A57966:599
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.
Quest. How is it that not only, penally, but intrinsically and formally we sinned in Adam, and are inherenter sinners in him, but we are righteous in Christ only imputativè, and why should not Christ be named formally the sinner, since he is made by imputation the sinner? As Adams sin is ours by imputation, and we formally and inherently are sinners in Adam?
Quest. How is it that not only, penally, but intrinsecally and formally we sinned in Adam, and are inherenter sinners in him, but we are righteous in Christ only imputativè, and why should not Christ be named formally the sinner, since he is made by imputation the sinner? As Adams sin is ours by imputation, and we formally and inherently are sinners in Adam?
Ans. How we sinned in Adam is a point of greater difficulty: For this first sin the tottering and reeling of the specific common nature in Adam is ours,1 not because he is our father [Greek or Hebrew] by nature (though that be a ground of the imputation also) but because he is such a father by Covenant, and Law, the Law and Covenant of Works being laid in pawn in his hand. There be three parts of Original sin: A partaking of the first sin of Adam, we all sinned in him, Rom. 5.12, 14, 15. (2.) The want of the Image of God, called the Glory of God, Rom. 3.23. (3.) Concupiscence and a bentnesse of nature to sin, Rom. 7.7, 14, 17, 18, 23, 24. As to the first, Adams sin is ours really and truly, not so much because it is ours,2 as because it is imputed to be ours by God, who so contrived the Law of Works, as it should be made with Adam, not as a single father, but with Adam as a public person representing all man, and having our common nature as a father both by nature and Law, which came from the mere free-will of God.