The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace

Q. If Adam in the interval betwixt his fall and the publishing of the blessed Seed, was not to despair, but to rely upon God as mighty to save; What should such as Judas or Cain do?

Q. If Adam in the intervall betwixt his fall and the publishing of the blessed Seed, was not to despaire, but to rely upon God as mighty to save; What should such as Judas or Cain do?

A. The conscience of Cain and of despairers, being no authentic Bible nor Judge,¹ which can carry the controversy between them and God, so long as they are in the way, or are viators, the Gospel treaty betwixt them and Christ yet standing and not broken off upon the part of Christ, they are to cherish and hold up the Treaty, and (as it were) to force speech out of Christ, and to pursue the news of an offered salvation. 2. There is no Spirit of God that suggests to them despair, and bids them write themselves in the black roll of Reprobates, for though they believe hell, as the Devils haply believe there is a God, yet they blow the coals of that hellish furnace, and kindle a fire before night. 3. They being under the Law of Nature, are to rely on infinite mercy able to save. Their witty darkness of unbelief saith they believe, but they hate mercy in the general toward others, as to themselves. 2. For a doubting child of God, because the light of evidence (which to them, in that case is dim) comes nearer to the natural light of reason,² then to spiritual light, therefore faith must be set on work to act as faith, and faith acts most strongly when reason is weakest. Natural causes work more strongly under opposition, the fire burns most vehemently in winter frost,³ and the internal heat of the body is most mighty for concoction, when the coldness of the air is most piercing without, faith sees God most piercingly at midnight in Job, when rottenness and deadness speaks the contrary,