Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	covenant_n	new_a	testament_n	4,131	5	9.2871	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51515	The mount of spirits that glorious and honorable state to which believers are called by the Gospel explained in some meditations upon the 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 verses of the 12th chapter to the Hebrews : with some previous reflections upon that whole Epistle and the people of the Jews.	Wolseley, Charles, Sir, 1630?-1714.	1691 (1691)	Wing M2970; ESTC R32126	106,065	208

New Covenant This New Covenant is also called a Testament because the great Promulgation of it was to be a consequent of Christ's death and the Gospel that Law and Covenant of Grace the Legacy he left to the World was to be dispensed to the Legatees by his grand Executor the Holy Ghost And whatever we read of God's Covenants in the Old Testament 't is to be reduced to one of these two for the Apostle in the 8th and 9th Chapters of this Epistle calls the Mosaical Covenant the first Covenant and the old Covenant the whole Mosaical oeconomy was included in it and reckoned as part of it but it was chiefly denominated from Mount Sinai because there was the most solemn promulgation of the most essential part of it The Covenant God made with Man in his Innocency was peculiar to him in that state and went no farther is not at all continued in any force since the fall By a Covenant of God in the Scripture sence of it is meant a Law promulged wherein God obliges himself to such rewards and punishments and Men stand obliged to such duty and performance this was the case of the Old Covenant at Sinai and so is the case under the Gospel God has in Christ obliged himself to the salvation of the World upon such and such terms and Man stands obliged to the performance of them if ever he will be happy 'T is a vain and a wild conceit to think the Gospel offers Salvation otherways then upon conditions to be performed on our part the first Proclamation of it is with this condition annexed he that believes shall be saved And Faith is every-where used in the Gospel as a Word comprehensive of all that is therein required of us Punctually to pursue the Apostles drift in this place by this expression the best way is to shew in what particulars this new covenant to which he tells the Believing Hebrews they were come exceeded the old which was the point he designed to himself to make good 1st Both Covenants agreed in this they both had a Mediator an internuncius between God and Man which was to inform us of the vast distance sin had made between them what a vast gulph there was fixed between Heaven and Earth and that 't was impossible there should be any converse between God and Man by vertue of any Covenant without some third Person interposing and herein this New Covenant has infinitely the preference the Mediator of it being of so glorious a composition and constitution and so adapted to this matter as is wonderful to conceive he that intercedes to bring God and Man together is himself both after a stupenduous and wonderful manner united in one and the same Person 2dly This New Covenant delivers us from all the Fear Bondage and Condemnation which the Old Covenant brought upon us the Law left Men to answer to God for their disobedience without either assistance or remedy and so the case of every Man was that when the law came sin revived and he dyed by coming to the Mediator of this New Covenant we are totally discharged from any concern with the Law or the first Covenant the satisfaction of Christ to God's Justice is fully accepted in our stead for all our disobedience of the Law of Works and by this New Covenant we are wholly discharged from any obligation to the Old God found fault with it and it being in its nature and designment to prepare for a better Covenant it grew Old and upon the publication of the Gospel is quite vanished away 3dly This New Covenant much exceeds the other in its nature and constitution for it always admits of Repentance and Pardon which the other never did 't is an intire Law of Grace accepts of sincerity of intention in the stead of perfection of action and is accommodated with all imaginable tenderness to the weak and frail constitution of Man since his fall 4thly And wherein the Glory of this New Covenant chiefly lies and wherein it fundamentally exceeds the other and displays eminently the Glory of God's Grace and Goodness to the World a Divine ability is given from Heaven for the performance of every part of it whatever is required is given the great security of Mens Salvation under this New Covenant is that we are kept by the mighty power of God through faith unto salvation and that when Men work out their salvation 't is God that worketh in them both to will and to do of his own good pleasure 't is his power that is perfected in weakness and grace only that proves sufficient for us in this case the ways and methods by which this Divine assistance of the Holy Ghost from above is conveyed into the Hearts and spirits of Men is admirable but known only to God and out of the compass of all humane discovery a Man born after the Spirit is compared to the Wind the effects of which we know but we know nothing whence it comes nor whither it goes how far God is pleased at first in some to move and excite humane abilities and still to reward their motion Heaven-ward with more and farther grace and how far he is