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6 The Error Of Mixing The Covenants
Now I cannot see what the obligations of the Eden covenant of nature can have to do with faith in this covenant of mercy, by a surety's blood, as a duty; because the most perfect obedience maintained in Eden could in no way, from its very nature, be any title, or even any sort of introduction, to any of the mercy favors: of this covenant. And as the Eden covenant, which was but a fair legal contract between sinless man and his holy Maker, could not, from its very nature, embrace one single salvation blessing of this covenant of mercy, so neither could it devolve one single obligation on man, in regard to the parental and household requirements of this covenant of forgiving mercy to…
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7 Duty Faith Is Cruel And Unjust
Duty faith makes the gospel a ministration of cruelty and injustice, but men are damned for law-breaking not for failing to savingly believe. I think we have shown sufficiently plain above, that duty faith in a covenant of grace unto salvation could never grow out of, nor come from the Eden covenant of works; so that such an obligation, to exist at all, must be new, and peculiar to the gospel dispensation as its cause. And then, in reply to this, we ask, and does the gospel give universal life and strength to all where it comes, to become such as the word of God declares to be believers unto salvation? We know it does not, for a natural man under the gospel is no…
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8 The Two Permanent Covenants
The distinction between the two permanent covenants—the law of works and the law of faith. Of the several covenants mentioned in the word of God, there are but two which we may properly call uncircumstantially permanent, and of eternal consequences to the soul of man. The one being the nature covenant with Adam and all the human race in him, having the law of works for its ministry; and which, through man's sin, is called the ministration of death. And the other, the covenant of grace with Christ and all his seed in him, having the law of faith for its ministry, called the ministration of life, because it is the gospel of the grace of God only. And every man of the whole human…
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9 Implications Of Faith Unto Salvation Being The Natural Man’s Duty
The two words law and faith are very comprehensive systematical terms; very different in their nature, and occupying perfectly distinct premises. The law occupies the entire premises and dominion of death through sin; and faith occupies the entire premises of life and salvation, by divine promise, through the blood and righteousness of the Son of God. So that we may observe, that as faith cannot be separated from any part of its connection and interest, then, First. If faith unto salvation be the natural man's duty, then it must be the natural man's duty to be all that the actual believer, through grace unto salvation, really and properly is. And then it must be the natural man's duty to be of God's chosen in Christ…
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10 Duty Faith Fights Against God’s Gospel
Perhaps it will be said that duty faith, as held by those who embrace it, is but one among many glorious points of Bible truth and doctrine which they hold, and, therefore, not of sufficient importance to divide about. But I must say, from thirty years' observation, that whatever other doctrines are held in connection with It, I have always seen that duty faith is leaven that leavens the whole lump. And that as a disease is contrary to the health, and alters the natural figure and countenance of a person, until he looks not at all like the man of his name; even so is duty faith contrary to the very spirit, healthy fulness, richness, freeness, harmony, and beauty of every truth by which…
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11 Duty Faith Puffs Up Man In Self Righteousness
Faith unto salvation considered and enforced as the natural man's duty, is not of grace, nor of the spirit of grace; but it is, (1) Of the spirit of that zeal by which the Jews went about to establish their own righteousness, not submitting themselves unto the righteousness of God, Rom 10:3. (2) It is of that spirit of the five foolish virgins whose vessels were without oil, who made creatures their first recourse, and then thought by the natural duty, like self-effort of purchase, to establish a right to, and acquire to themselves the possession of all things, which the five wise virgins had and took, without any account of money, price, purchase, or duty faith; but the Lord answered them, 'I know you…
