God is greatly magnified, which did not appeare or shine forth at all in the former.
6. And in their Effects and Properties. For not the Covenant of Nature, but of Grace doth exclude boasting. By the Covenant of Nature Adam was not advanced above the condition of an honourable Servant. In the Covenant of Grace, man by nature the child of wrath, is made the child of God by grace and adoption. The Covenant of nature was neither the last nor everlasting, but being first made way for a better, and being broken was antiquated or disanulled to our singular comfort: but the Covenant of Grace shall continue firme and immoveable for evermore.
2.The second thing to be gathered is, That the Fathers before Christ, ever since the fall of Adam, and Christians in the times of the Gospell, did live under the same Covenant for substance, butnot
