06.The Presbytery of the Trinity rules
The Presbytery of the Trinity rules over man also after the fall From Gen 3:15f (cf.Mat 28:16-20) - it is obvious that the Church of this Triune God dates even from Adam onward. Thus, in XVII:120 (compare too pp. 170-77 & 186f), Owen rightly claims that "God founded his Church in the promise of the Messiah given unto Adam." Also see IX:316f & X:290 & XI:305f. In I:120-23, Owen explains: "Faith in Christ was required from the beginning.... It must be granted that ’without faith it is impossible to please God’; which the Apostle proves by instances from the foundation of the world, Heb 11:1-40." This is "the very foundation of Christian religion.... Gen 3:15 - truly called Prootevangelion - was revealed.... This is the very foundation of the faith of the Church.... The person ofChrist, His incarnation and mediation...were promised under the name of the seed of the woman....
"Our first parents and all their holy posterity did believe this promise.... Mentioned by name in Scripture...[are] Abel, Enoch, Noah, and some others.... The Apostle affirms that they had this testimony - that they pleased God, Heb 9:5.... In the same place he confirms their faith, and justification thereon, with a ’cloud of witnesses,’ chap. xii.1." s Owen adds in I:254f, "it is a Church-state which is constituted hereby.... Believers at present have, by faith, an admission into communion with this Church.... For we ’are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God...and...to the General Assembly and Church of the first-born...and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.’ Heb 12:22-24.... In this holy Assembly and worship have we communion by faith whilst we are here below, Heb 10:19-22."
Indeed, precisely that latter passage adds most presbyterially just three verses later (in Heb 10:25-28): "not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another.... He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy, under two or three Witnesses" - viz. at the instance of presbyterial Elders. Deu 17:6-9; Deu 19:12-15.
How much heavier a punishment, do you think, will he deserve who has trodden under foot the Son of God - and who has regarded the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified as an unholy thing; and who has spited the gracious Spirit?