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A85510 A modest vindication of the doctrine of conditions in the Covenant of Grace, and the defenders thereof, from the aspersions of arminianism & popery, which Mr. W. E. cast on them. By the late faithful and godly minister Mr. John Graile, minister of the gospel at Tidworth in the county of Wilts. Published with a preface concerning the nature of the Covenant of Grace, wherein is a discovery of the judgment of Dr. Twisse in the point of justification, clearing him from antinomianism therein. By Constant Jessop, minister of the Gospel at Wimborn minister in the county of Dorset. Whereunto is added, a sermon, preached at the funeral of the said Mr. John Grail. By Humphrey Chambers, D.D. and pastor of the church at Pewsie. Graile, John.; Chambers, Humphrey, 1598 or 9-1662.; Jessop, Constantine, 1601 or 2-1658. Pauls sad farewel to his Ephesians. 1654 (1654) Wing G1477; Thomason E817_1; Thomason E817_2; ESTC R207370 97,971 125

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Controversie doth turn 2. That your saying That Papist ascribe not any meritoriousnesse to conditions c. is most false if there be any truth in these Protestants collections yea that it doth asperse these reverend Protestant Authours fore-named who oppose the Papist in the very particular 3. That those of our Divines who maintain conditional promises in the Covenant whilst withal they exclude all claim of dignity worth merit or any such causality from these conditions do not joyne with Papists as you would make the people believe but with Protestants against Papists and differ not one hairs breadth from those who aver the Covenant to be absolute not conditional for by the Conditions which they deny they understand meritorious Conditions 4. That in rejecting this distinction between a Condition and a meritorious Cause and asserting the Covenant to be without not only meritorious conditions but all other also you oppose all Orthodox Divines that ever I met with not only those that hold the Covenant to be conditional but those also who in terminis aver the absoluteness of it for by the conditions they reject they understand meritorious ones as hath been shewed and joyn with Mr. Saltmarsh Dr. Crisp and such other whom the Othodox not out of malice but for distinction sake and for the due desert of some of their Tenents do call Antinomians But let us see what further strength you bring to the battering of this distinction for your charge of Popery will not hold You add therefore farther Did Adams doing merit life None will say it Yet the Grace of God is more shewed in the latter then in the first Covenant Therefore in it no conditions at all Sir The Apostle saith To him that worketh the reward is reckoned not of grace but of debt Rom. 4. 4. I know some hold the Covenant with Adam wherein works were injoyned to be a Covenant of Grace I have heard Mr. Symonds of Holland deliver that in a Sermon at Rederith and thereupon divide the Covenant of Grace into the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Faith Certainly had Adam kept the condition of the first Covenant he had done no more then his Duty nor had he profited God at all besides there would have been small or no proportion between that his Work and the reward all which are required to merit proper So that in some sense that may be called a Covenant of Grace Neverthelesse in the latter Covenant of Faith the grace of God is so far more fully richly and gloriously manifested then in that of Works as that it obtaineth the title of the Covenant of Grace The Apostle saith it was by Faith that it might be by Grace Rom. 4. 16. And the Scripture being so plain for it I ought to believe it though I could not make it out to others wherein it was freer nor yet apprehend it my self But my good friend the businesse is not so difficult but that it may be and hath been already dispatch'd by some of our side and the freenesse of the latter above the former notwithstanding the conditionality of both at large discovered And that not by excluding faith or the condition of faith from the latter as you would have it for that would interfere with that of the Apostle now cited By Faith that it might be of Grace where Faith is taken in not left out to make out the freenesse Nor yet only because faith is given of God and so ability to keep the latter Covenant is given which is something For though that strength Adam had to keep the first Covenant was freely bestowed on him by God in his Creation yet when God was pleased to enter into a Covenant with him he had it in him and was to work in his own strength and power Whereas in the New Covenant God finds man in an impotent weak and dead condition and graciously promiseth to work in him ability to do what he requireth This I say is something that serves to shew the freenesse of Divine Grace in the new Covenant for the Apostle saith expresly Ephes 2. 8. We are saved by Grace through faith and that not of our selves it is the gift of God where the giving of the thing required to wit Faith is introduced by the Apostle to shew the freeness of Grace But the superabundancy of Grace in the latter Covenant appears mostly in this that in the former the matter of mans Justification had been something of his own his own exact and perfect obedience to the Law of God but in the latter the matter of it is an others the perfect Righteousness of Christ In the one man runs into himselfe for the price of his life and happiness But in the other faith carries him out of himself unto another the Lord Jesus Christ for all In the one the condition it self and the keeping of it was to have been the matter of mans Righteousness the ground of his Justification In the other it is only the Instrument and Mean In the one the condition it self Works procured life in and of themselves without any reference to any other but in the other Faith is looked on not as a Work but as an Instrument nor doth it save for any excellency worth or vertue that is in it but only because it layes hold on Christ I cannot better expresse my self then in Mr. Gatakers words Rejoynder p. 46 47. In the one Works are considered as in themselves performed by the Parties to be justified and live In the other Faith is considered and required not as a work barely done by us but us an Instrument whereby Christ is apprehended in whom is found and by whom that is done whereby Gods Justice is satisfied and life eternal meritoriously procured for us so that they differ as much as these two Propositions 1. Pay your debt of a thousand pounds and be free 2. Rely on such a friends satisfaction made for it and be as free as if you had made full payment and satisfaction your self All this and more you may find in that reverend Divine your contempt of whom and all other not of your way sads the hearts of your friends and makes them fear that which they are loath to suspect concerning you You proceed and tell us that though it be not meritorious yet if it be Antecedent it must be Effective For an Antecedent condition is effective Sir By your own maintaining faith to be an instrument in the work of our salvation which I think is more then a condition though no more I believe then truth you must of necessity grant it both a precedency and efficiency therein for instruments are alwayes reckoned to the efficient cause and in order of nature precede the effect And thus I conceive that faith is effective in the work of our salvation as an instrument receiving Christ not as a condition Conditions are not effective but instruments are As for that of Chamier that a
marry without advising with her Uncle about it she loseth her right to the Legacy given her which by the way may shew the weakness of that Argument that is taken from the word Testament which some use against Conditions as if Conditions could not stand with a Testamentary disposition Now such is Gods grant of salvation it is made in Christ it is made in him unto Believers it is not made to sinners as sinners as some aver but to repenting and believing sinners John 6. 38. 39 40. This is the will of him that sent me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him have everlasting life The Grant being made unto us as Believers I conceive we have not right unto the benefit granted until we doe believe Sure I am we cannot have right but by and through our union to him which union being an inestimable benefit we cannot have right before we have benefit 7. Because you are so ready to charge your Adversaries with nonsense and contradictions let us mind you of the old rule He that accuseth another of dishonesty must look well to himself and let the inconsequences which necessarily follow from your Doctrine be our last Argument I beseech you therefore to read me those riddles your Tenents seem to me to contain and to lead me out of those mazes and Meanders which I think your Positions lead unto at least to deliver your self out of them for perhaps my senses may not lead me to follow your clue unlesse I see better solutions then I have seene or heard from you hitherto I beseech you tell me then 1. How there can be Many yea or any true Believers who were never humbled when yet all men must see their Righteousnesse drosse and dung must be schooled by the Law to know their need of Christ before they can or will make out unto him 2. How the same man may be actually reconciled to God have wrath removed from him and be beloved of God with the love of complacency and yet at the same time in regard of the same evil works be an enemy unto God a child of wrath and have wrath abiding on him 3. How the same man may be actually justified and quickned and yet actually dead in regard of the same sins at the same time 4. How the same man at the same time can be a member of Christ one in him and united to him as he must be who is actually justified and a member also of the divel as he cannot but be who still remains an ungodly impenitent and unbelieving person 5. How faith in the work of Justification serves for any farther use then to assure us that we are justified seeing it doth not concur to the essence and being of it or to the constituting of us in a state justifiable and how we are said to be justified by Faith and not by Works when Works assure us of our being justified as well as Faith 6 How in the Petition Forgive us our debts we can pray for any thing more then assurance of pardon when actual pardon is passed long before And how sins can be actually pardoned before they be committed and the guilt removed before it is contracted 7 How God who promiseth pardon to Believers only and condemneth thousands for their impenitency and unbelief can without blemish of his Honour Truth and Justice give pardon to any in his impenitency and unbelief 8 How a man can be said to be bound by Covenant to keep or break the Covenant when yet in the Conant there are no conditions on mans part required to be performed 9 Why it doth not follow from your Tenents that a man may be actually Justified and saved without faith when yet you maintain actual Justification before faith and faith to be required not to the essence of it or interesting of persons in it but only to the assuring them of their interest therein 10. Why it follows not also from them that Christians may live as they list seeing you hold that no conditions are on their part required so that they cannot break the Covenant Whether Doctor Preston dares the Believer to sin if hee can I yet finde not but this I find That hee holds that the Believer may both sin and by sinning may break the Covenant as you may find in his Treatise of the New Covenant p. 458 459 460. c. These are some of the many for more might be named straites and intricacies your Positions lead your self and your followers into out of which how you will rid your self I wot not but sure I am that your Solutions hitherto given do yeild no manner of real satisfaction not only not to my self but not to any other of your godly and intelligent Auditors that I have yet met with Toward the close of your Sermon you ushered in your Authorities with this Objection But many good Divines call it a Conditional Covenant But Sir you are meal mouthed in the very Objection for not only many but the most part of Divines call it so All that I have ever yet met with Dr. Crisp Mr. Saltmarsh and your self exepted As for those Authors you bring I shall by and by shew your fowle play in citing some of them and your mistake of others and discover most if not all of them to be on my side and to be only against meritorious Conditions The like mincing you used in a passage in the beginning of your Sermon viz. That some good Divines say That Faith and Repentance are the way to glory Whereas if you be pleased to rub your poll I believe you may call to mind not only that some but most good Divines call these Conditions and say as much of good Works as you here allow to Faith namely that they are via ad regnum the way to the Kingdom though not Causa regnandi the cause of reigning I am sure Mr. Perkins Dr. Preston Bishop Davenant and most others I have read do call them so But you are politick in these expressions for thereby you would perswade your hearers that you had many on your side like some Travellers who passing on in solitary wayes keep a whistling and a hooping as if they had a great deal of company whereas alas they are either wholly alone or at most have but one or two Companions Now Sir for your reply to this Objection we shall refer it to the close of all and at present shall look into the Authours you bring and see whether they stand for the opinion for which you cited them or rather against it as shall be made to appear and then shall add some others to them You begin with the Fathers but there you are sparing in your citations you tell us the Question was rarely agitated then But you might have said that the Fathers if they faulted in any thing about the matter in Controversie it was in giving too much to Faith Repentauce and good Works by
a gold chain with a rich Jewel of the Crown in it and withal should bind himself to give her both the chain and a will to wear it Again He is both without doors knocking and within doors opening yet he never cometh in but upon condition we open which condition is also his own work He offers Righteousness so the sinner believe and he works belief that the sinner may have Righteousnesse pag. 109. Thus you see others as well as Dr. Preston assert the absolutenesse of the Covenant in that part who yet still maintain the other part viz. the promise of life and salvation to be conditional which as hath been already shewed Dr. Preston doth maintain 8. As for Mr. Walker he denies not all kinds of conditions in the place cited but only Conditions Legal and conditions for which meritorious ones but conditions which are as a means by which the free gift is received and as a qualification whereby one is made capable and fit to receive and enjoy the free gift such he granteth and calleth them Conditions in the place cited by you saying There is no condition of the Covenant propounded but only the way and means to receive the blessing or the quality and condition by which men are made capable and fit to enjoy the blessing which is as much as I plead for under that Title As for Mr. Strong though both what I have heard from him my self and also what I have heard from others who have seen his Sermon induce me to believe that he is not against our conditions yet having not his Sermon I must be altogether silent at this time concerning him By this Sir you may see that I have looked into the most of the Authors which you cited and amongst them all I must professe unto you that I find not one that speaketh fully for you but more against then for your Tenent and for that sort of conditions whose cause I plead I must intreat you therefore to shake hands with them and leave them to stand on my side To them I shall add some few more 1 Mr. Perkins shall be the first who puts down conditions in the very description of the Covenant saying The Covenant of Grace is that whereby God freely promising Christ and his benefits exacteth again of man that he would receive Christ by faith and repent of his sins In the Covenant of Grace two things saith he elsewhere must be considered the substance thereof and the condition The Substance of the Covenant is that Righteousnesse and life everlasting is given to Gods Church and people by Christ The Condition is that we for our parts are by faith to receive the foresaid benefits and this condition is by grace as well as the substance 2. Mr. Reynolds shall be the next in his Treatise of the Life of Christ p. 399. he calls Faith the conveyance and p. 403. We expect Justification by faith in Christ Faith unites us to Christ and makes his death merit life kingdom sonship victory benefits to become ours You may see p. 451 452 453. That to marriage between Christ and his