That the conditional promise (Lev 18:5, to which agrees Exodus 19:8) and the dreadful threatening (Deut 27:26), were both given to the Israelites, as well as the ten commands, is beyond question; and that according to the apostle (Rom. 10:5, Gal. 3:10), they were the form of the covenant of works, is as evident as the repeating of the words, and expounding them so, can make it. How, then, one can refuse the covenant of works to have been given to the Israelites, I cannot see. Mark the Westminster Confession upon the head of the covenant of works; “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience” (WCF 7.2). And this account of the being and nature of that covenant is there proved from these very texts among others. Romans 10:5, Galatians 3:10.
—Thomas Boston in his notes on The Marrow of Modern Divinity, 78–79.
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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