A57966:141
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.
4. But is there no paction between GOD and the creature? Surely we must say that the covenant between GOD and Adam is of another nature, yea and promises also, then these that are between man and man;1 for there is proper giving and taking betwixt the creature. 2. The proper covenants between man and man require that both parties be free and independent one of another, there may intervene a jus, a right and a debt upon the promissor to him to whom the promise is made. Omne promissum ex ore fideli cadit in debitum. Jurists say there is no proper binding Covenants between the father and the son, the lord and the servant; for the son and the servant are not lords of themselves nor sui juris. ⟨p. 41⟩The father by no paction can remove the foundation of the debt of nature that the son oweth to the father: for impossible it is, but if such a man be son to such a man, but he owe to his father as to an instrument, quod sit & vivat, being and living, and the son can not satisfy by paying the father for that sum, and the father can not cancel the band nor give him an acquittance. Far less can any recompense the Lord for life and being. The fallen Angels and damned in hell and all wicked men are in the Lords Compt-book everlasting debtors to him for being. But God who is more then a Father (to whom men are but painted fathers) may thus far loose the bond, as he may command the son to sacrifice the father, as well as once he commanded the father Abraham to offer up his son to God. But God cannot resign his right that he hath over the creature to a creature, because he cannot leave off to be Creator, and so cannot lay aside or make over Creator-right, jus Creatoris, to any.2 2. Say that a creature had a jus or right over the Creator, it is either an uncreated right or a created right, so to pursue God by Law, as to cause him do him justice; it cannot be an uncreated right; for that were near to blasphemy: For no created head can bear the royal Crown of the King of Ages. If it be a created right, this created right must be under the dominion of him who is universal Lord of all: then may the Lord make use of it at his pleasure; then may not the man make use of it at his pleasure: for an absolute dominion of one and the same thing cannot be in the hands of two absolute Lords, who may have contradictory desires concerning the same thing: