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

But they who enjoy that, what ever it be, of which by sin, they deserve to be deprived, they have no due right to that, it is denied: For if it be life, being, eating, sleeping, and such things, as only can be taken away, by a judicial power, and by God the Lord of life and death, and cannot be taken away by themselves, (for it is lawful for no man to punish himself and take away his own life) nor by any other, except for capital crimes, they have due providential right to keep and enjoy all such things until the same power that gave them remove them, nor do they sin in using ⟨p. 54⟩them.¹ And it is most dangerous to say, that Devils and the damned in Hell who dishonour the Majesty of God by their living and being, and so by sin, deserve to be annihilated and deprived of their being, do sin, in that they live and are not annihilated, and that all the Elect before their conversion, sin in that they enjoy being and life. A judge sentenceth a man to die for killing his father within 24. hours, but by invincible providence he is rescued out of the hand of the Magistrate,² and lives diverse years after, the sentenced man sins not before God nor against the law of the land, in that he lives, nor can he be called an usurper and unjust, malae fidei, possessour of his life: For the sentence was not that he should take away his life with his own hand, but that it should be taken away by the judicial hand and executioner of the Magistrate. Nor is this Providential right, a right of mere permission but of positive donation and free-gift, for then we might by the same reason, say that Reprobate men have a right of mere permission to keep and enjoy the knowledge of these, that God is: Superiors, Parents are to be honoured: the whole is more then the part;³ Yea they have the same natural and providential right by nature that other sinners have to the one as to the other. 2. These who enjoy that, of which they deserve to be deprived, they sin in the act of using, as touching the substance of the act of living, being, eating, drinking: That is most false. These who enjoy that, of which they deserve to be deprived, they, in modo, in the way, manner, and end of living, eating, &c. do sin: It is true: