An Help for the Ignorant, WSC Question 20
By John Brown of Haddington
Exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism
QUEST. 20. Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
ANSW. God having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.
Q. What became of the angels that sinned?
A. God left them to perish in their sin and misery.
Q. Do any of mankind, by their prayers, sincere resolutions, or blameless lives, deserve more pity at the hand of God than fallen angels?
A. No: the best works of unregenerate men deserve hell; for the prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, and their plowing is sin, Proverbs 15:8; 21:4 and 28:9.
Q. Has God then left all men to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
A. No; he delivers some, Zechariah 9.
Q. Whom does he deliver?
A. The elect only.
Q. What moved God to deliver these elect men?
A. His own free love, John 3:16; 1 John 4:10.
Q. What moved God to deliver men rather than fallen angels?
A. His sovereign good pleasure.
Q. By what means does God deliver the elect?
A. By the covenant of grace, Zechariah 9:11.
Q. Might not the broken covenant of works have been renewed?
A. No; it was a covenant of friendship, and could never reconcile enemies.
Q. How is the covenant whereby sinful men are delivered, called?
A. The covenant of grace, promise, peace, reconciliation, or redemption, and the second or new covenant.
Q. Why is it called the covenant of grace?
A. Because free grace moved God to make it; and all the blessings thereof are freely bestowed upon unworthy sinners.
Q. What is meant by grace?
A. Either the undeserved love and good will of God, or the effects of that goodwill bestowed on undeserving creatures.
Q. How is God’s free grace manifested in this covenant?
A. In his freely providing and furnishing his own Son to be our Mediator, accepting his righteousness in our stead [place], and sending the Spirit to apply his purchase to us.
Q. Why is it called a covenant of promise?
A. Because it is dispensed to us in free promises.
Q. Why is it called a covenant of peace?
A. Because it brings about peace and reconciliation between God and rebellious sinners, 2 Corinthians 5:19.
Q. Why is it called the covenant of redemption?
A. Because thereby lost and enslaved sinners are bought back, and delivered from their bondage, Zechariah 9:11.
Q. Is the covenant of grace, and that of redemption, one and the same covenant?
A. Yes.
Q. How prove you that?
A. The scripture mentions only two covenants that regard man’s eternal state, of which the covenant of works is one, and therefore the covenant of grace must be the other; and the blood of Christ is in scripture called the blood of the covenant, but never of the covenants.
Q. How do you further prove, that what some call the covenant of grace made with believers, and distinct from the covenant of redemption, is no proper covenant?
A. Because it has no proper condition, faith being as much promised as any other blessing.
Q. Why is the covenant of grace called the second and new covenant?
A. Because though it was first made, it was last execute, and is everlasting.
Q. Did the covenant of grace disannul the covenant of works?
A. No; it honoured and established it.
Q. How did it honour and establish it?
A. As the condition of the broken covenant of works was made the condition of the covenant of grace.
Q. What was the condition of the broken covenant of works?
A. Perfect obedience to its precepts, and suffering the infinite wrath contained in its penalty.
Q. Why was the condition of the broken covenant of works made the condition of the covenant of grace?
A. Because God’s holiness, justice, and truth, were concerned in the honour of the broken covenant of works.
Q. How were God’s holiness and justice concerned in the honour of the covenant of works?
A. They required, that the breaker of so just and holy a law should be exposed to infinite wrath, Psalm 11:6-7.
Q. How was his truth concerned?
A. It had engaged that the breaker of the precept should surely die.
Q. How many things are in general considerable [to be considered] with respect to the covenant of grace?
A. Two; the making, and the administration of it.
Q. Is the making of it the same that some divines call the covenant of redemption?
A. Yes, Psalm 89:3.
Q. Is it the administration of it that some call the covenant of grace made with believers?
A. Yes.
Q. When was the covenant of grace made?
A. From all eternity, Titus 1:2.
Q. Why was it so early made?
A. Because of God’s eternal and infinite love to elect sinners, Jeremiah 31:3.
Q. Who are the parties in the covenant of grace?
A. God and Christ, Psalm 89:3; Zechariah 6:13.
Q. Whether [Which] did God essentially considered, or the person of the Father, make this covenant with Christ?
A. God essentially considered in the person of the Father.
Q. Under what view does God appear in the making of this covenant?
A. As most high, holy, and just; offended with sin, and yet most merciful to sinners.
Q. How prove you the covenant of grace was made with Christ?
A. The scripture affirms it; and he is called the covenant itself, Psalm 89:3; Isaiah 42:6.
Q. Why is Christ called the covenant itself?
A. He is the matter of it, and stands in manifold relations to it.
Q. In what relations does Christ stand to the covenant of grace, as to the making of it?
A. He is the surety, and sacrificing priest of the covenant.
Q. In what relations does he stand with respect to the administration of the covenant?
A. He is the trustee, testator, prophet, interceding priest, and king of the covenant, Colossians 1:19; Hebrews 9:16 etc.
Q. In what relations does he stand with respect to both the making and administration of the covenant?
A. In the relation of Mediator and Redeemer, Hebrews 9:15.
Q. Did Christ in this covenant stand bound for himself?
A. Not for himself, but only for others, Isaiah 53:4.
Q. What was the necessity that this covenant should be made with a representative?
A. The persons chosen to salvation could do nothing for themselves.
Q. How do you prove that Christ represented others in this covenant?
A. Because to him the promises thereof were first made; and he is called the surety of it.
Q. What is in general meant by a surety?
A. One that engages to pay debt, or perform duty, in the stead of another; or to secure the other’s paying or performing it himself, Proverbs 22:26 and 20:26.
Q. What for a surety is Christ?
A. One that engages to pay all the elect’s debt to God himself.
Q. What debt did the elect owe to God?
A. Perfect obedience to his law, and infinite satisfaction for sin to his justice, Galatians 3:10, 12.
Q. Is Christ surety for his people’s faith and repentance?
A. No: for Christ’s suretiship belongs to the condition of the covenant; whereas his people’s faith and repentance belong to the promise of it.
Q. Is Christ properly a surety for God’s performing the promises to us?
A. No; though Christ as a prophet attest the promises, yet the all-sufficiency and unchangeableness of God exclude any surety for him.
Q. Why was the covenant of grace made with such an infinitely strong surety?
A. That he might not fail in performing its infinitely difficult condition, Isaiah 42:4.
Q. In what manner did Christ engage in this covenant?
A. With full knowledge of his undertaking, and yet with the utmost cheerfulness and resolution, Jeremiah 30:21.
Q. Whom did Christ represent or stand bound for in the covenant of grace?
A. The elect only.
Q. How prove you that?
A. The elect only bear his name and image; they only are called his seed; and they only partake of the saving blessings of the covenant.
Q. Why are the elect called Christ’s seed?
A. Because in regeneration he begets them again by his word and Spirit, 1 Peter 1:3, 23; James 1:18.
Q. Why is Christ said to take hold of the feed of Abraham, and not of the seed of Adam?
A. To show, that he represented only a part of Adam’s feed.
Q. Is it any dishonour to Christ to represent a lesser number than Adam?
A. No; for Christ had infinitely more to do for the salvation of one sinner, than Adam had to do for the happiness of innocent mankind.
Q. How are the elect considered in the making of this covenant?
A. As lost sinners, wholly unable to help themselves, and yet as objects of the free and sovereign love ofGod, 1 John 4:9, 10.
Q. Wherein [in what] does the freedom of this love appear?
A. In pitching upon objects altogether unlovely.
Q. Wherein does the sovereignty of the Father’s love appear?
A. In choosing some, while others no worse are left to perish in their sin, Romans 9:22.
Q. How did God make this covenant with Christ?
A. He proposed to him the persons to be saved, together with the parts of the covenant; and Christ accepted thereof, Zechariah 6:13; John 17:6.
Q. What are the parts of the covenant of grace?
A. The condition, and the promise of it.
Q. How can this covenant have a condition, when it is a covenant of grace?
A. Though it be absolutely of free grace to the elect, yet it is strictly conditional to Christ, Matthew 3:15.
Q. What is the condition of the covenant of grace?
A. Christ’s surety-righteousness.
Q. What do you mean by the righteousness of Christ?
A. The holiness of his human nature, the righteousness of his life, and his satisfactory death.
Q. Why was satisfaction required from Christ, when it was not required from Adam as our public head?
A. Because Adam engaged only for an innocent feed, but Christ engaged for guilty sinners.
Q. Why was the perfect holiness of Christ’s human nature necessary?
A. To answer for the original righteousness demanded of us by the law, Romans 5:19.
Q. Why was his righteousness of life necessary?
A. To answer for that perfect righteousness of life demanded from us by the law, Romans 10:4.
Q. Why was his satisfactory death necessary?
A. To atone and satisfy the justice of God for our sin.
Q. For what was Christ to satisfy divine justice?
A. For all the sins of an elect world, Isaiah 53:6.
Q. How was he to make satisfaction?
A. By suffering the very same infinite punishment we deserved.
Q. How prove you that Christ fulfilled the whole condition of the covenant of grace?
A. He was holy, harmless; became obedient unto death; and gave himself to be a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour unto God.
Q. How do you prove Christ’s righteousness to be the only proper condition of the covenant of grace?
A. Because it is the only pleadable ground [basis] of the believer’s title to eternal life, Romans 5:21 and 6:23.
Q. Is not faith the proper condition of this covenant?
A. No; for it can no way answer the demands of the broken law; and it is a blessing promised in the covenant of grace, Galatians 3:10; Philippians 1:29.
Q. Were then these godly divines in an error, who called faith the condition of the covenant of grace?
A. No; for they only meant that it was the instrument whereby we are personally interested in the covenant, and receive the blessings of it.
Q. What is the promise of the covenant of grace?
A. It is the Father’s engagement to bestow good things upon Christ, and his elect seed, Isaiah 53:11.
Q. Is the promise of the covenant of great importance?
A. Yes; for it is confirmed by the oath of God; and his glory, the honour of Christ, and the happiness of the elect, depend on the fulfilling of it.
Q. How many kinds of promises are there in the covenant of grace?
A. Two kinds, viz. such as directly respect Christ’s person, and such as relate to his people.
Q. How may the promises respecting Chris’s person be distinguished?
A. Into absolute and conditional.
Q. What are the absolute promises respecting Christ?
A. The promises of furniture [equipping, enabling] for, and assistance in his work.
Q. What is the only cause of the fulfilment of these promises?
A. The infinite sovereign love of God.
Q. What furniture was promised to Christ?
A. The human nature, filled with the Holy Ghost, and united to his divine person, Hebrews 10:5; Isaiah 11.
Q. What assistance was promised to Christ?
A. The continual influence of the Spirit, and the ministration of angels, etc. Isaiah 11:2; Psalm 91:11.
Q. What are the promises respecting Christ’s person, which depend upon the condition of his righteousness?
A. The promises of acceptance, and reward for his work.
Q. What acceptance was promised to Christ?
A. That God should declare himself well pleased for his righteousness sake, and with him as Mediator, and believers in him for it, Isaiah 53:8, 11.
Q. What reward was promised to Christ?
A. The highest exaltation of his person as God-man, and a numerous seed to serve and praise him, Isaiah 53:10.
Q. What is the promise immediately respecting the elect?
A. The promise of eternal life, Titus 1:2.
Q. What is included in this eternal life?
A. All true happiness in this life, and that which is to come; or the life of grace here, and of glory hereafter.
Q. What is one of the most comprehensive promises of the covenant of grace made to the elect in Christ?
A. I will be your God, and you shall be my people.
Q. What does that part of the promise, I will be your God, mean?
A. That God himself shall be their everlasting portion, his perfections exerted for their interest, and all his works tend to their eternal advantage.
Q. What does that part of it, You shall be my people, mean?
A. That all grace and glory suiting the dignity of God’s people shall be given them.
Q. To whom were the promises of our eternal life made?
A. Primarily to Christ as our head, and to us in him.
Q. How prove you they were primarily made to Christ?
A. The promise of eternal life was made before the world began, when it could not be made to any but Christ.
Q. Is not this very comfortable to believers?
A. Yes: for whatever cause we may give God to deny his promised blessings; yet Christ, to whom they were originally promised, never gave him any cause for it.
