A57966:892
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
Part 2 › Chapter 12: The condition and Properties of the Covenant of Redemption.
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.
But it may appear as there was a time when it was said of Christ, Phil. 2.7. [Greek or Hebrew], He emptied himself, and took on him the form of a servant. So there is a time opposite to that, v. 9. Therefore God hath highly exalted him: which is not fulfilled in his resurrection, ascension, and sitting only at the right hand of God, 1but when all power, friends, and unfriends, and the Man Christ shall be subject to the Lord, yea even the Son, not as God, for Christ-God is equal with the Father▪ not as man, for so in the days of his flesh as man, he ever was, and is, and shall be subject to God, but the Son shall be subject, as touching the Office of a formal Mediator. 2. Another distinction is here needful, as Augustine and Ambrose:2 he shall render the Kingdom to the Father, not that he shall leave off to reign, but that he then shall declare that he reigns not of himself, but that he hath his power of reigning from the Father, and he shall profess this before men and Angels, and so shall glorify the Father. Its not to be rejected that Hilarius, lib. 1. de Trinit. 11. August. lib. 1. de Trinit. c. 8. he shall render the elect back to God, as now saved▪ and present to the Father his ransomed ones now perfected, so Eph. 5.27. 3. Taking the word of reigning, for this, to excel in eminency of power above all, so Christ shall reign eternally, but taking the word of reigning as it notes the exercise of royal authority, so and so by gathering a Church, by the Preached word, fighting against enemies, and overcoming them, to make them his ⟨p. 364⟩foot-stool, until which time he reigns,3 Ps. 110. And so it may be, and is said by some, he reigns, not after the day of the universal Judgement: but these are but the second acts of a King, and the not exercising of these acts proves not but Christ is a King, actu primo, and essentially, for the exercise of such and such acts are often extrinsical to the office. But the question shall remain whether he be not for ever and ever a Mediatory King, and does retain his headship over the Church; so as the Angel say,