pleased in others to reward with Divine assistance endeavours purely Natural and Human is a knowledge too high for us and what we cannot by searching attain to this we are sure of that grace is never wanting to such as make a faithful improvement of what power they have he that under the Gospel does but what he can do will be sure to be enabled to do what he should do I make no question but that generally speaking grace comes in to the assistance of Humane endeavours and is grafted at first upon such natural improvements as are preparative to the reception of Christ and the Gospel but 't is not always so but Grace breaks in upon some in the height of their carreer against Christ and the Gospel as it did upon St. Paul to make him an instance in this point and makes a perfect conquest of the Soul unto Christ where there is nothing but a Wicked Profane opposition against him Had not this Divine assistance been a gracious appurtenant to the Covenant of Grace Mankind had never reaped the benefit of it no terms of Salvation that were consisting with the Holiness and Justice of God though never so condescending and easie without this would ever have made Mankind happy so desparate and as to their own power irrecoverable an apostacy are all Men subjected to so that if either we consider the Mediator of this New Covenant or the Covenant it self we shall perceive the great advantage the Apostle has of his side in the comparison and what a foolish choice the believing Jews would make to depart and apostatize from this New Covenant and this Mediator to Moses and Mount Sinai The last thing the Apostle mentions and which he couples and conjoyns with the Mediator of this New Covenant as inseparably appurtenant to both is the Blood of Sprinkling which he says speaks better things than the Blood of Abel this is particularly and emphatically mentioned because the death and

all the Persons upon Earth is fingled out for it and he is told of God that in him all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed and this is called after in Scripture the blessing of Abraham being first pronounced to him which is the Blessing of the Messiah nor is any thing more particularly revealed touching the Messiah before his actual coming save that out of the numerous Posterity of Abraham one particular Tribe is singled out and one Family of that Tribe and 't is declared that Christ should come of the Tribe of Judah and of the House and Lineage of David That the Covenant of Grace was established with Abraham is plain from what the Apostle says Gal. 3. v. 8. The Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the heathen through faith preached before the Gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all nations be blessed which must needs be the Gospel because it refers to all Nations what particularly belong'd to the Jews went no farther than that Nation and the same Apostle in his grand Dispute with the Jews about Justification proves the Gospel-Method of Justification to be the true Method because Abraham was justified that way and was of more antiquity than the Law taking the Law for the whole Jewish oeconomy from the original of it for the first beginning of that was Circumcision and Abraham was justified in a Gospel-way that is had Righteousness imputed to him before he was circumcised and Circumcision was to him but a Seal of the Righteousness which he had being yet uncircumcised from whence the Apostle infers that Righteousness came not by the Law nor the Operations thereof but by Faith this was the first instance this of Abraham's in which we find any Man in Scripture justified and 't was intended to be an Instance of God's future and final Justification of Believers both Jews and Gentiles under the Gospel to the World's end and that the Law in the complex Notion of it was only a School-master to conduct and lead Men to Christ is very evident because both the Covenants were made with Abraham and the Gospel-Covenant had the precedence and the other though first in actual execution was in its nature but declarative and expressive of it and conductive to it and very proper and signifying it was that Christ should come from the Loins of Abraham who stood related to God as a publick person not only the natural Father of the Jew but the spiritual Father of all the faithful both Gentiles and Jews for although Christ as concerning the Flesh came of the Jews who were a holy enclosure unto God and under his own peculiar Regiment and it was a singular advantage to them to have it so and in some respect it was absolutely necessary that it should be so that so he might be born under the Law and under an obligation to all the righteousness of the legal Dispensation which he came to fulfil and might be a Minister of the Circumcision as the Apostle speaks for the truth of God to confirm the Promises made unto the Fathers yet he came as a publick Person in no sort confin'd to the Jewish Nation but equally related to all Mankind and therefore we find that one of the Evangelists derives his Pedegree from Adam From a triumvirate of Divine Favorites Men highly beloved of God and of great Heavenly Renown Heirs of all the Promises for Isaac and Jacob inherited all the Blessings of Abraham this People had their Original in those three God did not only epitomize his future gracious Proceedings with the World in the Covenant of his Grace and as it were appropriate himself to that triumvirate