Notes: Sect. 4. — No Recovery by the Law, or Covenant of Works.
Notes: Sect. 4. — No Recovery by the Law, or Covenant of Works.
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The Covenant of Works could by no means be renewed by fallen Adam so as to thereby help himself and his posterity out of his misery, which is the only thing in question here; otherwise indeed it might have been renewed, which is evident by this sad token, that many do actually renew it in their covenanting with God, being prompted to it by their ignorance of the high demands of the law, their own utter inability, and the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. And from the same principle, our legalist here does not question that Adam might have renewed it, and kept it too for the after-time; he questions only whether Adam might thereby have helped himself, and his posterity too, out of the misery they were brought into by his sin.
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That being the sin in which all mankind fell with him, Rom. 5.15.
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Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (1265-1274), 1st part of the Second Part, Q. 87. “The Debt of Punishment.”
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2 Thess. 1.6, “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God, to recompense tribulation to those who trouble you.” Heb. 2.2, “Every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense.”
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Rather, Adam would have sinned again, and thus fallen under the curse anew.
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Walking back by the way of the Covenant of Works, which he left by his sinning.
Objec. “Do we then make void the law” (Rom. 3.31), leaving an imputation of dishonour upon it, as a disregarded path, by pretending to return another way? Ans. Sinners being united to Christ by faith, return, being carried back the same way they came — only their own feet never touch the ground; but the glorious Mediator, sustaining them all, walked every bit of the road exactly, Gal. 4.4, 5. Thus, in Christ, the way of free grace and of the law, sweetly meet together; and through faith we establish the law.