An Help for the Ignorant, WSC Question 12
By John Brown of Haddington
QUEST. 12. What special act of providence did God exercise towards man inthe estate wherein he was created?
ANSW. When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death.
Q. What part of God’s providence should we chiefly consider?
A. His providence towards man.
Q. In what different estates is God’s providence exerecised towards man?
A. In his primitive, fallen, recovered, and eternal estate.
Q. What providence did God exercise towards man in his primitive estate?
A. He instituted the Sabbath for his rest, appointed marriage, and put him into the garden of Eden; and especially he entered into a covenant with him, Genesis 2.
Q. What is a covenant?
A. It is an agreement between two or more parties, upon certain terms.
Q. What is requisite to the making of a covenant?
A. That there be parties, a condition, and promise; and also a penalty, if any of the parties be fallible.
Q. What understand you by the parties?
A. The persons who make the agreement with one another.
Q. What is the condition of a covenant?
A. That which, when performed, does, according to paction [legal agreement, or pact], give right to claim the reward.
Q. What call you the promise of it?
A. The engagement to reward the fulfilment of the condition.
Q. What is the penalty?
A. That which is agreed shall be inflicted upon the breaker of the covenant.
Q. Why has God all along dealt with men by covenant?
A. To show his own condescension, and how ready he is to bestow favours upon men; and to encourage a willing obedience, by promising to reward it.
Q. How many covenants has God made for the eternal happiness of men?
A. Two; the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace, Galatians 4:24.
Q. How prove you that there are only two covenants respecting man’s eternal happiness?
A. The scripture mentions only two such covenants; and represents all men as under the one or the other, Galatians 4:24-31.
Q. How prove you there was a covenant made with Adam in his innocent estate?
A. In Genesis 2:16-17 we have all the requisites of a covenant, viz. parties, condition, and penalty, which includes the promise: and Hosea 6:7 margin, it is said, they like Adam transgressed the covenant: nor could Adam’s sin be charged on his posterity, if no covenant had been made with him.
Q. Was Adam, by virtue of his creation, under this covenant?
A. No; he was only under the law of God.
Q. Wherein did that law, and the covenant made with him, differ?
A. The law made him God’s servant, and required perfect obedience, without promising any reward; but this covenant made him God’s friend and ally, and promised a glorious reward to his obedience.
Q. How is this covenant made with Adam ordinarily called?
A. The covenant of works or life, the law or legal covenant, and the first covenant.
Q. Why is it called the covenant of works?
A. Because man’s good works was the condition of it.
Q. Why is it called a covenant of life?
A. Because life was the reward promised for keeping it.
Q. Why is it called the law or legal covenant?
A. Because it was not made between equals, but injoined [enjoined; required] by the great Lawgiver to his subject.
Q. Why is it called the first covenant?
A. Because though last made, it was first made known to man.
Q. Who were the parties in this covenant?
A. God and Adam, Genesis 2:16-17.
Q. What moved God to enter into this covenant?
A. His own free favour and bounty, Job 7:17.
Q. How does that appear?
A. Because God as a Creator might justly have exacted all the service man was capable of, without giving any reward; and, notwithstanding, punished him for disobedience.
Q. Was very much grace manifested in the covenant of works?
A. Yes, very much free favour and bounty.
Q. How so?
A. In God’s not only promising to reward man’s obedience; but also in so framing this covenant, as to admit a covenant of grace, if it was broken.
Q. Why then is it not called a covenant of grace?
A. Because there is far less grace manifested in it than in the second covenant, Romans 5:20-21.
Q. How could Adam be bound by this covenant, when we never read of his consenting to the terms of it?
A. Being made perfectly holy, he could not withhold his consent from any terms God proposed to him.
Q. For whom did Adam stand bound in this covenant?
A. For himself, and all his natural posterity, Romans 5.
Q. Who are Adam’s natural posterity?
A. All mankind descending from him by ordinary generation.
Q. Did Adam stand bound for Christ as man?
A. No; for Christ descended not from him by ordinary generation, and had not the person of man.
Q. How does it appear that Adam stood bound for all his natural seed?
A. They are often called by his name Adam; and his breach of covenant is charged upon them all, Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:22.
Q. Why did God make Adam to stand bound for all his posterity?
A. Because this was a shorter and safer way of securing their happiness, than if each man had stood bound for himself.
Q. How was it a shorter way of securing their happiness?
A. Because Adam’s obedience being once finished, none of his posterity could have ever fallen.
Q. How was it a safer way of securing their happiness?
A. Adam was formed in an adult state, entirely capable of perfect obedience; and had not only a proper regard to his own happiness, but a fatherly concern for his whole natural seed, to engage him to obedience.
Q. How could Adam be justly bound for persons who never chose, nor consented to his being their covenant-head?
A. He was the common father of them all; and God, who is wiser than they, chose him; and therefore they could not without sin have refused their consent.