Church whereby the Church hath a right and propriety created to the Body Name Goods Table Possession and Purchases of Christ is essentially required consent which consent must be mutual for though Christ declare his good will when he knocketh at our doors yet if we keep at distance stop our ears at his invitations there is then no Covenant made It is but a wooing and no marriage c. Pag. 465 466 467. That the office of Faith is to unite to Christ and give possession of him till which union by Faith be made we remain poor and miserable notwithstanding the fulness that is in Christ Pag. 478 479. and to name no more pag. 512. setting down the difference between the two Covenants he saith They differ in the Conditions for in the old Covenant legal obedience but in the new Faith only is required and the certain consequent thereof Repentance 3. Mr. Ball shall be the third who saith The Covenant of Grace doth not exclude all conditions but such as will not stand with grace and pag. 18. The stipulation required is that we take God to be our God that is that wee repent of our sins believe the Promises of mercy and embrace them with the whole heart and yeild love fear reverence worship and obedience to him according to the prescript rule of his Word and p. 20. If then we speak of Conditions by conditions we understand whatsoever is required on our part as precedent concomitant or subsequent to Justification Repentance Faith and Obedience are all conditions But if by conditions we understand what is required on our part as the cause of that God promised though only instrumental Faith or belief in the Promises of free mercy is the only condition 4. Let learned Pemble be the fourth who speaking of the difference between the Law and the Gospel saith The diversity is this The Law offers life unto man upon condition of perfect obedience cursing the transgressors thereof in the least kind with eternal death The Gospel offers life unto man upon another condition viz. Repentance and Faith in Christ promising remission of sin to such as repent and believe That this is the main essential difference between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace we shall endeavor to make good against the Romish Apostacy And about a leaf after Hence we conclude firmly that the difference between the Law and the Gospel assigned by our Divines is most certain and agreeable to the Scriptures viz. That the Law gives life unto the Just upon condition of perfect obedience in all things The Gospel gives life unto sinners upon condition they repent and believe in Christ Jesus Where you may take notice that he layes it down not as his own private opinion but as the general Tenent of all the Orthodox Divines in his time and that in opposition to our Popish Adversaries It was then no Popery to hold conditions in the Covenant and as he of the Divines of his time so may I of the Divines of this present age See their consent and harmony herein Larg cat p. 9. 5. Doctor Downam shall be the fifth That which is the only condition of the Covenant of Grace by that alone we are justified But Faith is the only condition of the Covenant of Grace which is therefore called Lex fidei And l. 7. c. 2. Sect. 6. Our Writers distinguishing the two Covenants of God that is the Law and the Gospel whereof the one is the Covenant of Works the other is the Covenant of Grace do teach that the Law of Works is that which to Justification requireth Works as the condition thereof The Law of Faith that which to Justification requireth faith as the condition thereof The former saith Do this and thou shalt live the latter Believe in Christ and thou shalt be saved
against the Papists And truly I wonder that you should cavil at that distinction I gave between a condition and a meritorious cause And more that you should say that Papists ascribe no merit to conditions and preparations You know the question concerning the conditional promises of the Gospel is handled under that concerning the necessity of works where our Writers grant a necessity of presence but not of efficiencie which Bellarmine contends for Now I pray what doe they understand by that efficiency but a meritorious efficiency or what other then that can be ascribed unto works yea that our Authours understand merit by that efficiency they deny Adde to Chemnitius Chamier and consider two passages in him But the Gospel doth not promise salvation without any condition of observing the law nor did ever any of ours teach that so that he do not take the word condition for merit And in ch 5. Sect. 11. For the condition of faith is not antecedent but consequent because there is no merit of faith considered or faith is not the cause of salvation To these joyne Doctor Ames who saith We doe not deny that good works have any relation to salvation for they have the relation of an adjunct consequent and of the effect to salvation obtained as they speake and of an adjunct antecedent and disposing to salvation to be obtained and also of an Argument confirming our assurance and hope of salvation But we deny that any works of ours can be a meritorious cause of justification and salvation And in the Chapter before Promises with a condition of obedience as the causes of that right which we have to the thing promised are proper to the law but promises with condition of obedience as of the adjunct or effect of the thing promised or the donation of it have place in the most bountifull kingdome of grace where there is no place found for our merits Bishop Davenant shall be the next who averring repentance faith and love to be necessary to justification adds by way of explication and in opposition