A57966:123
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.
Now the Lord does not love himself, of free grace, for he every way, for the infinite excellency of his Nature is love-worthy, and there is no intervening of freedom, or free grace, or sovereignty in the Lords loving of himself and his own essential glory. There is a declarative glory, which is not essential to God, of which the Scripture, Prov. 16.4. The Lord made all things for himself, 1that is, for his glory, to be declared. Eph. 1.6. He hath chosen us to the praise of the glory of his grace, v. 11. In Christ we have obtained an inheritance. 1•. That we should be to the praise of his glory. Rom. 11.36. All things are to him, to his glory. Isa. 43.21. This people have I formed for my self, they shall show forth my praise. All these are to be understood not of the essential glory of God, but of the declarative glory of God, that shines ad extra. 2And this glory is not essential to God as so declared, for he was infinitely glorious from eternity, and should eternally be essentially glorious, though neither world, nor man, nor Angel, had been created. And the meaning of that, Isai. 42.8. is mistaken, the length of the Heaven, toto Coelo. It is not this, as I love my self, so by necessity of nature I will, and desire that my glory due to me, as God, be not given to idol gods, and creatures. 1. What by necessity of nature God wills, that certainly, and by necessity of nature is and existeth, as he loveth himself, and his Son by necessity of nature, and begets his Son by necessity of nature, so also by necessity of nature God is loved, and the Son of God is loved, and the Son is by necessity of nature, begotten of the Father. But it is most untrue, that by necessity of nature, the Glory ⟨p. 30⟩of God is not transferred to Idol gods and creatures; The Scriptures cry the contrary. When ever Idolatry is committed,