as their peculiar property by stiling himself the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob but so far honours them after death and when they had left this World as throughout all Generations to set forth the blessed state of the saved by their sitting down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven as if the very Company and Presence of those blessed Patriarchs to whom the Promises of Life and Salvation through the Messiah were first personally made would add much to our happiness there and as if their state above were the utmost felicity any could hope for or attain to for these Fathers sake of theirs they are to this day beloved of God and God owes them for what he promises he owes and intends them a kindness as shall be shewn hereafter for their sakes for as in those three the natural and the promised and spiritual Seed did both inhere and concenter so at last their natural Seed according to the Flesh shall also become Heirs of the Promise and the reason of it we have from St. Paul because the gifts and callings of God are without repentance The Consideration of three things will let us into a right account of that People First That God did intend by the impalement of them to himself to put in his Claim to the World generally run quite away from him into gross Idolatry the Worship of the Sun and other parts of the Creation and become Subjects of that Kingdom set up by the fallen Angels against him by this to challenge a part of the work of his hands and to have some select part of the World ruled and governed by Laws and Institutions of his own ordaining the great tendency of which were to prevent and over-rule that fatal miscarriage of Mankind in worshipping the Creature instead of the Creator and placing an Idol in the room of the true God and therefore throughout the whole Mosaical Institution there is a sacred Antiparistasis against Idolatry a total contradiction in every Ceremony of the Jewish Worship to it and the whole so contrived as to make that People utterly seperate themselves from the Sins of the Nations in that particular and to bring them up with the utmost detestation of it One constant Memorial of himself in a most eminent manner God by his Law placed amongst them which was the observance of the Sabbath intended as a constant weekly Memorandum against Idolatry and to put them in mind who it was that made the Heavens and the Earth and rested the seventh day from the works of his hands and upon this account it pleased God that Idolatry and breach of the Sabbath had the same punishment And as the Laws and Constitutions of this People were thus framed to secure them against Idolatry so the providential dealings of God with them all along tended this way God himself undertaking the particular charge and government of them which necessarily made them a Church and a State conjoyned together and exercising that government in such a way as might be expected from such a Soveraign and might in the highest manner oblige them to their obedience to him by mighty and open-face discoveries of himself by stupendious Miracles amazing Signs and Wonders and by an out-stretched Arm of Power subduing all

more cause to be concerned in the joy than the others because they themselves have travelled through all the stages of Salvation and all the Methods by which Souls come to glory and are now experimentally informed what blessedness attends and waits upon every converted saved Soul 4. They have communion with the Church here below by being present with Christ and beholding his blessed intercession for it taking unspeakable delight and satisfaction therein they behold all the concerns of the militant Church constantly presented before the Father by the Son and so are conversant with it and have the same vital love and concern for it that animates the whole 3dly Our being said to be come to them implies some effect of that as an attainment and some communion that is had with them on our part 1. We have communion with them in this respect when ever we address our selves to God and perform any Worship to the Divine Majesty we do it with this certain assurance and knowledge that he is incompassed with the holy Angels and all the Souls of the perfected and blessed and so in every act of Divine Worship we have a sort of communion with them he that converseth with any great King has a relative communion with his whole Court as appurtenant to him 2. We are come unto them and have a communion with them upon this account because we are in the same state that brought them thither we are in possession of the very same title to glory that brought them to it we have in faith what they have in fruition and we are continually waiting to be removed to them we are therefore truly said to be come to them because we are of the same Houshold and Family and there is nothing wanting but our dissolution to bring us actually into their Company and into the same Place where they now are And lastly we are come to them so as to receive great incouragement from them in our Christian Course by contemplating what it has brought them unto we are much animated to follow their example and much advantaged every way by setting before us their glorious and blessed state and condition 7thly We are here said to be come to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant Here the Apostle sets down the Alpha and the Omega of all this catholick Society this Jesus is the