Devil his greatest Enemy and sinned and died And I know not but that he deserved the Execution of the Sentence and Curse pronounced against him more by his Unbelief than by Eating the Apple And that even the Law of Works condemn'd him as much for that Sin as for the outward Act of his Disobedience Ay but it will be said All this doth not prove that Faith in Christ was commanded by the Law and required of him as his Duty No it is enough that Faith in God was so to prove that the Precept belongs to the Law For if it is sufficient to argue from the Law 's not directing this its own commanded Act to such an Object as Christ the Redeemer that therefore it gives no Precept and Command of Believing but that it is the peculiar Office of the Gospel to do so that because this particular Kind of Faith is not specified and this Way of Acting it on Christ particularly express'd that therefore the Duty of Believing comes not within the Limits of its Commands I might at this rate of Arguing prove that the Act of Eating the fatal Fruit was no Sin because not expresly forbidden by the Law for that regarded it as a thing indifferent as indeed it was before the Prohibition and yet this destroying Act of his was a Sin and forbidden by the Law tho not in a particular Precept yet as involv'd in that great One which commanded him to obey God in whatever he should require It doth not therefore by any consequence follow that the Gospel is a new Law because it commands Faith as a Duty and threatens Unbelief since the old Law had done the same before and the Gospel only imploys its Precepts and applies them to its own Design and Use To say that we are enjoin'd in the Gospel to believe on Christ as the Redeemer to deliver us from Sin and Death will not weaken the Force of the Argument urg'd for the Act even of this Faith is commanded by the Law and is its proper Precept That which belongs to the Gospel is to direct this Act to an Object suted and proportioned to help us in the Misery of our present sinful State Adam was by the Law commanded to believe and trust in God for the Preservation and Continuance of him in Happiness And we are commanded to trust in the same God for the Restoring this lost Happiness and our Recovery of it again The Act and Object of Faith is the same Christ being God and all the Difference is only made by that which is the Circumstance tho a deplorable one of our own Persons But this will not alter the Nature of the Faith it-self for if so then according to the Variety of these sad Cases and Exigences wherein we trust on Christ our Faith would alter to a different Nature Since then the Faith of Adam which the Moral Law commanded him to act on God was a Trust in him that he would preserve his innocent Creature in all the Blessedness of his primitive Condition and the Faith of a Sinner coming to Christ for Life is a Trust in the same God he being the second Person of the Divinity that he will restore his wretched Creature to its lost Happiness the Faith is the same in both Instances as to the Nature of it tho the Circumstances of the Persons are different and therefore if our first Father was by the Moral Law commanded to believe on God the same Precept requires and obligeth Sinners to believe on the eternal Son of God I know that with a scornful Smile it will be said that it is an absurd Assertion to affirm the Precept of Faith to belong to the Law when the Command of believing on Christ is perpetually repeated in the Gospel which only discovers this Saviour of Sinners It is granted that we meet with this Precept in all the Books of the New Testament but then the Objectors must also grant that we find there too the Precepts of loving Christ of abandoning all things and denying our selves for his Sake of loving our Enemies of the Obedience due from Children to their Parents of the sincere Service which Servants owe to their Masters and now if the Gospel is not a New Law in requiring these Duties which were all commanded by the old one it will no more be a new Law for commanding us to believe since this hath been demonstrated to be a Precept of the old Law as well as any of the other All therefore which can be inferr'd is that the Gospel borrows these Precepts from the old Moral Law and then they are not properly its own Commands and employs them in its Service and for the Interests of our Salvation or to speak briefly and clearly in the Words of the Holy Ghost himself Gal. 3. 19. the Moral Law is in the hands of Christ our Mediator and made by him to subserve his gracious Designs The other pretended peculiar Precept of this new Law is Repentance and if I then prove that by virtue of the old Law which was a perfect Rule of Duty this also was enjoin'd and Sinners oblig'd to it this will evince that neither this is the proper Command of the Gospel It cannot be denied that all which is justly due from one Person to another is required in the Moral Law for it is a compleat Rule of Righteousness It can as little be disputed that an hearty Acknowledgment of the Wrong with Shame and Sorrow from a Man who hath injur'd another is due to the offended Party and common Reason and Justice doth engage Men to this tho no other Reparations can be made The owning then of our Offences with the most inward Mourning and deepest Detestation of them is much more due to God our Sovereign and Supream Lord tho we are incapable by all this of making him the least Satisfaction To confess a Fault and to express a real Trouble for having done it is indeed among Men a making some amends to the wronged Person for it is some Security that he shall not be hurt by a second Injury But all our Sorrow and Confession of Sins with Tears cannot in any degree satisfy nor repair the Dishonour and Indignity offer'd unto God It is yet our Duty to throw our selves at his Feet to express an Abhorrence of our hainous Rebellion against him and it is a Duty to which we are bound as Creatures to our Maker and Subjects to our Soveraign who is Lord over all God blessed for ever But what it will be said doth the Law require Repentance when it made no Proposals of Pardon for the Crime Doth it require a sorrowful Acknowledgment of the Fault and yet the whole Design of it is that all this shall do the Offender no good since it provides not the least Relief for the penitent Sinner To what purpose is such a Command when tho the Sinner sheds floods of Tears and mourns out a Life lasting to Eternity of
Redeemer and Repentance do not seem to be in the least so much as hinted in any of its Commands For since the Law was given as a Rule of the Actions of Holy and Innocent Creatures who needed not a Redeemer there could be no occasion to command them to believe on One and Adam in his State of Integrity was no more oblig'd to such a Faith than the Blessed Angels are to believe on the Saviour of lost and wretched Men. And since Repentance is a Duty too which presupposeth the Person engag'd to it to be an Offender and guilty How could it be commanded to a Creature who had never sinned How could it be a Duty for him to own his Crime with Shame and Sorrow who never yet had transgressed or prevaricated in his Obedience Since therefore Faith in Christ and Repentance are Duties which suppose the Man to be a Sinner it would seem that such Precepts are not implied in a Law given to him before his Fall but are the proper Precepts of a second Remedial Law which God hath provided for the Relief and Help of this miserable Creature This I must confess looks very plausible at first sight and the Argument seems to be strongly conclusive But if we consider the Nature of Faith it will be manifest that it was not only commanded to Adam in Innocence and that it was his Duty but that it is absolutely necessary to every holy and good Creature For if we take it as an Act of the Mind assenting readily to all that God reveals as infallibly true it is that to which every Creature in the right Constitution of his Being is indispensably oblig'd It is the Duty of Angels themselves to believe that Jesus is the Son of God that he is the Saviour of Elect Men that the Pardon and Justification of a Sinner is by his Blood and Righteousness alone that God's Justice is satisfied by the Sacrifice of his Son For all these Truths being publish'd and made known by God for the Illustration of his infinite Mercy among all his rational Creatures and that the Praises of his Free Grace might resound as well in the Songs of Angels as from the Mouths of Men it is needful and required as a Duty from them both who are to honour God in the Celebration of all his Attributes that they heartily believe all these Truths of the Gospel in which alone God's Perfections of Mercy and Grace do illustriously shine forth And as for Man in Innocence though it was not in express Terms required from him to believe the Gospel not yet revealed to him or to act Faith on Christ undiscovered yet such a Command was included and implied in that general one that he should without any Doubt or Hesitancy give Credit to all that God said and that as he was to believe the Sincerity of God's Promise and the Reality of his Threatnings when the Covenant of Works was made with him and without doubt he acted such a Faith so by the same Precept he was commanded and bound to believe every word which God afterward should speak to him and without scrupulous disputing presently assent to those Truths which were to be reveal'd assoon as it appear'd to him that they were so So that indeed the Belief of the Gospel and Faith in Christ Jesus were comprehended in this general Precept of Believing in God and indeed Christ himself tells us so and useth it as an Argument why they should act Faith on him because they were oblig'd to it by the same Command which required them to believe on God John 14. 1. Let not your Heart be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me If we regard too the other Act of Faith which is a firm Reliance of the Soul upon God and heartily trusting of him and chearfully committing all our Concernments our Life our Happiness all we enjoy or hope for to his faithful Love and Care this was certainly our first Father's Duty and given in Precept to him in the Law as well as the other of assenting to all that God declared as undoubtedly true And indeed if it was Adam's Duty in his Primitive Condition to believe in God it was commanded by the Law for that only could make it become so And what can we ever wildly imagine that our first Father was not bound to act Faith on God his Creator and constant Benefactor and upon whom he was to have a perpetual Dependance or he could not live a moment What! can we think that to have rejected God's Word as of suspected Truth to have refused or but to have suspended his Assent to it when propos'd had been no fault in him That to have distrusted God to have renounced Dependance on him would not have been a Crime the greatest as could be committed by him But all this is the unavoidable Consequence of this Assertion That the Precept of Faith is not in the Law for neither would Faith have been a Duty nor Unbelief a Sin to Adam had not the Law which was the only Rule of his Obedience commanded the one and forbidden the other Were it not for this he might have been a stubborn obstinate Unbeliever without being a Sinner when on the contrary it appears from the short Relation of his Apostacy that Unbelief was his very first Sin For what is Faith but to trust in God upon his Word and Promise for all our Life and Happiness and what is Unbelief but to distrust him And was not Adam while flourishing in his State Innocence a real and sincere Believer and so long as he persisted in acting Faith did he not continue to be happy And was it not the Neglect of the due Exercise of Faith which at last plung'd him into the Depths of Misery and Despair As long as he believed God and entirely confided in him as long as he lived in constant Dependance upon the Love and Care of his Creator as long as he thankfully acknowledged that he received all the Blessings of Life as the Fruits of his Bounty as long as he trusted in God upon his Word that he would not only continue them unto him but bestow greater to come which by the Promise he had reason to hope for and expect all this time he liv'd by Faith and his Days were clear and happy and it was Unbelief made all his Glories set in a gloomy Evening It was this begun his Apostacy not exercising Faith any longer he would throw off his Dependance upon God and seek to be bless'd in some new and fond Way of his own He indulg'd a surmizing Thought that God whose solemn Promise he had so freshly heard either could not or was not willing to make him so happy as he aspir'd to be and that he refused to advance him to those degrees of Bliss of which he fancied himself capable And thus he ceas'd acting that Faith in God on which depended his Life and Blessedness he disbelieved God and believed the
arriv'd to their Ears It must therefore necessarily be a Precept and Command of the Moral Law to them which more or less is manifested to all even the most savage and barbarous Nations of the Earth The Design and Office of the Law doth also manifest that the Precept of Repentance doth properly belong to it For it was not only appointed as a Rule of Obedience to Adam but God certainly knowing that Man would fall into a State of Sin and Death intended the Law for the Conviction of Sinners to shew them their Sinfulness and Danger Rom. 3. 19 20. Now we know that what things soever the Law saith it saith to them who are under the Law that every Mouth may be stopped and all the World may become guilty before God Therefore by the Deeds of the Law there shall no Flesh be justified in his sight for by the Law is the Knowledg of Sin Rom. 7. 7. He design'd it to rouse and alarm the poor negligent Creatures And now if it convinceth them of Sin its malignant Nature and direful Effects it consequently tells them that it is their Duty to bewail their Miscarriages which bring all Miseries upon them and to reform their evil Courses and to turn from Sin to God This the Law preacheth to Men and these are the natural Dictates of it in their Consciences and it is impossible to perswade them till God comes with the Power of his Grace and works Faith against putting their Confidence in their Sorrow and repenting to obtain Pardon by it and against trusting to their Resolutions of living better for the future and against their fond Presumption of being justified for their endeavours of Amendment These legal Principles are natural in Men they arise not from the Gospel for that instructs us to put our whole and entire Confidence in Christ and his Righteousness alone they must then spring from the Law and consequently Repentance which this Law not only urgeth Men unto but moveth them to build their Hopes of Life upon it must be one of its Precepts The Law commands it the Gospel as a Proclamation of Grace and an Offer of Pardon only invites and encourageth it Thus it is sufficiently prov'd that Sinners were by the Moral Law oblig'd to own their Sins with the most bewailing Expressions of Grief tho that Law gave them no Encouragement and Hope and that Adam after his Fall was engag'd to this Sorrow and Contrition before any promise of Pardon and Acceptance tendred If we now consider the other and chiefest part of Repentance it will be evident that this was not only requir'd of the Father of Mankind fallen but that it was his Duty and what he practis'd in all the time of his Innocence and flourishing Condition For what is Repentance mainly but an hearty abhorrence of Sin join'd with a most careful Avoidance of it and a most