John Colquhoun (1748-1827) was a minister in the Church of Scotland whose sermons and writings reflect those of the Marrow brethren of the Secession church. Colquhoun‘s writings are theologically astute and intensely practical. He wrote on the core doctrines of the gospel, . . . Continue reading →
Ignorance of the difference between the law and the gospel promotes also, in a great degree, the strength and influence of a self-righteous temper. When a man is driven to acts of obedience by the dread of God’s wrath revealed in the . . . Continue reading →
The law and the gospel are the principal parts of divine revelation; or rather they are the center, sum, and substance of all the other parts of it. Every passage of sacred Scripture is either law or gospel, or is capable of . . . Continue reading →
Reformation Heritage Books is giving away a free copy of John Colquhoun’s A Treatise on Law and Gospel. Colquhoun (1748–1827) was a pastor in Leith, Scotland for 46 years. He was a defender of the theology of the Marrow Men (Thomas Boston, . . . Continue reading →
The natural law of God, or the law of nature, is that necessary and unchangeable rule of duty which is founded in the infinitely holy and righteous nature of God, to obey which all men, as the reasonable creatures of God, are . . . Continue reading →
The law, then, as a covenant of works, does, in the most authoritative manner, demand from every descendant of Adam who is under it perfect holiness of nature, perfect righteousness of life, and complete satisfaction for sin. And none of the race . . . Continue reading →
The law and the gospel are the principal parts of divine revelation, or rather they are the center, sum, and substance of all the other parts of it. Every passage of sacred Scripture is either law or gospel or is capable of . . . Continue reading →
If then a man cannot distinguish aright between the law and the gospel, he cannot rightly understand as much as a single article of divine truth. If he does not have spiritual and just apprehensions of the holy law, he cannot have . . . Continue reading →
Although the law in its covenant form requires of all who are under it since the fall perfect obedience as the condition of life and full satisfaction for sin in their own persons, and at the same time, upon the revelation and . . . Continue reading →
Since true believers are already irrevocably interested in the covenant of grace, in the righteousness of Christ, and in the favor of God; and since they have in Christ and on the ground of His righteousness imputed to them a complete security . . . Continue reading →
Although the law as a rule of duty to believers requires perfect obedience from them, yet it admits of God’s accepting their sincere obedience performed in faith, though it is imperfect. It admits of His accepting this obedience not indeed as any . . . Continue reading →
Believers are perfectly and irreversibly justified, and therefore, though their iniquities deserve eternal wrath, yet they can no more make them actually liable to that wrath. It is the peculiar privilege of believers only, who are already justified and so set forever . . . Continue reading →
As an evidence that all unregenerate persons are under the dominion of the law as a covenant of works, the natural bent of their hearts in all their views respecting the means of salvation is to the way of that covenant [of . . . Continue reading →
That the law as a covenant of works was displayed on Mount Sinai appears also from this: the Ten Commandments, written on tables of stone and so given to Moses on Sinai are called, by the apostle Paul, “the ministration of death, . . . Continue reading →
The Ten Commandments, accordingly, were published from Sinai in the form of a covenant, or federal, transaction. The Sinai transaction was a mixed dispensation. In it, the covenant of grace was repeated and published; the covenant of works was awfully displayed in . . . Continue reading →
Moreover, the tables of the law in the ark were covered and hid by the mercy seat, or propitiatory cover. This prefigured that the violated law should be so covered by the divine Surety, who was to fulfill all the righteousness of . . . Continue reading →
God therefore displayed on Mount Sinai the law of the Ten Commandments as a covenant of works in subservience to the covenant of grace. He displayed it in that form in order that the people might, by contemplating it, see what kind . . . Continue reading →
One reason, therefore, why the Lord displayed the law as a covenant of works* on Sinai was that self-righteous Israelites and all pharisaic professors to the end of time might see that as they have sinned and so have not performed perfect . . . Continue reading →
The children of fallen Adam are so bent on working for life that they will on no account cease from it till the Holy Spirit so convinces them of their sin and misery as to show them that Mount Sinai is wholly . . . Continue reading →
The law [as a covenant of works] regards us as creatures originally formed with sufficient ability to yield perfect obedience to it; and accordingly, it requires us to retain and exert that ability in performing perfectly all the duties that we owe . . . Continue reading →