to the Popish sense of necessity These and the like inward works of the heart are necessary to all that are justified not because they conteine in themselves that efficacy or merit of justification but because according to Gods ordination either they are required as conditions precedaneous to or concurrent with justification as to repent and to believe or else as effects necessarily flowing from justifying faith as to love God to love our neighbour And in his next Chapter stating this question whether good works may be said to be necessary to justification and salvation he sets downe in his first and second conclusions that in controversies with Papists and Sermons to vulgar people wee should not use such expressions without due explication of them and that because both Papists and people wil be ready to understand them necessarily as meritorious causes of salvation Shewing by example of the Ancient Fathers how careful they have beene to forbeare some forms of speech by reason of the corrupt sense of hereticks to which purpose he alledgeth that of Hierom that which may well be spoken is not sometimes to be spoken by reason of the Ambiguity Neverthelesse in his fifth sixth and seventh Conclusions he maintains that they are necessary thereto though not as meritorious causes yet as previous and concurrent conditions Let Mr. Perkins be the first wee name for this particular who in his Reformed Catholick besides the head of Merit which wholly makes for us and shewes sufficiently the Papists to be Patrons of merit in that of Repentance speaking of the differences between us and Papists therein saith The fourth abuse is touching the effect and efficacy of Repentance for they make it a meritorious cause of remission of sin and of life everlasting flat against the Word of God And a little after They ascribe to their contrition the merit of congruity which cannot stand with the sufficient merit of Christ We for our parts hold that God requires contrition at our hands not to merit remission of sins but that we may acknowledge our owne unworthinesse be humbled in the fight of God and distrust all our own merits and further that we may make more account of the benefit of Christ wherby we are received into the favour of God and more carefully shun sin for time to come But we acknowledge no contrition at all to be meritorious save that of Christ I might adde to these learned Camero and repeate that which I cited out of him before it being the very distinction which you call a most weake evasion and the defence of which we are now upon As also renowned Pemble who spends a whole Chapter in refuting that opinion of Bellarmine and the Romanists viz. That faith justifies us as an efficient and meritorious cause obtaining deserving and in its kinde beginning justification But I shall content my self with the recitall of two more who handle the very Question now in controversie Whether the Promises of the Gospel be absolute or conditional And determine that they are absolute not conditionall The first of these is Broachman who saith It is not controverted Whether the promises of the Gospel that they may be fruitfull and saving do require faith Neither is it called into controversie Whether the promises of the Gospel be so free and absolute that they discharge a man from a serious sorrow for sins and from all study of good works For he must be an infant in Scripture that is not acquainted with these assertions of the holy Spirit But the true state of the question is whether the Gospel for any our worth intention work merit or any disposition in us doth promise to us grace mercy remission of sinnes and eternal life or rather for and through Jesus Christ apprehended by faith And againe in answer to Bellarmines fifth objection which was that the promises of the Gospel doe alwayes require the condition of Faith Thus hee saith which wee grant And further averrs that this condition of faith will stand with his Assertion of absolute promises For saith he We warned you in the beginning that it is not controverted Whether the promises of the Gospel doe require faith which wee willingly grant But whether in the free remission of sins the condition of Faith be required as any work of ours or certain disposition in us to which as to an efficient helping or cooperating cause the free remission of sins may be ascribed which we do roundly deny The other is Mr. Burges who asserts the same out of Broachman as I conceive By these Citations I hope it will more then sufficiently appear to an eye not strangely possest with prejudice 1. That the distinction between a Condition and a meritorious Cause is no slender and weak Evasion but a maine and fundamental Distinction in this Controversie such as on which the very hinges of the
doth not justifie for it is against both his truth and justice 2. It may be taken for one that is ungodly and unjustifiable in himself but yet believing on Christ is through him and his satisfaction Just and so justifiable Such an ungodly person God doth Justifie and thus Ames Paraeus Bishop Downam and those other Divines I have in their descriptions of Justification make not a sinner simply but a believing sinner to be the subject of Justification or the person to be justified Now whereas you say That no where in Scripture a Believer is called ungodly I conceive it false He is called so there For who is the ungodly person spoken of there but Abraham and he was justified as hath been shewed when he did believe Besides God the object of faith Justifying who is described there to be the Justifier of the ungodly is said in ver 26. of the foregoing Chapter to be