Sourse and Center of all the great Corner-stone upon which all the Structure depends In two things the force of the Apostle's comparison lies 1. They are come to Jesus himself a Saviour and a Mediator far exceeding Moses And 2. to a much better Covenant of which he is the Mediator The preference of Christ to Moses as a Mediator is largely discoursed of in this Epistle Moses was but a typical Mediator employed as a middle person between God and the People but Christ is the Son in his own House In this case God-man is the Mediator and God is the person mediated unto which consideration perhaps may help to unfold that difficult expression of St. Paul to the Galat. A mediator is not a mediator of one but God is one In two things the Apostle makes the especial difference between Christ and Moses to lie 1. Christ was the Surety of the Covenant unto God on the Peoples part and so they are sure not to fail in the performance of their part under Moses the People constantly failed in their part and he was no way to undertake or perform for them 2. Christ confirmed the Covenant by his own Death which Moses did not what he did was by the Blood of other Creatures of Bulls and Goats what Christ did he did by his own Blood and by the offering up of himself and therefore coming to such a Mediator as he is Jesus a Saviour as well as a Mediator that has redeemed the Church with his own Blood and such a Mediator as he is that lives for ever to make intercession is infinitely better than to be baptized into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea After all the Promises Predictions Types and Prefigurations of him the Apostle tells the believing Jews they are at last come to this Jesus to this Mediator and Saviour their Fathers having travelled through so many Ages and Dispensations before they arrived at his appearing it would be the very last degree of all folly and contradiction to their own interest to think of drawing back and returning to those terrene Elements by which he was figuratively represented and which have now by his appearance totally spent themselves in his signification coming to him as Mediator of this new Covenant implies coming to all the Benefits and Advantages of this Covenant for all the Promises of God are in him yea and in him Amen 't is certain the Apostle by calling Christ the Mediator of the new Covenant intends to shew the excellency of the Gospel-state beyond that at Mount Sinai for the Law there given is said to be ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator which Mediator was Moses by consent both of God and the People upon which account they are said to be baptized into him and in regard God designed Christ as the glorious Mediator of a better Covenant he well approved of what the People said when they desired that God would not himself speak any more to them but deliver his Commands by Moses because it was a Preparative intimation of the necessity of a better Covenant attended with a more sufficient Mediator who had no sins of his own to account for and so could approach unto God without that dread and fear that accompanied Moses in the service he performed Two things will be necessary to be explained fully to unfold the Apostle's sense 1. What is meant by a Mediator 2. What is meant by the New Covenant By a Mediator here is meant one that represents the People and intercedes to God on their behalf which was the circumstance of Moses that these two qualifications might be eminently appurtenant to Christ to compleat him for that service in a way infinitely exceeding Moses he is God and Man in one person as Man a full and perfect representative of all Mankind and as God such an Intercessor as procures Salvation to the uttermost for all that come to God by him and not only in Moses way by a bare representation of the Peoples condition before God but by his own inherent Merit procuring all the grace favour and acceptation on their behalf they could either hope for or desire 2dly By the New Covenant we are sure Mount Sion is opposed to Mount Sinai and the Gospel set in opposition to the Law we find in the New Testament mention but of two Covenants the law given upon Mount Sinai which is said to grow old and to be ready to vanish away and is called the first Covenant and the Gospel preached of old to Abraham and published at large by Christ and his Apostles which is called the

suffering of Christ the shedding of his precious Blood was the greatest performance of his mediatory Work here upon Earth the grand Fundamental of the New Covenant and of all the effects and consequences of it all was purchased by this as the price of it and in regard the Jews had been much accustomed under the Old Covenant to the shedding of Blood without which there was no remission the Apostle instructs them that this New Covenant infinitely excels the other in that very particular and he calls it the Blood of Sprinkling because there was no Blood at any time offered under the Law but part of it was sprinkled and as the Old Covenant at Horeb was confirmed by Moses the Mediator of it by sprinkling the Blood of the Oxen then sacrificed so this New Covenant is ratified by the sprinkling of Blood but 't is such Blood as of which all that was shed before was but typical and such Blood as is of an infinite value the Blood of God himself and as the Apostle in the 9th Chap. makes the comparison if the blood of bulls and goates says he could serve for