A57966:108
The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace
The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace containing something of the nature of the covenant of works, the sovereignty of God, the extent of the death of Christ ... the covenant of grace ... of surety or redemption between the by Samuel Rutherford ...The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace containing something of the nature of the covenant of works, the soveraignty of God, the extent of the death of Christ ... the covenant of grace ... of surety or redemption between the by Samuel Rutherford ...
Edinburgh: printed by Andro Anderson for Robert Brown, 1655
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
CHAP. VII. Its not written in the heart of man by nature, that GOD should promise life eternal to man, upon condition of obedience. 2. And that the debt of Justice can not tie GOD. 3. GOD punisheth not sin, by necessity of nature. 4. Nor defends he his own declarative Glory by that necessity. 5. Nothing can be given to GOD Al-sufficient. 6. No meriting of the creature. 7. We should have humble thoughts of free-Grace. 8. How low thoughts of our selves. 9. Promises make no strict justice between GOD and us.
CHAP. VII. Its not written in the heart of man by nature, that GOD should promise life eternall to man, upon condition of obedience. 2. And that the debt of Justice can not tye GOD. 3. GOD punisheth not sin, by necessity of nature. 4. Nor defends he his own declarative Glory by that necessity. 5. Nothing can be given to GOD Al-sufficient. 6. No meriting of the creature. 7. We should have humble thoughts of free-Grace. 8. How low thoughts of our selves. 9. Promises make no strict justice between GOD and us.
Sure, it is not repugnant to the yet innocent and entire nature of man,1 to know, that God may reward all such as seek and serve him, but that he must reward obedience either in the general, or so and so, is neither written in mans heart, nor hath it any truth: For it were nothing against justice, or bounty, or any attribute of God, not to reward his creature, which is obliged to serve him, and though there be a sort of quietness of conscience, which is the natural result of obedience in Adam, and of all men, yet it cannot infer, that there is an intrinsecall connexion, ex naturâ ⟨p. 21⟩rei, between our obedience and a reward to be given of God. Therefore, nor will it be a good inference, because there is disquietness in the conscience, after sin, and that it is natural to a sinner to apprehend a revenging power pursuing sin committed, that therefore it is natural an• essential to the Lord, to pursue sin with punishment in general. For a natural conscience may, and does know, that God doth freely create the world, and that he might not have created it, that he doth good freely to his creatures, and that he is not a debtor to his creatures; Will it follow by any Logic, that God creates the world by any natural obligation?