The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man; Comprehending a Complete Body of Divinity ... Volume 1

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1803 edition. Excerpt: ... should consist in a religious abstinence. Nor should those learned men, if consistent with themselves, be averse to this opinion. The deluge, say they, from which Noah was preserved, must needs be reckoned among the types. But the use of the waters, in respect to Noah, consisted in this, that they were neither to touch him and his, to their hurt, nor force themselves into the ark in which he was shut up; the waters of the Red sea likewise signified the same thing in the same manner to Israel. Nay, what may seem strange, these learned men say, that the first sacrament of the covenant of grace was "the ejectment of Adam out of Paradise, and the barring up his access to the tree of life: " or, as one is pleased to express himself, "the first sacrament was the tree of life, which, though at first it regarded the covenant of works, and the exclusion from it was the punishment of fallen man; nevertheless, that very exclusion was at the same time a sign of the grace and goodness of God." I would beg of those very learned men, to explain in what the sacramental use of the tree of life was to have consisted under the covenant of grace, after man was expelled Paradise, and that tree was no longer to be in his view. There is here no other use but a mystical abstinence and deprivation. And thus we imagine we have fully answered the first argument. XXIV. Let us now consider the second, and we say, it is not inconsistent with the nature of sacraments, to seal death and condemnation, to those who unduly and irregularly use them: for the covenant of God with man is ratified, not only by the promises, but also by certain threatenings belonging to it; but sacraments are the seals of the whole covenant, not excepting the threatenings to the profane abusers...