Q. What are the properties of the promises of the covenant of grace?
A. They are exceeding great and precious, well ordered, free, and sure.
Q. How are they great?
A. They are the promises of the great God, and pregnant with boundless blessings to man.
Q. How are they precious?
A. The good they contain is purchased with the precious blood of Christ.
Q. How are they well ordered?
A. They are beautifully connected with one another, and suited to our various needs.
Q. How are they free?
A. They flow from free grace, and are freely made out to believers.
Q. How can they be absolutely free, when many of them require some condition to be performed by us?
A. Nothing is required as a condition in one promise, but what is absolutely promised in another.
Q. Why then has God made many of his promises to run in a conditional form?
A. To excite us to holiness, and teach us to apply sundry promises at once [straightaway, immediately].
Q. How are the promises sure?
A. They are confirmed by the oath of God, and blood of Christ.
Q. Has the covenant of grace any penalty?
A. No; for both parties [God the Father, and the Son] are infallible, Psalm 89:19.
Q. Are not believers fallible?
A. They are fallible in their actions; but their gracious state is infallibly secured in Christ, Romans 8:39.
Q. Are not their afflictions a proper penalty?
A. No; they are a privilege promised in the new covenant, and do tend to their good, Hebrews 12:6, 11.
Q. What security have believers from any proper penalty for sin?
A. Christ’s everlasting righteousness.
Q. What is the administration of the covenant of grace?
A. The dispensing and applying it to men for the purposes it was made, Isaiah 55:3, 11.
Q. Who is the administrator of it?
A. Christ.
Q. Who appointed him administrator of it?
A. God.
Q. Wherein do Christ’s relations of surety, and of administrator, differ?
A. Christ as a surety served in our law-stead; as administrator, he only acts for our good: the work of suretiship was his humiliation; but the work of administration is his honour and reward.
Q. Where does Christ administer the new covenant?
A. Both on earth and in heaven, Revelation 22:2.
Q. Wherein do Christ’s administration of it on earth, and that in heaven, differ?
A. In heaven Christ administers it personally, without ordinances, and to the elect only; but on earth he administers it in ordinances, and partly by instruments, and partly to reprobates.
Q. To whom does Christ administer the covenant on earth?
A. To sinners of mankind in general.
Q. Wherein does he administer the covenant to these?
A. In the general offer of the gospel, Revelation 22:17.
Q. Why is the covenant of grace administered to sinful men in general, when the elect only are represented in it?
A. Because Christ’s righteousness, the only price of salvation, is in itself equally sufficient and suitable to the purchase salvation for all men, Acts 20:28.
Q. How is it sufficient to purchase salvation for all men?
A. Its infinite intrinsic worth renders it of sufficient value to purchase salvation for millions of worlds.
Q. How is it suitable to purchase salvation for all men?
A. It is a righteousness fulfilled in the human nature, which is common to all men, Hebrews 2:14.
Q. How long will Christ continue to administer the covenant of grace?
A. Forever; for he shall reign forever; and he ever liveth to make intercession, and save to the uttermost, Hebrews 7:25.
Q. How will Christ administer the covenant through eternity?
A. He will be the eternal bond of union, and medium of communion between God and the saints, and will lead them to living fountains of waters.
Q. What is Christ’s primary relation as administrator of the covenant?
A. He is the trustee of it.
Q. What is his office as trustee of the covenant?
A. To be the repository or storehouse of all the blessings of it for the good of his people, Colossians 1:19.
Q. Who lodged all the blessings of it in Christ’s hand?
A. God the Father, John 3:35.
Q. Why did he so?
A. To exalt Christ, and prevent the elect from losing these blessings.
Q. In what relations does Christ give us these blessings?
A. As the testator, and the executor of his testament.
Q. How does Christ administer the new covenant as a testator?
A. He dispones [gives; gives away] and bequeaths all the blessings of it in the way of legacy to men, Luke 22:29.
Q. Wherein do a testament and a covenant differ?
A. In a covenant, good things are bestowed on account of some price or valuable consideration; but in a testament, good things are dispensed freely.
Q. When was the new covenant first clothed with the form of a testament?
A. That same day Adam fell.
Q. Why was it not clothed with a testamentary form from eternity?
A. Because until Adam fell, no man needed the legacies of it, Genesis 3:15.
Q. How could Christ’s testament be of force before his death?
A. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and in the ancient sacrifices confirmed his testament, Revelation 13:8.
