A57966:68
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.
Obj. Adam was to believe he should certainly die; For so was the threatening, Gen. 2.17. if he should sin, or then we must say, that Adam was to believe he should not actually die, the latter cannot be said, for then he was to believe the contradicent of the Lords true threatening; which was the lie of the Serpent, Gen. 3. Ans. 1He was to believe neither of the twain according to the event, for there are two sort of threatenings, some pure and only threatenings, which reveal to us, what God may, in Law, do, but not what he hath decreed and intended, actu secundo & quoad eventum, to do, and bring to pass; These threatenings contain some condition, either expressed in other Scripture, or then reserved in the mind of the Lord. 1. Because the Lord so threatened Adam, as he remained free and absolute either to inflict the punishment, or to provide an Evangelic remedy, even as Solomon, 1 King. 2.37. saith to Shimei (in the day thou passest over the brook Kidron, thou shalt surely die) that is, thou shalt be guilty of death, reus mortis: 2Yet it cannot be denied, but Solomon reserved his own Kingly power, either to pardon Shimei, or to soften, or change the sentence. 2. The words of the Law do reveal, what the Magistrate may do, jure, and what the guilty deserves by the Law, but do not reveal the intention and absolute decree of the Law-giver, and what punishment actually, & quoad eventum shall be inflicted upon the guilty, and what shall come to pass as a thing decreed of the Lord: So, Gen. 9.6. the Murderer shall die by the Sword of the Magistrate, and Exod. 22.18, 19, 20. the Witch, the man that lies with a beast, he that sacrifices to a strange god, shall die the death jure, merito, and by Law-deserving, but it followeth not, but such as commit these abominations, do live, as is clear in the Kings of Assyria, Chaldea, and many of Israel, who were not put to death, but lived quoad eventum, though contrary to the Word of God. 3. The express Precepts of the Decalogue, Thou shalt have no other gods before me, &c. Thou