Chapter 9: What Life Is Promised in the Covenant of Works

Q. What is meant by life promised in the Covenant of Works? A. 1. Not a life in Christ and the fruit of the merit of blood, as our life is in the New Covenant (John 10:11; John 3:16). For Adam was not Mediator of reconciliation here; he was a sort of public law-head in whom he was to stand or fall, if any please to call him so a Mediator [illegible], but it is a law-life, perhaps a communion in glory. 2. But the life he lived, and the creatures for his service, seems not to belong to this life, for the creatures were given to Adam, he not working for them. Yet I should not oppose, if any say that earthly blessings were given to Adam, as a reward of an actual obedience, as they are given to such as keep the Law (Deuteronomy 28). But surely our gain in Christ of such a life, bought by so noble a ransom as the blood of God-man, is not little. It is rawness and greenness of wit, to value it so low as we do. Children see not what a hiring and taking apple Heaven is.

Q. Whether or not did Adam and all the Reprobates in his loins, by sin, lose right to the creatures?

A. There is a three-fold right.

- 1. Natural. - 2. Providential. - 3. Spiritual.

A natural right may be conceived two ways. 1. Absolutely, so creature, and man not created, can have no right or claim to being or life; the Creator's free gift is our best charter to life and being. 2. This right may be conceived, conditionally, as if God create the Sun, a power to give light is congruous, and debita naturae Solis, suitable to the nature of the Sun, nor can the creature plead for this, as debt: but if the Lord give being, to enjoy this being cannot be sin, because there is no law and command to nothing to receive or not to receive being and life from the Creator: and where there is no Law, there is no transgression. And therefore to have being and life cannot be in itself a sin.

2. Providential right is but a continuing of life and being, until the same power that gave it, shall remove it, by way of punishment; for God as Creator, of his sovereignty, gives being and life, and the comfortable use of the creatures; but as a Judge, ordinarily for sin, he removes it, though he — I deny not — out of his sovereignty, may, and possibly does, annihilate the meat that the angels in assumed bodies, and which the man Christ, after the resurrection, did eat.

3. The spiritual right is that new supernatural title, which the elect believers have, in order to a supernatural end, and all these being made theirs, to promote their salvation (1 Corinthians 3:21). All things are yours (Revelation 21:7). He that overcomes shall inherit all things, by covenant-right, so: he adds, And I will be his God, and he shall be my Son (Psalm 37:10). A drink of cold water, by this charter, is better than a king's crown, and has refreshed some more than all the choice wine the earth yields. The love of the Giver is better than wine (Song of Solomon 1:2), and here the charter is, by many thousands, more precious than the land. For nature common to all is over-gilded with free grace. And the natural life and being, and the material heavens we shall enjoy, are blessed in another manner to the glorified, than these they now enjoy (1 Corinthians 15:40-43, etc.; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1; Isaiah 65:17), and they shall be above the heavens that are, when the mystical body shall be perfected, yes, and the dust into which the bodies of the saints are resolved, keeps a spiritual covenant relation to God in Christ: as (Exodus 3:6; Matthew 22:32; John 6:39; Romans 8:21-23), for no joint or part of the body, but it must share of covenant glory. We look little to anything but to have and enjoy the dead lump and body of gold, dead lands without Christ. See (Hosea 2:18, 22; Ezekiel 34:25, 27; Ezekiel 36:29; Leviticus 26:6; Psalm 37:9, 11, 29; 1 Timothy 4:8; Hebrews 13:5-6; Matthew 6:25-26; Psalm 34:10). O fair inheritance. 4. As to the second (which is the main controversy) to enjoy life and being, is the substance of the act, no sin. Men contravene a law to be so and so born, to wit, in sin, for it is forbidden by a law: but to be born and live, is no sin, but by order of nature, before original sin. Nor is it forbidden more to man to be born and live, than it is forbidden to beasts, nor to eat, sleep, wake, than to them: so neither is it commanded by a law to die, but it is commanded and commended to die well, to fall asleep in Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:14, 16), to be faithful to the death (Acts 7:60; Revelation 2:10; Revelation 14:13). (2.) The elect who are born heirs of wrath, as others (Ephesians 2:3), and all the Reprobate should kill themselves, or be killed, from the birth, if to live and eat were sin, in itself. But only the Lord of life and death, and his minister, the magistrate, has power to take away life and being; no man can be his own executioner. But if it were sin in itself to live, they ought to expire and restore a usurped life, which they possess, mala fide, to the owner the Lord, as a thief is obliged to restore stolen goods. (3.) The dominion of Reprobates over the creatures, is a part of the good image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), and they breathe, live, ride, sail, and are no more than the elect to lay these aside, than they are to lay aside the natural knowledge of God, by which they are to glorify God as God (Romans 1:19-21; Romans 2:14-15; Acts 14:16-17). Now the Reprobates have not utterly lost the image of God, as to know there is a God, to honor their parents, to hurt no man.