firm Resolution against it Now this was as surely in Adam when continuing the same upright Creature which God had made him as it is certain that then he was holy Holiness and hatred of Sin being altogether inseparable and therefore unless we will suppose our first Father to have been unholy in his original Being we must not doubt of his daily acting of this principal and most considerable part of Repentance I call it so because it is that which to bring forth the other is appointed for we are not commanded to mourn and to bewail our Follies and Miscarriages meerly for the sake of vexing and tormenting our selves or as if by the inward Anguish of our Souls we were to do Penance to pacify a displeased God but all this trouble of Mind for Sin is intended and requir'd to imbitter it to us and to render us vile in our own Eyes and to throw us humbled before the Throne of Grace For tho we are Sinners and poor and miserable yet we are naturally proud and therefore a Sense of our Sin and Misery is requisite to bring down our haughty Spirits tho we also daily feel the dismal Mischiefs of Sin yet our deprav'd Natures render us too prone and readily inclin'd unto it and therefore a piercing Sorrow is necessary to bring us to that true Repentance of which I am speaking which consists in hating Sin and turning from it It is but needful that an aking Wound make us sensible of the malignant Mischief of Sin to render it the Object of our highest Aversion Well then it is hatred of Sin and an hearty resistance of it which is the last and chiefest Act of Repentance since our Sorrow is design'd only to produce this Effect and so after all to hate Sin and most carefully to avoid it is most truly to repent of it And this Repentance our first Father even in his Innocence acted to a higher degree than we do since his detestation of Sin was greater and till the sad Moments of his Fall he opposed it more firmly and successfully But it will be objected Repentance supposeth the Person to have sinn'd and therefore a Precept of it to Adam in his Uprightness was altogether needless No not at all for a Precept to oblige Man to what is due and just is necessary for him in every Condition and nothing can be more due than to acknowledg a Wrong done And what is Repentance but an hearty owning and lamenting the highest Injury offer'd to God by our Sins And besides God in making a Law gave such a perfect Rule as was sufficient to bind Man to his Duty in all Circumstances of his Case and therefore it was not only modell'd to oblige him to perfect Obedience but to ingage him to repent when he had fail'd of his Duty Well but some may argue against what I before said concerning Faith's being a Precept of the Original Law given to Adam that tho it is true that Faith in God is required in the first Commandment yet there is no Faith in a Redeemer express'd What then It is yet plainly implied since this our Redeemer is God and therefore a general Command to trust on God at all Times and according to the various Necessities of our State must include a Precept to believe on Christ the Redeemer when the sad State of our Case doth require it Ay but the Law will they object was given to Man in Innocence and therefore only tied him to such Acts of Obedience as were proper to that Condition and therefore such Duties which result from Man's being a Sinner such as Faith and Repentance were not inclos'd within the compass of this Law Yes but they were and that for the same Reason as such Duties which arise from the present Relations which Men bear to one another which are the Consequents of Adam's Fall are comprehended in the Precepts of the Moral Law By this a Slave is obliged to perform Service to his Master and yet if Man had not sinned there had been no such thing as Slavery By this also Judges are bound
fond of any Arminian Opinions we must take the whole System of them together and assert roundly as they do without mincing the Matter what hath an inseparable Connexion with a false Proposition for there are Consequences among Errors as well as Truths and as the one are chain'd the other are link'd together We may then be certain that these Expressions in Scripture He that believeth shall be sav'd but he that believeth not shall be damn'd Mark 16. 16. And whoever believeth on Christ shall receive remission of Sins Acts 10. 43. And except you repent you shall all likewise perish Luke 13. 5. which are urg'd by my Reverend Brother do not signify that God passeth his Word to all Men by a new Law establish'd among them that if they obey it and believe and repent they shall assuredly be saved for God always speaks the Purposes of his Mind and none of his Words contradict his Heart but he never decreed either absolutely or conditionally that all Men should be eternally happy for if he had he would have taken effectual Care that they should be so since the Intents of his Mind and Will always obtain infallibly their desir'd Effect If we also understand that Expression He who believes shall be sav'd that it is promis'd to all that on the performance of this Condition they shall be thus eternally bless'd then by the same Rule we must say that eternal Death and Ruin is threaten'd to them on condition they do not believe But the Threatnings of this Wo are not denounc'd against Men for not believing but as due to them for not perfectly obeying the Law of Works and their Unbelief only leaves them in that perishing Condition wherein they were born as I have prov'd before tho as I said their Unbelief aggravates the Misery and inflames the Anguish of it But what meaning then must we apprehend these Scriptures to bear Why truly they have the same Sense as that Text in Heb. 12. 