Covenantal Perseverance
Whatever graces Adam received from God, he did not receive the grace of perseverance in the covenant of works. Samuel Rutherford recognizes that Adam was in fact predestined to eternal life, but he was not “predestinate to a law glory [viz., a glory attained to by law-keeping], and to influences of God to carry him to persevere [in his state of original righteousness].”1 Instead, Adam was predestined not as a public person, but as a individual, elect in Jesus Christ. His fall, however, was as a public person, and so involved his descendants in his sin and its consequences (WCF, 6.2-3).
Notes
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Rutherford, Covenant of Life Opened, 2.: Adam in his first state was not predestinate to a law glory, and to influences of God to carry him on to persevere: Nor could he blesse God, that he was Chosen before the foundation of the world to be Law- holy, as Eph. 1. 3. What? Was not then Adam predestinated to life eternall, through Jesus Christ? He was: But not as a publick person representing all his sons, but as another single person, as Abraham, or Jacob: for Gospel predestination is not of the nature, but of this or that person: Therefore were we not predestinat to life eternall in him, but in Christ, Rom. 8. 29, 30.
Rutherford, Covenant of Life Opened, 2.: Adam in his first state was not predestinate to a law glory, and to influences of God to carry him on to persevere: Nor could he blesse God, that he was Chosen before the foundation of the world to be Law- holy, as Eph. 1. 3. What? Was not then Adam predestinated to life eternall, through Jesus Christ? He was: But not as a publick person representing all his sons, but as another single person, as Abraham, or Jacob: for Gospel predestination is not of the nature, but of this or that person: Therefore were we not predestinat to life eternall in him, but in Christ, Rom. 8. 29, 30.
CloseJoel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 232-233.