The Covenants

by Robert Boyte Crawford Howell

The violation of the covenant did not cancel his obligations still to obey all its requirements. Whatever disabilities may have been incurred by the transgression, and especially by the consequent depravity of human nature, our relations to the law were not thereby changed. Are those who transgress the laws of our country thereby absolved from the penalty denounced against future obedience? Surely not. Are the loss of the inclination, and even the ability, when it is a consequence of previous sin, a sufficient apology for not complying with the demands of justice; and truth, to the utmost practicable extent? A drunkard may have no wish, and he may have lost much of his power, to keep sober. Is it, therefore, no sin for him to be drunken? No such principle obtains in any equitable human government. Nor does it in the government of God.13

man fallen in Adam still owes God perfect obedience to his law.