Page:A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace (John Ball).djvu/214

 202

and bringing them to the Sheep-fold of Christ, were accomplished: now the Apostles were sent forth to preach the Gospell to every creature: and God gave such a blessing unto the Word, that by their preaching a great part of the habitable world was converted unto the faith. Now upon the Gentiles was powred out also the gift of the holy Ghost, Christ having broken down the partition wall betwixt Jew and Gentile, and abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of Commandements, contained in Ordinances, for to make in himselfe of twaine, one new man, so making peace.

The Covenant of promise was first made with Adam and his posterity; not with him as the common parent of all mankind, and so with every man that should come of his loines howsoever in all generations: but with Adam as a beleever, and his posterity untill by wilfull departure from the faith they should discovenant themselves and those that did proceed from them. In like manner it was made with the Patriarchs, with Noah, and his posterity: then with Abraham and his family; afterwards with one selected Nation: but under the Gospell all Nations are brought into the bond of the Covenant. All nations, I say, but not every one in every nation, nor every nation in all periods of that time. For many nations have lived, we know, for a long time in infidelity, without the Gospell, without God in the world, aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel, and strangers from the Covenant of Grace. And we find the Apostles to make a manifest difference betwixt the people of God and unbelievers, so that all in their dayes were not admitted into Covenant, though the Gospell was preached unto them. For they that be in Covenant are in phrase of Scripture the people of God, that is, such with whom God hath contracted Covenant, and who in like manner have sworne unto the words of the Covenant, God stipulating, and they accepting the condition. God as an absolute Soveraigne hath right and authority over all men: but in a certaine and peculiar reason they are called his people, who receive his Commandement, and acknowledge him to be their Lord and Saviour. And these be of two sorts; for God doth make his Covenant with some externally, calling them by his Word, and sealing them by his Sacraments, and they by profession of faith and receiving of the Sacraments oblige themselves to the condition required: and thus all members of the visible Church be in Covenant.