4. This opinion looks the rather like a fancy, that it is a temptation in weak ones, under a sad desertion, Satan riding upon their Melancholy (a complexion not sanctified, useful to Satan, and if sanctified, a seat of mortification and humble walking) for they judge it sin to eat, and drink, and sleep, they having no right to that, but so they have no right to live, and are obliged to kill themselves, and upon the same ground, it was sin to Adam to speak, to answer God, to breathe, to hear the news of the blessed seed, which all are acts of life, and so acts of sin, and upon the same ground, that they cannot perform these without sin, they should not pray, for in praying, they cannot but take the name of God in vain. For we are not to abstain from a duty, because of the sinfulness, which adheres to the duty, by reason of our corruption, for in Christ the sinfulness is pardoned, and the duty accepted.

5. It necessarily must follow, if it be sin to eat, because the non-converted have no spiritual right in Christ, to bread, the converted may spoil by their grounds, all the non-converted, of their goods, houses, gold, gardens, vineyards, lands, and upon the same ground, for the crime of non-regeneration, they must also deprive them of their lives, and kill them; for they have alike right, that is, no right (these men being judges) to either life or goods. And so, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," must be meant of the converted neighbor: but with fire and sword all other neighbors may be killed and spoiled, and so there should be no stealing, no oppressing, no crushing of the widow, the stranger, the fatherless, the weaker; not grind the faces of the poor, though their Redeemer be strong, contrary to the Scripture (Proverbs 23:11; Jeremiah 50:33-34; Psalms 94:5-8; Psalms 14:4; Exodus 22:26-27; Isaiah 3:12-15; Micah 2:3). And so it were lawful to take crowns, kingdoms, inheritances, lands, dignity, and honor, from all the unregenerate princes, powers, and rulers on earth, to cut off with the sword all the heathen nations who as yet know not Christ, and it were lawful for the regenerate sons and brethren to kill and spoil father, mother, brethren, sisters, kings, potentates, countrymen, strangers, orphans, exiled, captives, prisoners, sick, weak, imprisoned, all infants that are by nature the heirs of wrath, upon this ground, the converted ones judge all non-converts to be void of all due right to life or goods, and so in these men, the societies, churches of Christ must cease.

Obj. These who enjoy that of which they deserve to be deprived, have no due right to that of which they deserve to be deprived; but are usurpers, and so sin. But all the non-regenerated are such, or, they who use that to which they have no right, do sin in the act of using it.

Ans. 1. They who enjoy that of which they deserve to be deprived, they sin, and have no due right to use it; is not universally true. They who enjoy that which they may and ought by their own private power, restore, such as [reconstructed: ill-gotten goods], they sin in using that, true (Proverbs 3:27; Exodus 22:26-27; Luke 19:8). It is a sin to withhold the garment though laid in pawn, which should cover the poor man's skin in the night, and they have no right to enjoy that.

