Part 2. CHAPTER VII.
James Dodson
The Covenant of Redemption is explained in three eternal acts. 1. Designation, decree or ordination, and delectation in the work. 2. Mercy and peace, truth and righteousness are agreed in this Covenant. 3. The designed sending of the Spirit cannot be a Covenant as this was. 4. The twelfth Argument. 5. The thoughts of eternal love.
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, προεγνωσμένος [chosen beforehand], the Lamb fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, 1 Pet. 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 unto, from eternity; therefore he was present with the Father, and consented unto 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, Joh. 17:5. and here is an eternally closed Covenant between JEHOVAH and the Son, with the consent of parties.
The most sweet providence of God in designing a Physician to us before we be sick.
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 first born 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 fore-ordained 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, Ezech. 18. the threatening, Gen. 2:17. must be fulfilled. 2. Mercy pleads (not having a Throne higher then justice, as Arminius saith [de Sacerdatio Chri. pag. 14, 15.]) 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, Psa. 85:11. Hence all these Attributes of glory must come forth, that a Throne may be set up and a Psalm may be sung, Rev. 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 honour, and glory, and blessing. 13. And every creature which is in heaven (saith 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, honour, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
Hence (1.) there is no conflict between mercy and justice (as Arminius saith) nor any natural desire in God to have all Angels and men saved, which is hindered by justice. Job sayeth truly, c. 23. v. 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 doth. 14. For he performeth the thing that is decreed for me (and all creatures, and his decrees are most free, Eph. 1:11.) and many such things, or many the like things are with him.
The harmony of the Attributes of God in the declaration of mercy, truth, justice, &c. is sweetly made out by this Covenant.
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, Rev. 5:13. and in Christ the decreed and appointed Mediator, the Lamb fore ordained, as Peter, 1 Pet. 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 Psal. 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.
The sending of the Spirit, and the Spirit his free consent to come, is not a proper Covenant.
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, Joh. 14:26; Joh. 16:13, 14, 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 Œconomical and dispensatory agreement of sending and being sent, yea 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 crosse, 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.
God’s love in acting for man in time.
And what should man say when the votes of the Three carries it, that our iniquities should be laid on the Son, Isa. 53:6. and the Son should be sent, Gal. 4:4. and he from eternity should step out. Lord, send me, here am I to do thy will. Joh. 3:13. No man (no person) οὐδεὶς, hath 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 spake for me, undertook for me, took all my diseases upon him, before I was, and before my disease had being? We reckon it great favour, Such a man pleaded kindly and boldly for you in your absence, when you was not to speak for your self. As its 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 Christs undertaking.
The Lord chose us not in Christ, because he saw us in him by faith.
Obj. Such as are chosen in Christ, such are foreseen believers, when they are chosen.
Ans. Justly learned and pious M. [Paul] Bayne denies that [Comm. on Eph. 1. v. 4.]: 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 off-spring: 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: yea 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 mutual delights of love between the Father and the Son, in their thoughts of the Covenant-love to man.
The third considerable act here, is an act of delectation, and the place is observable, Prov. 8:22. The Lord, Chanani [קָ֭נָנִי], possessed me: Its not Bara [בָּרָא], created me: Its not ἔκτισέ [created], as the LXX. have it, but as Aquila, ἐκτήσατο [procure for oneself], in the beginning of his way: as [Thomas] Cartwright, before he had created anything. 23. I was set up from everlasting. [Immanuel] Tremellius, inuncta fui [I have been anointed], I was anointed. Aben Ezra, Electa fui [I have been chosen], I was chosen. The vulgar 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, &c. In all which the authority of Christ (saith Cartwright) is proven from his eternity, antiquity, immortality, &c. and all this time He was with God, as is fully, v. 30. cleared: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him. Chald. Para. 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 Hebr. י֤וֹם י֑וֹם [day by day], die, die [day after day], from day to day. Rabbi Solomon, annorum myriades [myriads of years], 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 [formal reason] (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, &c. is Christ as Redeemer delighting himself with the sons of men, 31. I was with him,—rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth: Heb. Sporting or playing with the sons of men: both because of all his works, as Ambrose saith, 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.[1] So the Father and the Son were taken, and (as it were) love, saith Bernard, triumphed over God.[2] 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 then the grave only, and then 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 (saith Bernard) see, if you take heed, joy saddened, faith feared, salvation suffering, life dying, strength weakened:[3] and this wisdom was hid up and kept secret since the world began, Rom. 16:25. Hidden wisdom (in the heart of the Lord from eternity) which God ordained before the world, unto our glory, 1 Corinth. 2:7. the like whereof the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man, v. 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, Eph. 3:8.
The strength of God’s love to man, which we too little value.
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 outlettings of life and of such a life.
Hence, the 12. Argument: If Christ the Son was designed, and fore-ordained 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, Prov. 8:22, 23, &c. 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 undergoes suretyship for the sons of men: Who warmed and kindled a fire of Redeemers 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, Gen. 3; Gen. 12?
No less everlasting love could save us.
Ah! its an older love then 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 doubles of them only were given to Adam in Paradise. The love of God is no younger then 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, Jer. 31:3. I have loved thee 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 its out of date now: the Covenant-love to Abraham is dead and away, and the Lord is changed? No, I have loved thee, not for a year, or a summer: The Covenant-love is older than thy poor short time-love.
Obj. But I may leave off to love God; and he loves me no longer than I love him?
Ans. 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ambros. hexa. l. 6. c. 16. Deus fecit Coelum, & non lego quod requierit, fecit terram nec lego quod sic requieverit: fecit solem, lunam & stellas, nec ibi lego quod requieverit; lego quod fecit hominem, & quod tunc requieverit [God made the heaven, and I do not read that he rested, he made the earth, nor do I read that he thus rested: he made the sun, the moon, and the stars, nor do I read that he has rested there; I read that he made man, and that he then rested.].
[2] Bernard. Serm. 64. in Cant. Quid violentius triumphat de Deo [What triumphs more violently against God?].
[3] Bernard. hom. 2 Super missus est videas si attendas (in Christo) tristari laetitiam, pavere fiduciam, salutem pati, vitam mori, fortitudinem infirmari [You will be sent over to see if you pay attention (in Christ) to be saddened by joy, to fear faith, to suffer salvation, to die for life, to be weakened by strength.].