Dagg on the New Covenant

[JM]

"When the new covenant is made with believers, by writing the law in their hearts, the accompanying promise is: “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” It is true that the Israelites were once accounted the people of God; and that they departed from God, and were rejected by him; and the same departure and rejection might happen to believers in Christ, if they were under the same covenant. But God found fault with the old covenant precisely on this ground, that it did not secure his people from disobedience and rejection: “Because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not.” Having found fault with this covenant, which did not put the law in their hearts, and secure them from rejection, he abolishes that covenant, and makes a new one, founded on better promises: “I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.” “Believers are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation;” and the power which keeps them through faith, keeps that faith in existence and exercise, or it would fail to preserve them. This preservation of their faith, follows from the intercession of Christ, who prayed for Peter, that his faith should not fail; and as he ever liveth to make intercession, the preservation of faith is secured by the continued supplies of his grace, which otherwise would not be sufficient for his people. It is manifest that Paul entertained these views, when he wrote to the Philippians: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." John L. Dagg, A Manual of Theology