A57966:109
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.
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?2 And because by force of a natural conscience, all know that God is good and bountiful to his creatures, in giving▪ and doing good to them, we cannot therefore infer that actual beneficence is so essential to the infinite Majesty, as he should not be God, if he did not extend that goodness to them. Common sense will say no more followeth, but goodness and bounty intrinsical are essential to God, and these attributes are essential to him, and were from eternity in him, and are his good and bountiful nature; Though not either man, Angel, or any thing else had been created, to which he doth actually extend his goodness. Ergo, this actual extension of goodness is not essential to God, so neither is the actual punishing of sin essential to God, but free, though Adam apprehended God would punish his eating of the forbidden tree; Yet if he apprehended that he should not be God, if he did not punish it, his apprehension was erroneous.