Q. What legacies does Christ dispone [give] in his testament?
A. Himself, and all things in and with him, Revelation 21.
Q. What are some of these all things [that] Christ dispones?
A. Conviction, conversion, pardon, peace, acceptance, adoption, sanctification, and glorification, etc.
Q. To whom doth Christ bequeath these blessings?
A. To sinful men in general as his legatees, Proverbs 8:4.
Q. Wherein does Christ bequeath these blessings to all men?
A. In the promises and offers of the gospel.
Q. Have all Christ’s legatees an equal title to his promises and legacies?
A. No; all men in general have a right of access to them, but believers have also a right of possession.
Q. What do you mean by a right of access to Christ’s promises and legacies?
A. A full warrant to take hold of them as our own, Isaiah 55:1-3.
Q. What do you mean by a right of interest or possession?
A. The actual having of Christ, and all things in him, as our own, Song 2:16; 1 Corinthians 3:22-23.
Q. Who is the executor of Christ’s testament?
A. Christ himself, John 14:14.
Q. May not the Holy Ghost also be called the executor of Christ’s testament?
A. Christ executes it by the Holy Ghost, John 16:13-14.
Q. How can Christ be the executor of his own testament?
A. Because though he died to confirm it, yet he rose again, and lives for evermore to execute it.
Q. In what relations does Christ execute his own testament?
A. As a prophet, interceding priest, and king.
Q. For what end is the covenant of grace made and administrate?
A. For the glory of God, and for bringing elect sinners out of an estate of sin and misery, into an estate of salvation, Isaiah 42:5-16.
Q. What is meant by salvation?
A. A deliverance from sin, and all its fatal effects, and possession of the utmost happiness to all eternity, Isaiah 45:17.
Q. How are sinners brought into an estate of salvation?
A. By their being personally and savingly brought into the bond of the new covenant, 2 Samuel 23:5.
Q. What is the means and instrument of interesting sinners in the covenant of grace?
A. Faith, or believing in the Lord Jesus, Acts 16:31.
Q. Why has God appointed faith the instrument of interesting us in the new covenant?
A. Because it most illustrates the free grace of the covenant, and best ensures the promises of it, Romans 4:16.
Q. How does faith illustrate the grace of the covenant?
A. By receiving all blessings as God’s free gifts.
Q. How does faith insure the promises of the covenant?
A. It employs God’s power and grace to perform them.
Q. Wherein do the covenant of works and of grace agree?
A. God was the maker; his glory, and the happiness of man, the end [intended purpose]; and eternal life the thing promised in both.
Q. Wherein do the covenant of works and of grace differ?
A. In the party contracted with, administrator, nature, properties, conditions, promises, order of obedience and execution, ends, and effects.
Q. How do they differ with respect to the party contracted with?
A. The covenant of works was made with Adam, a mere man, and all his natural feed in him; but the covenant of grace was made with Christ, who is God-man, as head of his elect seed, 1 Corinthians 15:47.
Q. How do they differ with respect to their administrator?
A. The covenant of works was administered by an absolute God; but the covenant of grace is administered by Christ as Mediator, Galatians 3:10, 16, 19.
Q. How do they differ in their nature?
A. The covenant of works was a covenant of friendship; but the covenant of grace is a covenant of reconciliation.
Q. How do they differ in their properties?
A. The covenant of works was easily broken, and is now a cursing and condemning covenant; but the covenant of grace cannot be broken, and is still pregnant with blessings and salvation to men, Galatians 3:13-14.
Q. How do these covenants differ in their condition?
A. The original condition of the covenant of works was the perfect obedience of a mere man; but the condition of the covenant ofgrace is the perfect obedience, and infinite satisfaction of a [the] God-man, Matthew 3:15.
Q. How do they differ in their promises?
A. In the covenant of works all the promises were conditional; but in the covenant of grace the promises are absolutely free to man, Romans 4:4, 16.
Q. How do they differ in the required order of obedience?
A. In the covenant of works duty went before privilege, and acceptance of the work before acceptance of the person; but in the covenant of grace privilege goes before duty, and acceptance of the person before acceptance of his work.
Q. How do they differ in their order of execution?
A. The covenant of works was made in time, and first execute; but the covenant of grace was made from eternity, and is last execute.
Q. How do they differ in their end and design?
A. The end of the covenant of works was to show man his duty to God; but the great end of the covenant of grace is to show the greatness of God’s grace to man.
Q. How do they differ in their effects?
A. The covenant of works terrifies a guilty sinner, and binds him over to hell; but the new covenant comforts and strengthens him, by opening the gates of heaven to him.
Q. How may we know if we are savingly interested in the covenant of grace?
A. If we have seen ourselves wholly ruined by the covenant of works, and are content to be entirely indebted to the free grace of God for our salvation, Philippians 3:8-9.
Q. What should we do if we find ourselves without [outside of; outwith] this covenant?
A. Cry earnestly to Christ to bring us into it, and essay [attempt] to take hold of the promises of it.
Q. What is our duty, if we find ourselves in this covenant?
A. To admire and adore God’s free grace that brought us in; and to improve the fulness of the covenant, living like the children of God.