Rutherford and Burgess
Among the many stars of the Westminster Assembly, Samuel Rutherford and Anthony Burgess were two of the brightest. Rutherford was a well respected theologian among the Scottish divines, and Burgess had a similar reputation among the English.5 Both published on a wide range of theological topics, including the covenant of works. Given that Rutherford wrote specifically on covenant theology, Burgess serves here as a secondary witness seeing that his chief contribution to the subject was a book on the law. 6 Rutherford devotes the bulk of his work to expounding the nature of the covenant of grace—the redemption that comes by faith alone in Christ. But in order to explain the covenant of grace, Rutherford contrasts the two covenants to show where they agree and disagree. Rutherford therefore opens his work with a discussion of Adam’s pre[1]fall state but does so in an unusual manner. Rather than begin with a discussion of what were by now common scriptural texts such as Genesis 2:17, Romans 5:12–21, Leviticus 18:5, or Romans 2:14–15, Rutherford first refers to 1 Corinthians 15:47. Rutherford’s appeal to this verse is noteworthy because John Cameron introduced this same text into the discussion in his theses on the doctrine of the covenants.7 Further evidence of Cameron’s influence appears in Rutherford’s subsequent explanation: “The Apostle, I Cor. 15.47 [sic]. The first man is of the earth, earthie, the second man is the Lord from Heaven, speaking of the two eminently publick persons the noble heads of great Families; makes the condition of the first Adam to be animal and earthly, & that of the second Adam to be spiritual and Heavenly.”8 Cameron raises these same points, but Rutherford uses Paul’s text in a different manner. Cameron employed the text to argue that the covenant of works was purely natural and that Adam could only secure natural animal life through his 112 obedience, but Rutherford believed that God promised Adam eternal life, a “heavenly communion with God.”9 In contrast with the covenant of grace, which promised justification by faith alone in Christ alone by God’s grace alone, Adam’s path to justification was different.10 Adam’s path was justification by works, or his obedience.11 Rutherford’s position stands in greater contrast to Cameron’s when we consider his understanding of Leviticus 18:5. According to Rutherford, God gave Adam a conditional decree, and that had he continued in his obedience, Adam would have obtained eternal life. This is the nature of Leviticus 18:5: “The man that does these things shall live.” In Rutherford’s opinion, this text shows the equity and holiness of the law. 12 Burgess presents a fuller explanation of Leviticus 18:5 and how it applies to the pre- and post-fall states. Burgess was well aware that he employed a post-fall text from the Mosaic law to characterize Adam’s pre-fall state. Cameron, recall, argued that Leviticus 18:5 only applied to the post-fall state and the subservient Mosaic covenant. That is, the Mosaic covenant was neither of the covenants of works or grace.13 Burgess, however, interpreted Leviticus 18:5 differently. He believed the law functioned in one of two manners: either as the whole doctrine delivered on Sinai conjoined with the preface and promises, or as an abstracted rule of righteousness. In the former sense the law was a covenant of grace, but abstracted from the Mosaic covenant it was not of grace but works.14 Burgess employed this distinction because he saw the exegetical complexities. He acknowledged that Paul drew the words “Do this and live” from Leviticus 18:5, but also noted that the same words appear in Deuteronomy 30:16: “In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.” Burgess connected this use of the idea with the righteousness that comes by faith through the gospel. Some divines, such as Edmund Calamy (1600–60), escaped this apparent dilemma by cutting the Gordian knot and arguing that Leviticus 18:5 had nothing to do with the covenant of works and that it was entirely of the covenant of grace. The verse presupposed Israel’s existence under the covenant of grace—and thus it was about evangelical obedience, not the obedience of the covenant of works.15 Burgess, however, escapes the horns of the apparent impasse through a distinction —the law contextually and abstractly considered. These terms are similar 113 to another popular distinction that makes the same point: the law narrowly or broadly considered. 16 God embedded the law and attendant blessings of obedience within the covenant of grace, but this is only when the law is a covenant of grace. When the Scriptures place the law in contrast with faith in the point of justification–that is, “taken in a limited and abstracted consideration”—“works and faith differ as much as heaven and earth.”17 According to Burgess, Roman Catholic theologians did not recognize this stark antithesis between the righteousness of the law versus the righteousness of faith. Rather than posit a Pauline antithesis between faith and works, they characterized the former as imperfect righteousness and the later as perfect.18 So, then, both Burgess and Rutherford employ Leviticus 18:5 to describe Adam’s state in the garden because God hinged the goal of eternal life upon Adam’s obedience to his commands. But even though Rutherford and Burgess placed obedience and eternal life in the same equation does not mean that they believed that Adam had the ability to merit heaven in the strict sense of the term. They were careful to explain the specific relationship between Adam’s obedience and the reward. Rutherford and Burgess went to great lengths to distance themselves from Roman Catholic concepts of merit, namely, that there was a strict or even qualified quid pro quo of obedience for reward. Both theologians present a number of arguments and statements to explain the precise relationship between Adam’s obedience and the reward. First, both highlight the grace present in the covenant of works. Rutherford explains, “In all pactions between the Lord and man, even in a Law[1]covenant there is some out-breakings of Grace.” Rutherford distinguishes, however, between gospel-grace, the fruit of Christ’s merit, and the grace present in the covenant of works. The grace available to Adam was God’s “undeserved goodness.”19 Burgess notes that Adam could not obey God apart from his help. Some divines called this help grace, but others dissented from the term because they supposed grace only flows from Christ.20 Despite the common contemporary caricatures, many of the divines not only characterized the covenant of works as an agreement marked by God’s grace and divine love, but they also maintained it was the arena for Adam to demonstrate his love for his creator. 21 Second, both theologians believed there was a great distance between God and Adam, and thus Adam’s obedience was disproportionate to the offered reward of eternal life. In reliance upon common medieval 114 theology, Rutherford argues that there can be no mathematical equity between Adam’s obedience and his reward, that is, “So many ounces of natural actings, and the same number of ounces of grace and glory.” Instead, relying on Augustine (354–430), Rutherford contends that a geometrical proportion exists between obedience and reward. In other words, God is not a debtor according to strict justice but according to his own free promise.22 God did not owe Adam life by nature but because of God’s promise.23 Burgess takes a similar but nevertheless slightly different path. Burgess argues that Adam’s obedience would have efficiently but not meritoriously procured his happiness.24 In other words, his obedience was the occasion and not the strict cause of the reward. Adam could not merit eternal life because the reward far exceeded his obedience—Adam’s obedience was finite, and the reward was infinite.25
