A57966:99
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. The condition of a new heart and of faith is promised, but not to all, not to me, but to some few chosen only. Ans. There be here a number of errors.1 1. Unbelief foments proud merit, that we are to believe as much of God promised, as there is conceived, to be worth in self, and in me to fulfil the condition; But true faith, contrary to self-unworthiness, relies upon the Truth of God, the excellency of Christ, and the absoluteness of the promise. 2. Satan like a Sophist draws the dispute to the weakest conclusion from the strongest, to wit, from the promise of God, that is surer then heaven to the state, against which there is a greater number of Topic Arguments, then there can be against the promise of God. As 1. What am I? 2. Am I chosen or not? So Satan to Christ, if thou be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread, in point of believing its better that faith expatiate in viewing God, Christ, the Ransom of the blood of God-Man, the depth of free grace,2 then upon self, and the state: in point of repenting and humble down-casting, we would read self, and our own estate. 3. Its Satan and the unbelieving heart that would have our faiths greatness rising from selves holiness, and goodness. Whereas the greatest faith that Christ finds, Mat. 8.10. looks away from self, v. 8. I am not worthy — and dwells much upon the Omnipotency of Christ in commanding diseases, ⟨p. 17⟩as a Centurion his Soldiers. 4. When unbelief quarrels the Lord as untrue and weak, who faints and wearies, and one that is not the Creator of the ends of the earth, it alleges only and pretends self-guiltiness to justify unbelief: Yet Isa▪ 40.28. though God be reproached as weak, we seem to resolve all in this; our own unworthiness, but we cannot get our faith stately enough; and the truth is here, we quarrel with God and his decrees, under pretence of this, what if he have not chosen me? and I have no right to Covenant-mercies, except I take a Law-way to earn them, by fulfilling the condition. 5.
Obj. The condition of a new heart and of faith is promised, but not to all, not to me, but to some few chosen only. Ans. There be here a number of errors.