14. Follow Peace with all Men and Holiness without which no Man shall see the Lord. What! is Holiness the Condition of obtaining the Beatifical Vision No tho it doth naturally dispose the Soul and make it meet for and capable of this blissful Enjoyment No more therefore is meant than that Holiness and this Vision of God are inseparably join'd together and that no unholy Soul can possibly come to his Presence and Sight Thus it is also true that he who believes shall be sav'd which imports no more than this that all Believers are sav'd and none but they and that there is such an unchangeable Connexion between the Blessings of the Gospel that Faith Repentance and Holiness are indissolubly fasten'd with Pardon Justification and Eternal Life in the same Person or in a Word that God justifies and saves no Man but whom at his own due appointed Time he makes a Believer brings him to Repentance I speak in this of Adult Persons and sanctifies his Nature and whoever asserts this is no Antinomian nor so much as like to such an execrable Monster however invidious Names are flung about as thick as Stones in the Streets I might insist more largely on this Argument but I begin to think that the Consideration of it will more properly belong to another Discourse wherein I design with the Assistance of my Lord Jesus Christ who hath help'd me in this beyond the natural Abilities of my own Mind to him be all the Glory to prove that the Covenant of Grace doth not promise nor confer the Blessings on condition of performing Duties requir'd CHAP. VIII Those Texts of Scripture which are urg'd by the Apologist as expresly giving the Name of a New Law to the Gospel recover'd to their right Sense His Testimonies out of the Fathers and Protestant Writers evinc'd to be useless to serve his Design I Shall now examine those Texts alledg'd by my Dear Brother wherein the Gospel is call'd a Law and the Citations produc'd by him wherein the Fathers and Protestant Authors give to it the same Name I shall do it but briefly for I need not be large since any Reader who hath with any intention of Mind perus'd my poor Writing may resolve them all at first sight The first Text produc'd is that known one in Rom. 3. 27. Where is boasting then It is excluded By what Law of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith Without looking on the Context we may be satisfied by what the Apostle saith in the same Verse that by the Law of Faith he means no more than that Doctrine of Grace which declares a believing Sinner to be justified by the Righteousness of Christ which by Faith he receiveth for it is such a Law of Faith that excludes all boasting Now then if it commanded Faith and promis'd Justification on condition that this its Precept was obey'd Boasting would not be excluded but rather a great Occasion would be given to promote it For why should not a Man glory in his Faith if it be an Act of Obedience to this new Law which by the Statute of it makes his Justification to depend on this his Performance He may then as well plead that he hath done what was requir'd and so he may as well claim Life and Happiness on the Account of having done all that this new Law made necessary to Salvation as Adam if continuing in his Primitive State might have form'd a Plea of his Right to Life for having discharg'd all that Duty which the Law of Works commanded and propos'd as the Condition of his being eternally Blessed If he might have boasted for having faithfully observ'd the Covenant of Works the Believer too may assume some Glory to himself for having acted his Duty punctually to the Law of Faith if the Constitution of this Law be such that it makes the promis'd Salvation dependant upon this his Obedience in believing It will signify nothing to say that the Law by which Adam was to have been justified enjoin'd Works as the Terms of his being so but that this new Law insists only on two Acts of Obedience Faith and Repentance as all that it requires for our Justification For these two are Works done by us and so we might boast that we have done something tho not arising to that height of Duty incumbent on our first Father by which according to the Tenor of this new Law we are justified By the Opposition which the Apostle makes of the Law of Faith to a Law of Works it is also manifest that by the first he intends a pure Doctrine of Grace and by the other a Law commanding something to be done For if the Law of Faith requires any Works and constituted them to be Conditions of our obtaining the Blessings make these Works as few as you will and call them by what Names you please Faith and Repentance yet this will result from it that both are Laws of Works only with this difference that the one rigorously insists on