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

Ans. Neither doth that follow, for in the meaning of the liar, it was not true, that they should not die, either by deserving (for Satan brangles the equity and righteousness of the Law and threatening) or actually and in the event, for both were false and neither revealed, and faith is not to go beyond what is revealed of God. And Satan disputed against both the equity of the threatening, as if it had been unjust, in Law, and against the event, as a fiction and a thing that should not come to pass in the event, which indeed did not come to pass: but not according to the Serpents lying and false principles.

Ans. Neither doth that follow, for in the meaning of the liar, it was not true, that they should not die, either by deserving (for Satan brangles the equity and righteousness of the Law and threatning) or actually and in the event, for both were false and neither revealed, and faith is not to go beyond what is revealed of God. And Sathan disputed against both the equity of the threatning, as if it had been unjust, in Law, and against the event, as a fiction and a thing that should not come to passe in the event, which indeed did not come to passe: but not according to the Serpents lying and false principles.

Obj. Was then Adam to despair and to believe nothing of a Saviour. Ans. He was not obliged to despair, but to rely, by virtue of the first Commandment of the Decalogue, upon God infinitely powerful, merciful, gracious, and wise to save, for that was revealed and written in his heart, and that is far from despairing: But in the interval between the fall and the Lords publishing the blessed Gospel, and news of the seed to come, he was so to trust in God for possible deliverance in general (as the Law of Nature requireth) but he was to believe nothing of unrevealed particulars, far less of the mystery of the Gospel, which was kept secret, since the world began, Rom. 16.25.

Obj. Was then Adam to despair and to beleeve nothing of a Saviour. Ans. He was not obliged to despaire, but to rely, by vertue of the first Commandement of the Decalogue, upon God infinitly powerfull, mercifull, gracious, and wise to save, for that was revealed and written in his heart, and that is far from despairing: But in the intervall between the fall and the Lords publishing the blessed Gospel, and news of the seed to come, he was so to trust in God for possible deliverance in generall (as the Law of Nature requireth) but he was to beleeve nothing of unrevealed particulars, far lesse of the mystery of the Gospel, which was kept secret, since the world began,