Query 3. Promises, Threatenings, and the Covenant of Works
QUERY 3. — Does annexing a promise of life, and a threatening of death, to a precept, make it a Covenant of Works?
We answer, as in our Representation, That the promise of life, and the threatening of death, superadded to the law of the Creator, made it a proposed Covenant of Works to our first parents. And their own consent, which sinless creatures could not refuse, made it accepted as a Covenant of Works. “A law,” says the judicious Durham, “necessarily implies no more than, first, to direct; and secondly, to command, enforcing that obedience by authority. A covenant further necessarily implies promises that are made on some conditions, or threatenings that are added if such a condition is not performed. Now, he says, this law may be considered without the consideration of a covenant; for God was free to add or not add promises; and the threatenings, supposing the law had been kept, might never have taken effect.” From this it is plain, in the judgment of this great divine, that the law of nature was turned into a covenant by the addition of a promise of life, and the threatening of death. Burgess and the London ministers are of the same mind, Vindiciae Legis, page 61. “There are only two things which go to the essence of a law, and that is — 1st, direction; 2d, obligation. First, direction: therefore a law is a rule; hence the law of God is compared to light. Second, obligation; for the essence of sin lies in this, that it breaks this law, which supposes the obligatory force of it. In the next place, there are two consequents of the law, which are ad bene esse, that the law may be better obeyed; and this indeed turns the law into a covenant. First the sanction of it by way of promise; that is a mere free thing: God, by reason of that dominion which he had over man, might have commanded his obedience, and yet never made a promise of eternal life to him. And, secondly, as for the other consequent act of the law, to curse and punish; this is but an accidental act, not necessary to a law, for it comes in upon supposition of transgression. A law is a complete law, obliging, though it does not actually curse; as in the confirmed angels, it never laid any more than obligatory and mandatory act upon them; for it is plain that they were under a law, because otherwise they could not have sinned; for where there is no law, there is no transgression.”
Though there is no ground from our Representation to add more on this topic, yet we may say that a promise of life made to a precept of doing, — that is, in consideration or upon condition of one’s doing something, whether the doing is more or less, it is all the same. Because the divine will in the precept, is the rule in this case, it is a Covenant of Works. And as to believers in Christ, though in the gospel, largely taken, we admit that there are promises of life, and threatenings of death, as well as precepts; and that godliness has annexed to it the promise, not only of this life, but of that which is to come, in the order of the covenant. Yet we are clear that no promise of life is made for the performance of precepts, nor is eternal death threatened in case of whatever failings there are in their performing, or else their title to life would be founded not entirely on Christ and his righteousness imputed to them, but on something in or done by themselves. And their after-sins would again actually bring them under vindictive wrath and the curse of the law; they are forever delivered from these upon their union with Christ, who was made a curse for them to redeem them from under it, according to both Scripture and our Confession. Hence we know of no sanction that the law, standing in the Covenant of Grace, has with respect to believers, besides gracious rewards — all of them are freely promised on Christ's account for their encouragement in obedience; and fatherly chastisement and displeasure are promised, in case of their not walking in his commandments. To a believer, these are no less awful, and much more powerful restraints from sin, than the prospect of the curse and hell itself would be. The Reverend Commission will not, we hope, grudge to hear that eminent divine, Mr. Perkins, in a few words on this topic. Having the objection put to him, ‘‘In the gospel there are promises of life upon condition of our obedience, such as Rom. 8.13, ‘If you through the Spirit,’” etc.; He answers, “The promises of the gospel are not made to the work, but to the worker; and to the worker, not for his work, but for Christ’s sake according to his work: e. g., The promise of life is not made to the work of mortification, but it is made to the one that mortifies his flesh; and that is not for his mortification, but because he is in Christ, and his mortification is the token and evidence of it.” As it is the old Protestant doctrine, we take it to be the truth. And as to the believer’s total and final freedom from the curse of the law upon his union with Christ, Protestant divines, particularly Rutherford and Owen, throughout their writings, are full and clear on this topic.