A57966:337
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.
And shall not the Question recur concerning that condition? In a word they will have Christs death to buy Heaven, but not to buy faith, without which Heaven is impossible. Yea he no more bought to men a grace sweetly and strongly inclining the will to believe, then he bought such a grace to the damned devils.1 He purposed to give to all Pagans a power by which they should be made fit to perform all that the Gospel requires, and be fit to be made partakers of the inheritance of the Saints, Col. 1. And yet Paul gives thanks to God for that bestowed on the Colossians, and God must by this call all men to Christ, either mediately or immediately. And say that God is prepared ever to give more and more as we use the former ⟨p. 126⟩well,2 and that all by sufficient grace (saith Corvinus) are disposed to conversion, but that sufficiency is not habitual grace, but actual assistance conveying the Preached Word, which is to bring all to free-wills power, rejecting all infused power, and to make an influence of grace, which is in the power of free will to use or not to use, and to stand in two. 1. In a measure of heavenly Doctrine. 2. In the stirring upon the heart; Whence 1. Grace habitual so is denied; then the will needeth no healing. 2. Grace universal is limited to the Word Preached, then it is not universal; For Pagans hear not the Word Preached. 3. There is no other help given to free-will in every act, but 1. Information by the Word, that was the grace of Pelagius. 2. Some influence of God in every act: But that adds not new strength to the will.3 Shortly they say, Any man may know, understand and believe the Gospel, if the object be sufficiently proposed and revealed. And so the natural man can no more know and receive the things of the Gospel,4 then he can understand the Metaphysics, the Acromaticks of Aristotle: for these he cannot receive, but judgeth them folly; And so we are the same way blind, dead, stony-hearted to believe the Gospel, as we are to know and believe the mysteries of Aristotle's Philosophy.