the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus I beseech you tell me doth not the Apostle speak of one and the same Justification in both places Doth he not in both places describe one and the same person the person that is justified Him then whom he calls a Believer on Christ in one place the same he calls an ungodly person in the other and whom he cals an ungodly person in this in that he stiles the same a believing person Certainly seeing as it is Chap. 3. vers 30 that it is one God that justifies both the Circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith i.e. All that are justified both Jew and Gentile circumcised or uncircumcised by or through one and the same mean of faith It must needs be that the ungodly person spoken of in the next Chapter is such an ungodly person as hath faith and doth believe or else God should justifie some without faith to which the former place doth aver the contrary That place in the Romanes then concerning Gods justifying the ungodly will not bear the Position you ground upon it viz. That sinners are justified before they do believe or that we do not believe that we may be justified as the Doctor expresseth it an assertion as rotten as the foundation on which it is built and expresly contrary to the Apostle who tells us Galat. 2. 16. that hee had believed on Christ that so he might be justified by the Faith of Christ Thus have I given you an account of some and those of the main of your Arguments both wherein they have not satisfied me concerning the Tenent you endeavoured to maintain and wherein also they have offended me whilst they wounded that I hold for truth through the sides of Popery and Arminianism I shall now shew you some grounds of my belief on the contrary first taking leave in a word to state the Question and to set downe how and what I hold concerning it First then I distinguish between both a condition and a meritorious cause as also between it and an impulsive cause By condition I understand neither any thing meriting Justification at Gods hands in the least degree nor yet any thing moving the Lord to Justifie or bestow Salvation on us Secondly By Conditions I understand the restipulation or repromission in a Covenant the termes and Articles of Agreement in a Covenant betweene equals and the thing commanded or required in a Covenant betweene Superiors and Inferiors such as is the Covenant between God and man Thirdly Whereas there are conditions yet I assert them not in any rigid and legal but in an Evangelical way Not so as if they were not strictly and in a rigid exactnesse perfectly kept there were no hope of Salvation but so as if that they be not in some measure sincerely observed there is sure damnation Mr. Ball will tell you that whereas in the Covenant of Nature perfect obedience is exacted so that if there be the least failing in any jot or tittle and that but once a man can never be justied thereby nor can the breach be made up by any repentance In the Covenant of Grace perfect obedience is indeed required yet so as Repentance is admitted and sincerity accepted Conditions in this Evangelical way I plead for and conceive That God in the New Covenant doth not promise life and salvation absolutely unto his chosen whether they believe and repent or no but doth require from and command them to repent and believe if they will be partakers of the benefits purchased by his Son and promised by himself in that his Covenant which that they may do he himself of his own grace and for his own Sons sake bestowes faith and repentance on them Nor have they a right to any actual enjoyment of these benefits untill they do actually repent and believe The Grounds of my perswasion in this particular follow 1. That Covenant wherein is a mutual stipulation is conditional But such is the new Covenant therefore that is conditional As on Gods part life and salvation are promised so on mans repentance and faith and perseverance therein are required and to be promised Mar 1. 15. Chap. 6. 12. Acts 2 38. chap. 3. 19. chap. 20. 21. John 6. 28 29. chap. 3. 15 16. John 8. 24. Rom. 10 6 7 8 9 John 8. 31. Chap. 15 5 6 7 10. Heb. 3. 6. Chap. 10 38. He cannot see wood for trees that doth not take notice of these Evangelical commands wherein performance of Gospel conditions and perseverance in that performance are required they every where so abundantly occur Choose we out one of the places named and a little insist on it that Rom. 10 9. the rather for that in your answer to Mr. S. you make some reply thereto How say you do you prove that Rom. 10 9. is set down the forme and tenure of the New Covenant I deny it The Apostles intent is c. Sir It is clear as Calvin notes that the Apostle here opposeth the Righteousnesse of faith to the Righteousnesse of Works It is also clear that in describing the Righteousnesse of Works he setteth downe the very tenor and form of that Covenant The man that doth them shall live by them ver 5. And in opposition thereunto delivers this to be the speech of the Righteousnesse of Faith If thou confessest with thy mouth and believest with thine heart c. If then it be granted which cannot be denyed that in these words The man that doth them shal live by them the tenor of the Covenant of Works is contained it must needs follow by the rule of opposition that in these words If thou confessest and believest c. the tenor of the Covenant of Grace is also contained Besides when the Apostle saith The Word is nigh thee c. That is the Word of faith which we preach That if thou confesse c. What I pray you doth he mean by the Word of Faith but the Gospel or what else did the Apostle preach but the Gospel The sum of which he