Legal Typical and Ceremonial Purifications how much more shall the blood of Christ who by the Eternal Spirit offer'd up himself without spot to God purge your Consciences from dead Works so that by this expression the Apostle calling this blood the blood of sprinkling we are to understand that this is the soul purifying soul-justifying and soul-saving blood of which all the Sacrific'd Blood since the World began since Abel's first Sacrifices were but a Type and Prefiguration 't is being sprinkled with this that gives entrance and admittance into Heaven the true sanctuary of which admittance into the Earthly sanctuary by the sprinkling of blood was but a Type and this blood as 't is of transcendent Power and Vertue so it has a general and universal efficacy so the Prophet Esau tells us Esau 52.15 Where 't is Prophesied that Christ should with his Blood sprinkle many Nations which refers to that universal advantage the gentile World should reap by it this blood is not like the blood of the legal sacrifices that was often shed and reached but to one Nation this blood is of that infinite value that the whole race of Mankind the whole World are sprinkled with it in order to Justification and Salvation and there needs no repetition of it for by this one Sacrifice offer'd up Christ has for ever perfected them that are sanctified and there remains no more Sacrifice for Sin this blood the Apostle says speaks better things then the blood of Abel which was a consideration of great moment unto the Jews Some modern interpreters for I see it in no ancient Author conceive by the blood of Abel here is not meant his own blood but the blood of the sacrifices he slew which were the first we read of that God accepted and he gave such a Testimonial to them that in the foregoing Chapter the Apostle says upon that account he is yet spoken of not as 't is vulgarly rendred yet speaketh but is yet spoken of That which induc'd them to make this meaning of the Apostles Words was I suppose the little advantage there seems to be in the comparison to compare the blood of a Saviour with the blood of a murdered Man then which nothing could speak worse for it must needs call for vengeance and punishment and therefore there seems at first view to be little commendation given to the blood of Christ by saying that it speaks better things then the blood of Abel for it could not speak worse but to say it speaks better things then the very first sacrifice we read of that God accepted and gave testimony to of the best Man then in the World carries great advantage in the comparison this interpretation upon this account seems probable and is plausable but 't is not as I conceive the sense of the Apostle and to me it seems rejected By the words upon this account that the voice and cry that Abel's blood is said to have was after his death and God tells Cain his Brothers blood cryed unto him and so it was Abel's own blood that cryed now 't is plain the Apostle in saying that Christ's blood speaks better things then the blood of Abel speaks alludes to the speaking and crying of Abel's blood from the ground unto God as 't is recorded in Genesis the Jews had not only many false and pernicious instructors ready to diswade them from receiving the Gospel at first but after any of them had received it there were many false Judaizing Apostles who endeavour'd all they could to engage them to a relapse and apostasie either in whole or in part the Apostles business as has been often suggested is to prevent this latter and to establish such as had received the Christian Doctrine but were in danger of drawing back Now 't is most certain that amongst other discouragements that were suggested to the Believing Hebrews this was one of the chief and with which they were much affected that they and their rulers having shed the blood of this Mediator and taken it upon themselves and their posterity and some of the Apostles having openly to their faces reproached the Jewish Nation with it that they had been the betrayers and murderers of this Holy and Blessed Jesus the Son of God they could not reasonably hope for nor expect any benefit from that blood they had so murderously shed To obviate this objection the Apostle after he had mentioned the Mediator of this New Covenant and his blood wherewith he sprinkles the World to which he tells them by the Gospel they were come adds this which is of peculiar force and reference to the Jews and very emphatically argumentum ad hominem that this blood speaks better things then the blood of Abel Abel was murdered and his blood spake and cryed from the Ground to Heaven for yengeance upon his brother that murdered him but Christ was Betrayed and Murdered and his blood calls and cries aloud for pardon and forgivness for his very betrayers and crucifiers so that none of them need to fall into Cain's desparation and quit the Gospel upon any such sad consideration for this Blood though it was shed like Abel's yet had quite another Cry and Language attended it it called for no vengeance upon any man but for Peace Pardon and Reconciliation for all men even the very worst of his Enemies and Crucifiers and this renders the Comparison of wonderful advantage and efficacy to that end for which it was intended Nothing is more usual in St. Paul's Writings especially in his Epistle to the Romans than to answer Objections that were then well and commonly known without reciting them of which we at this day