Part 2 — Chapter 7: The Covenant of Redemption Explained in Three Eternal Acts

The Covenant of Redemption is two ways considered. 1. As transacted in time between Jehovah and Christ, in his actual discharge of his office of King, Priest and Prophet. 2. As it is an eternal transaction and compact between Jehovah and the second Person the Son of God, who gave personal 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 actual 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, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], the Lamb foreordained before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20). And because Christ-God equal with the Father, does not begin to consent and agree to the designation in time, nor can Christ-God will anything in time, which he did not will, and consent to, from eternity; therefore he was present with the Father, and consented to 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 prays 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 (John 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 firstborn of the house, and of the many brethren, and says Amen to the choice, and we are chosen in him, as our head, and he was foreordained 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 (Ezekiel 18), the threatening (Genesis 2:17) must be fulfilled. 2. Mercy pleads (not having a throne higher than justice, as Arminius says) that so many chosen ones may find mercy, and peace calls for reconciliation to sinners.

3. Infinite wisdom also requires that justice and righteousness (under the name of mercy we comprehend free and rich grace) may meet, and peace and righteousness may kiss each other (Psalm 85:11). Hence all these attributes of glory must come forth, that a throne may be set up and a psalm may be sung (Revelation 5:12), and the thousands of thousands may cry, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. 13. And every creature which is in heaven (says 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, honor, and glory, and power be to Him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever. Hence 1. there is no conflict between mercy and justice (as Arminius says) nor any natural desire in God to have all Angels and men saved, which is hindered by justice. Job says truly (Job 23:13), He is of one mind, and who can turn him? (from this end which he intends, as if he could not compass it to another end) and what his soul desires (in saving or destroying) even that he does. 14. For he performs the thing that is decreed for me (and all creatures, and his decrees are most free, Ephesians 1:11) and many such things, or many the like things are with him. Therefore it pleased his most free, sovereign and absolute counsel to bring forth to Angels and men, to heaven and earth, to sea and to all creatures, the glory of justice, truth, mercy, peace, grace, power, wisdom (Revelation 5:13), and in Christ the decreed and appointed Mediator, the Lamb foreordained, as Peter (1 Peter 1:20) to be slain, and who agreed to the decree, and in an eternal compact took the burden upon him, to fulfill that of Psalm 85:10. Mercy and Truth are met together, Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other. 11. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and Righteousness 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 these 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 sanctify, 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 (John 14:26; John 16:13-15), and the Spirit who is sent?

Ans. Every mutual agreement between the blessed Persons concerning their actions without, cannot be called a Covenant, nor need we contend about names. What if we say that there is some Economical and dispensatory agreement of sending and being sent, indeed 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 natural and not voluntary, that there is such an admirable order of working as the Father creates by the Son, as by his eternal wisdom, 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 clothed with our nature, and to put on the state and legal condition of a Covenant-Obeyer of God to the death, the death of the cross, and is made a little lower than 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 carry it, that our iniquities should be laid on the Son (Isaiah 53:6), and the Son should be sent (Galatians 4:4), and he from eternity should step out. Lord, send me, here am I to do your will. (John 3:13) No man (no person) [illegible], has ascended up to heaven, 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 rockiness that Christ spoke for me, undertook for me, took all my diseases upon him, before I was, and before my disease had being? We reckon it great favor, Such a man pleaded kindly and boldly for you in your absence, when you were not to speak for yourself. As it's 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 Christ's undertaking. Obj. Such as are chosen in Christ, such are foreseen believers, when they are chosen. Ans. Justly learned and pious Mr. Bayn denies that: for God chose the noble royal Family, Christ the Head, and all the Branches in Him. Love, eternal love begins at the head, descends to the offspring: But not because they are in Christ by faith and actually are foreseen believers, 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 chose us, therefore shall we be in Christ by faith: indeed and he chose us and ordained us to be in Christ by faith, when He gave us to the Son to be kept by him.

The third considerable act here, is an act of delectation, and the place is observable (Proverbs 8:22). The Lord, Chanani, possessed me: It's not Bara, created me: It's not [non-Latin alphabet], as the Septuagint have it, but as Aquila, [non-Latin alphabet], in the beginning of his way: as Cartwright, 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 Vulgate Latin, 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 settled: before the hills was I brought forth, etc. In all which the authority of Christ (says Cartwright) is proven from his eternity, antiquity, immortality, etc. And all this time He was with God, as is fully, verse 30, cleared: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him. Chaldee Paraphrase: I was nourished up as a maid at his side. He will not want his Son out of his eye: I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. The Hebrew 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, etc., is Christ as Redeemer delighting himself with the sons of men. 31. I was with him — rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth: Hebrew, Sporting or playing with the sons of men: both because of all his works, as Ambrose says, he most longed for man, and made heaven and rested not, and made the earth and rested not, and made the Sun, Moon and Stars, and rested not there: and made man, and then rested, as having found the choicest piece of work he so much delighted in. So the Father and the Son were taken, and (as it were) love, says Bernard, triumphed over God, and they solaced 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 boundless and bottomless 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 manner) not stronger than the grave only, and than death and hell, but some way (with reverence to his holiness) mightier than the Most High, and brought God down to sick clay: that you may (says Bernard) see, if you take heed, joy saddened, faith feared, salvation suffering, life dying, strength weakened. And this wisdom was hidden and kept secret since the world began (Romans 16:25). Hidden wisdom (in the heart of the Lord from eternity) which God ordained before the world, to our glory (1 Corinthians 2:7), the like of which the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, verse 9, to conceive. So that this mystery of the Covenant between Jehovah and the Son of God was (as it were) little enough to busy the thoughts of the infinite understanding of the highest Lord, God Father, Son and Spirit, as containing the unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8). Say there were millions and ten thousand millions of globes of new whole earths of all gold mines perfect and purest gold, 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 fullness to us, and we are sinfully poor beside Christ's gold mines, and dry beside the rivers of wine and milk: and dead, a thousand times, being under the flowings and outlets of life and of such a life.

Hence, the twelfth Argument: If Christ the Son was designed, and foreordained with the Father, the Spirit, and his own consent to be the person should pay the ransom of satisfaction, and to be satisfied in his soul with the getting and enjoying of the bought, and well paid for and ransomed, yea the over-ransomed sons of men, who ravished love and heart of Father and Son, before the mountains were brought (Proverbs 8:22-23, etc., 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 undergo suretyship for the sons of men: Who warmed and kindled a fire of Redeemer's 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 country and his father's house (Genesis 3; Genesis 12)? Ah! it's an older love than so: a yesterday's love, time-mercy, a grace of the age with the world could not have saved me. Nor were our Charters and Writs of gospel grace, first drawn up in Paradise: Nay, but copies and duplicates of them only were given to Adam in Paradise. The love of God is no younger than 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 (Jeremiah 31:3), I have loved you with an everlasting love. He meets (as Calvin well observes) with a blasphemous temptation of Satan, 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 it's out of date now: the Covenant-love to Abraham is dead and away, and the Lord is changed? No, I have loved you, not for a year, or a summer: the Covenant-love is older than your poor short time-love. Objection: But I may leave off to love God; and he loves me no longer than I love him? Answer: 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.