# Hugh Binning on Moses and the covenant of works



## Reformed Covenanter (Apr 14, 2020)

... We conceive this is but a contention about words; the matter is clear in itself, (1.) That neither is now the gospel preached without the law, as ye may see in Christ’s sermon upon the mount, and his sermon to the young man, Matt. v. vi. vii.; Mark x. 17; nor yet was then the law preached without the gospel, as ye may see in Exod. xx.; the preface to the commandments, and the second commandment, contain much of the gospel in them, — Deut. xxx. 6, 7, &c., compared with Rom. x. 6, &c., where Paul notes both the righteousness of faith and of the works of the law.

(1.) Those who say the law on mount Sinai was a covenant of works, do not assert that God gave it to be a covenant of works, out of intention that men should seek salvation thereby; but they make it only a schoolmaster to lead us unto Christ and to discover our sinful condition: and those who say it was a covenant of grace, consider it in relation to God’s end of sending it, and as it takes in all the administration and doctrine of Moses.

So there needs be no difficulty here. The matter seems clear, that the covenant of works was preached by Moses, and so it was by Paul, Rom. x., Gal. iii.; and that neither Paul nor Moses preached the covenant of works, but as a broken covenant; not as such that men could stand unto, or be saved by. No man can preach the gospel, unless he preach the covenant of works, not because both concur to the justification of a sinner, but because the knowledge of a man’s own lost condition under the one presses him to flee to the other. ...

For more, see Hugh Binning on Moses and the covenant of works.


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