Query 4. The Moral Law and the Threat of Hell
QUERY 4. — Did the Moral Law, antecedent to receiving the form of a Covenant of Works, have a threatening of hell annexed to it?
Ans. —Since the law of God never was, nor will ever be the stated rule in this world, either of man’s duty towards God, or of God’s dealing with man, except as it stands in one of the two covenants of works and grace, we are at a loss to discover the real usefulness of this query, as well as what foundation it has in our Representation.
As to the intrinsic demerit of sin, we are clear: whether there had ever been any Covenant of Works or not, sin deserves hell, even all that an infinitely holy and just God ever has or shall inflict for it; yet what might have been the Creator’s disposal of the creature, in the supposed event of sin’s entering, without a covenant being made, we incline not to dip into here. But we reckon it is not possible to prove that a threatening of hell is inseparable from the law of creation, the obligation of which, because it results from the nature of God and of the creature, is eternal and immutable. For confirmed angels, glorified saints, yes, and the human nature of Christ, are all naturally, necessarily, and eternally obliged to love, obey, depend on, and submit to God, and to make him their blessedness and ultimate end. But none, we conceive, will be peremptory in saying that they have a threatening of hell annexed to the law they are under. And we can by no means allow that a believer, delivered by Christ from the Covenant of Works, is still made obnoxious upon every new transgression, to the threatening of hell that is supposed to be inseparably annexed to the law of creation, or the law of the Ten Commandments. Every reasonable creature must forever be under this law, since this would, in effect, be none other than, after he is delivered from hell in one respect, to bind him over to it in another. Whatever threatening one may suppose belonged to the Moral Law of the Ten Commandments, antecedent to its receiving a covenant form, all of it was, for certain, included in the sanction of the Covenant of Works. So that Christ, in bearing the curse of it, redeemed believers from the hell, vindictive wrath and curse that their sins in any way deserved. He cancelled, tore to pieces, and nailed to his cross the hand-writing that was against them. Hence the threatening of hell and the curse are actually separated from the law of the Ten Commandments which believers are under as a rule of life. To hold otherwise is the leading error, indeed, the very spring and fountain-head of Antinomianism. Burgess, Rutherford, and others, may be heard on all of this.