Q. For what was Adam bound in the covenant of works?
A. For performing the condition of it.
Q. What was the condition of the covenant of works?
A. Personal and perfect obedience to God’s law.
Q. How was this obedience to be personal?
A. It was to be performed by Adam himself in his own proper person, Genesis 2:16-17.
Q. Wherein was Adam’s obedience to be perfect?
A. In extent, degrees, and duration.
Q. How was his obedience to be perfect in extent?
A. His whole man, soul and body, was to obey the whole of God’s law, Galatians 3:10.
Q. How was it to be perfect in degrees?
A. He was to love and obey the Lord with all his heart and strength.
Q. How was his obedience to be perfect in duration?
A. It was to be constantly continued in until his time of trial was over, Galatians 3:10.
Q. Would Adam have ever been freed from obedience to God?
A. He would have been freed from obedience to the law as a covenant, but never from obedience to the law as an eternal rule of righteousness.
Q. What command, besides the law of nature, did God require Adam to obey?
A. The command of not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge which grew in the midst of the garden of Eden.
Q. Why was this tree called the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
A. Because God thereby tried Adam’s obedience; and he, by eating it, knew experimentally [experientially] the good he fell from, and the evil he fell into.
Q. Why did God forbid Adam to eat of this fruit?
A. To manifest his own absolute dominion over, and interest in all things; and to try whether man would obey out of regard to his mere will and authority or not.
Q. Was there no other reason against man’s eating of this fruit, but merely God’s forbidding it?
A. No; the thing was quite indifferent in itself.
Q. Was God’s forbidding Adam to eat of this fruit a snare to entrap him?
A. No, it was in itself a means to secure him in holiness and happiness.
Q. How did it secure him in holiness and happiness?
A. It showed him, that he was but a subject, and a in danger of falling into sin; and that his true happiness was in God himself.
Q. Would any other sin, besides eating this fruit, have broken the covenant of works?
A. Yes, Galatians 3:10.
Q. For what was God bound in this covenant?
A. To fulfil the promise, if man kept it; and to execute the threatening, if he should break it.
Q. What was promised to man in this covenant?
A. Life, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, Galatians 3:12.
Q. What was this temporal life?
A. The happy union and communion of soul and body in this world.
Q. Wherein did that spiritual life consist?
A. In union to, and perfect fellowship with God in this world.
Q. Wherein does eternal life consist?
A. In the full enjoyment of God in heaven for ever, Psalm 16:11.
Q. How could temporal and spiritual life, be promised to Adam, when he had it already?
A. The continuance of this life was promised to him while he did his duty, and the bestowing of it promised to his feed.
Q. How prove you that eternal life was promised in the covenant of works?
A. Because eternal death was included in the threatening: and Christ shows, that, according to the law of works, men would enter into eternal life by keeping the commandments, Matthew 19:16-17.
Q. What was the penalty of the covenant of works?
A. Death, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, Romans 6.
Q. What is that temporal death?
A. The wrathful separation of the soul from the body, with much sorrow and trouble while united together in this world.
Q. What is death spiritual?
A. Separation of the soul from God, and loss of his favour and image.
Q. What is death eternal?
A. The separation of the whole man from God, and lying under his wrath in hell for ever, Matthew 25:46.
Q. Did Adam die that very day he ate the forbidden fruit?
A. He died spiritually that very moment, and fell under the [suspended] sentence of temporal and eternal death.
Q. Why was his natural and eternal death suspended?
A. That the seed he represented might be born, and many of the human race saved by the covenant of grace.
Q. Would Adam’s sin have been punished with death, though no covenant had been made with him?
A. Yes; the law of nature being connected with God’s vindictive justice, requires that every sin be punished with eternal death, Romans 6:23; Psalm 11:6-7.
Q. Did then his obedience in itself deserve any reward?
A. No: man in his best estate is but vanity.
Q. By what charter [grant or promise from God, as Sovereign] then had man his happiness secured?
A. Only by the promise of the covenant of works.
Q. By what sacramental seal was this promise to be confirmed?
A. By the tree of life, Genesis 3:22.
Q. How was this a sacramental seal?
A. The eating of its fruit was a pledge [God’s promise] of eternal life.
Q. In what manner did this fruit seal that promise?
A. Only conditionally, if Adam continued in perfect obedience till his time of trial was over, Galatians 3:10.
Q. If Adam had perfectly fulfilled the condition of this covenant, what title would he have had to the reward?
A. A mere pactional [legally agreed, or promised] title, secured by the promise of God.
Q. Why might not Adam’s obedience have strictly merited or deserved a reward from God?
A. Because he owed it wholly to God as the author of his being; and when he had done all, he would have been an unprofitable servant.
Q. Was the obtaining of the reward to be Adam’s chief end or motive in his obedience?
A. No; but the glory of God, Proverbs 16:4.
Q. Is the covenant of works still binding?
A. Yes; it is still binding upon all out of Christ.
Q. Does not man’s breach of it disannul [make invalid] its binding force?
A. No; it still continues to demand perfect obedience, and has a new claim of infinite satisfaction for offences committed, Galatians 3:10.
Q. Does not Christ by his obedience and suffering, or believers by receiving that as their righteousness, injure or destroy this covenant?
A. No; they [i.e. Christ’s obedience and suffering] fulfil, establish, and exalt it, Romans 10:4-31.