Covenant, not Natural Propagation

Because of Adam’s sin, all men are polluted and guilty before God, “and liable to all the curses and penalties due unto them for breach of that Covenant.”1 Anthony Burgess also makes the case for the covenant of works based upon the guilt of Adam’s sin being imputed to his posterity. This could only happen by way of covenant and not natural propagation, otherwise Adam would be “no more to us than our parents … which is contrary to the Apostle, Rom. 5, who chargeth it still upon one man.”2 At bottom, Adam’s position as the federal head or covenant representative of humanity in the covenant of works finds its most compelling exegetical argument in Romans 5.


Notes

1

Edmund Calamy, Two Solemne Covenants, 2

2

Burgess, Vindiciae Legis, 120.

 

Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 235.