The covenant of grace – Thomas Brooks
“I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear Me, so that they will never turn away from Me.” Jeremiah 32:40
The covenant of grace is that agreement which God has made with sinful man out of His own free mercy and grace, wherein He undertakes to save fallen man. All mankind would have been eternally lost had He not of his own free grace and mercy made such an agreement with sinful man. This covenant is called a covenant of grace, because it flows from the free grace and mercy of God. There was nothing outside of God, nor anything in God but His free mercy and grace which moved Him to enter into covenant with poor sinners.
The covenant of grace consists in these things:
(1.) that God will be our God;
(2.) that He will give us a new heart, a new spirit;
(3.) that He will not turn away His face from doing of us good;
(4.) that He will put His fear into our hearts;
(5.) that He will cleanse us from all our filthiness and idols;
(6.) that He will rejoice over us to do us good;
(7.) that we shall be His people;
(8.) that we shall fear Him forever;
(9.) that we shall walk in His statutes;
(10.) that we shall not depart from Him.
Oh what head can conceive, or what tongue can express that infinite counsel, wisdom, love, care and tenderness, which is in the covenant of grace so as it may best suit to all the needs, and straits, and necessities, and miseries, and desires, and longings of poor sinners’ souls.
The covenant of grace is so well ordered by the unsearchable wisdom of God, that you may find in it . . . remedies to cure all your diseases, and cordials to comfort you against all your faintings, and a spiritual armory to arm you against all your enemies, namely, the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Do you, O distressed sinner, need a loving God, a compassionate God, a reconciled God, a sin-pardoning God? Here you may find Him, in the covenant of grace.
Do you need a Christ to counsel you by His wisdom, and to clothe you with His righteousness, and to adorn you with His grace? Here you may find Him in the covenant of grace.
Do you need the Spirit to enlighten you, to teach you, to convince you, to awaken you, to lead you, to cleanse you, to cheer you? Here you may find Him in the covenant of grace.
Do you need grace, or peace, or rest, or quiet, or contentment, or comfort, or satisfaction? Here you may find it in the covenant of grace. God has laid into the covenant of grace, as into a storehouse, all those things that sinners or saints can need.