But they who enjoy that, whatever it be, of which by sin, they deserve to be deprived, they have no due right to that, it is denied: For if it be life, being, eating, sleeping, and such things, as only can be taken away, by a judicial power, and by God the Lord of life and death, and cannot be taken away by themselves, (for it is lawful for no man to punish himself and take away his own life) nor by any other, except for capital crimes, they have due providential right to keep and enjoy all such things until the same power that gave them remove them, nor do they sin in using them. And it is most dangerous to say, that Devils and the damned in Hell who dishonor the Majesty of God by their living and being, and so by sin, deserve to be annihilated and deprived of their being, do sin, in that they live and are not annihilated, and that all the Elect before their conversion, sin in that they enjoy being and life. A judge sentences a man to die for killing his father within 24 hours, but by invincible providence he is rescued out of the hand of the magistrate, and lives diverse years after, the sentenced man sins not before God nor against the law of the land, in that he lives, nor can he be called a usurper and unjust, malae fidei, possessor of his life: For the sentence was not that he should take away his life with his own hand, but that it should be taken away by the judicial hand and executioner of the magistrate. Nor is this providential right, a right of mere permission but of positive donation and free-gift, for then we might by the same reason, say that Reprobate men have a right of mere permission to keep and enjoy the knowledge of these, that God is: Superiors, Parents are to be honored: the whole is more than the part; indeed they have the same natural and providential right by nature that other sinners have to the one as to the other. 2. These who enjoy that, of which they deserve to be deprived, they sin in the act of using, as touching the substance of the act of living, being, eating, drinking: That is most false. These who enjoy that, of which they deserve to be deprived, they, in modo, in the way, manner, and end of living, eating, etc. do sin: It is true: and such have not spiritual and supernatural right in Christ (which they ought to have, if they be in the Visible Church and hearers of the Gospel) to life, being and the creatures, and they sin in not believing (Romans 14), not eating for the Glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Natural men care not if they have and enjoy things so they have them: They have being, so have earth, stones, etc. they live, so do trees and herbs, they have health, so have beasts and birds, they swallow up many years, so do ravens, and harts and other beasts, a long lump, many thousand yards and miles of life are sought, diu sunt, non diu vivunt. But who lives for God, who sleeps, who wakes, who eats for God and his Glory? And they who make themselves their last end, idolatrously put self in the room of God, who only is the last end of all (Romans 11:36; Revelation 4:11; Proverbs 16:4), and as good make self the first Author of Heaven and Earth and Creator as the last end. You who eat and drink, who pays your reckoning? Christ? Or are you usurpers? Have you any charter? Or do you rob the Lord?

Q. What way is God ours?

A. By Covenant (Ezekiel 34:24; Genesis 17:7; Jeremiah 32:38; Zechariah 13:9). But he is not ours as if we had some gifted right and dominion over him, as we have over the creatures. 2. Nor is he ours as we are his, the clay has no sovereignty over the Potter. Nor 3. is God simply as God ours, but God as it were coming down in Christ to us Covenant-ways as God incarnate, to make out his goodness, grace, mercy to and for us. 4. It's true God incarnate, Christ, is principally God's (1 Corinthians 3:21), not ours. He is all for God, he is Immanuel, our Immanuel in order to save us, and so is more ours than the God of Angels.

2. God is the [reconstructed: fulfiller] of the saints' desire, more to them than all heaven in the length and breadth thereof, and all the inhabitants thereof (Psalm 73:25; Isaiah 63:16), more than all the Angels and Saints (1 Thessalonians 4:16). (2.) There is no hell to Christ but afar off God (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:45), no heaven but the glory he had with the Father (John 17:5). (3.) There is nothing more like a spiritual disposition than when the Spouse (Song of Solomon 3) has soul-love to Christ: I sought him whom my soul loved. (2.) She has an ardent desire after him, I sought him but I found him not. 3. There could not be such diligent search after she found him, if there had not been strong faith. 4. And her conference with the watchmen, Saw you him whom my soul loves? says, She enjoyed ordinances and means, yet there may be (which is to be observed) a furniture of grace and a want of Christ, I went a little further, I found him whom my soul loves (Song of Solomon 5). There is 1. a waking heart. 2. A discerning of the Beloved, and a telling over again of his words, Open to me, my sister, etc. 3. A stirring of Christ's hand upon the keyhole of the heart. 4. A moving of the bowels for him. 5. A seeking of him and a praying, but no finding nor answer. 6. A love-sickness for him, and yet a missing of himself, I sought him but I found him not. So compare Song of Solomon 1:1, 4 with Song of Solomon 2, 3, 4 with verses 6, 8 and other places, it will be clear a Godhead can only quiet the spirit, and that it's a question whether we know the field where the pearl is, and the rubies, sapphires, precious stones that are hid here, which do in worth exceed the capacity of Angels and Saints.

Therefore should his glory be the last end and stirrer of us in all our actings, and grace the only efficient in all, and so much of God (if he be ours by Covenant) as our ways, intentions may smell of him. But there is much of the creature, of self, of gain, of empty glory, in our spiritual actings. God weighs not down the creature nor heaven and union with Christ, as (Exodus 32:32; Romans 9:3). (2.) It's a spiritual soul that misses God, rather than the train of all the graces of faith, love, hope, [reconstructed: desire] of and joying in him. And know he is away though heaven were in the heart, and can discern when the ordinances are empty. 3. It engages all we are, hands, knees, body (Exodus 20:5; Psalm 44:20; 1 Corinthians 6:19), self to be for God, and to live wholly in him, not in ourselves. 4. We are not to believe in believing, nor to be sick of love with the love of Christ, nor to make a god of faith or love. It's a spiritual condition to have grace and to miss Christ.