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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39674	Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and remedies of mental errors written some months since, and now made publick, both for the healing and prevention of the sins and calamities which have broken in this way upon the churches of Christ, to the great scandal of religion, hardening of the wicked, and obstruction of Reformation : whereunto are subjoined by way of appendix : I. Vindiciarum vindex, being a succinct, but full answer to Mr. Philip Cary's weak and impertinent exceptions to my Vindiciæ legis & fæderis, II. a synopsis of ancient and modern Antinomian errors, with scriptural arguments and reasons against them, III. a sermon composed for the preventing and healing of rents and divisions in the churches of Christ / by John Flavell ... ; with an epistle by several divines, relating to Dr. Crisp's works.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1691 (1691)	Wing F1175; ESTC R21865	194,574	498

as this how earnestly doth the Ear of a distressed Conscience listen how greedily doth it suck in such pleasing words Are all Sins that are pardoned pardoned before they are committed and does the Covenant of Grace require neither Repentance nor Faith antecedently to the application of the Promises how groundless then are all my Fears and Troubles This like a Dose of Opium quiets or rather stupifies the raging Conscience for even an Error in Judgment till it be detected and discovered to be so quiets and comforts the heart as well as principles of Truth but whenever the fallacy shall be detected whether here or hereafter the anguish of Conscience must be increased or which is worse left desperate The Remedies To prevent and cure this mistake and error in the Soul by which it is fitted and prepared to catch any Erroneous Principle which is but plausible for its present relief and ease I shall desire my Reader seriously to ponder and consider the following Queries upon this Case Query I. Whether by the vote of the whole Rational World a good Trouble be not better than a false Peace Present ease is desirable but eternal safety is much more so and if these two cannot consist under the present Circumstances of the Soul Whether it be not better to endure for a time these painful pangs than feel more acute and eternal ones by quieting Conscience with false Remedies before the time 'T is bad to lie tossing a few days under a laborious Fever but far worse to have that Fever turned into a Lethargy or fatal Apoplexy Erroneous Principles may rid the Soul of its present pain and eternal hopes and safety together Acute pains are better than a senseless stupidity Though the present rage of Conscience be not a right and kindly conviction yet it may lead to it and terminate in faith and union with Christ at last if Satan do not this way practice upon it and quench it before its time Query II. Bethink your selves seriously Whether Troubles so quieted and laid asleep will not revive and turn again upon thee with a double force as soon as the vertue of the Drug I mean the Erroneous Principle hath spent it self The efficacy of Truth is eternal and will maintain the peace it gives for ever but all delusions must vanish and the Troubles which they damm'd up for a time break out with a greater force Satan employs two sorts of Witches Some to torment the Bodies of Men with grievous pain and anguish but then he hath his White-Witches at hand to relieve and ease them And have these poor Wretches any great cause think you to boast of the cure who are eased of their pains at the price of their Souls Much like unto this are the cures of inward Troubles by Erroneous Principles I lament the Case of blinded Papists who by Pilgrimages and Offerings to the Shrines of Titular Saints attempt the cure of a lesser Sin by committing a greater Is it because there is not a God in Israel who is able in due season to pacify Conscience with proper and durable Gospel-Remedies that we suffer our Troubles thus to precipitate us into the Snares of Satan for the sake of present ease Query III. Read the Scriptures and inquire whether God's People who have lain long under sharp inward Terrors have not at last found settlement and inward peace by those very Methods which the Principles that quiet you do utterly exclude If you will fetch your Peace from a groundless Notion that your Sins were pardoned and your Persons justified from all eternity and therefore you may apply boldly and confidently to your selves the choicest Promises and Privileges in the Gospel without any regard to Faith or Repentance wrought by the Spirit in your Souls I am sure holy David took another Course for the settlement of his Conscience Psal. 51. 6 7 8 9 10. And it hath been the constant practise of the Saints in all Ages to clear their Title to the Righteousness of Christ wrought without them by the Works of his Spirit wrought within them Sixth Cause The next Evil Temper in the Subject preparing and disposing it for Error is an easie CREDVLITY or sequacious humour in men rendring them apt to receive things upon trust from others without due and thorough examination of the grounds and Reasons of them themselves This is a disposition fitted to receive any impression Seducers please to make upon them they are said to deceive the hearts of the simple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. credulous but well-meaning People that suspect no harm 'T is said Prov. 14. 15. the simple believeth every word Through this Sluce or Floodgate what a multitude of Errors in Popery have overflowed the People They are told they are not able to judge for themselves but must take the matters of their Salvation upon trust from their Spiritual Guides and so the silly People are easily seduced and made easily receptive of the grossest Absurdities their ignorant Leaders please to impose upon them And it were to be wished That those two Points viz. Ministrorum mut a officia populi caeca o●sequia the dumb Services of their Ministers and the blind Obedience of the People had stay'd within the Popish Confines But alas alas how many simple Protestants be there who may be said to carry their Brains in other mens Heads and like silly Sheep follow the next in the tract before them especially if their Leaders have but wit and art enough to hide their Errors under specious and plausible Pretences How many poisonous Drugs hath Satan put off under the gilded Titles of Antiquity Zeal for God higher attainments in godliness new Lights c. How natural is it for men to follow in the Tract and be tenacious of the Principles and Practises of their Progenitors Multitudes seem to hold their Opinions Iure Haereditario by an Hereditary Right as if their Faith descended to them the same way their Estates do The Emperour of Morocco told King Iohn's Ambassadour That he had lately read St. Paul's Epistles And truly said he were I now to chuse my Religion I would embrace Christianity before any Religion in the World but every man ought to dye in that Religion he received from his Ancestors Many honest well-meaning but weak Christians are also easily beguiled by specious pretences of new Light and higher attainments in Reformation This makes the weaker sorts of Christians pliable to many dangerous Errors cunningly insinuated under such taking Titles What are most of the Erroneous Opinions now vogued in the World but old Errors under new Names and Titles The Remedies The Remedies and Preventions in this Case are such as follow Remedy I. 'T is beneath a man to profess any Opinion to be his own whilst the grounds and reasons of it are in other mens keeping and wholly unknown to himself If a man may tell Gold after his Father then sure he may and ought to try and examine

not on the one hand to injure the memory of the Dead and on the other to prevent hurt or danger to the Living Nor do we say thus much of him as if he sought or did need any Letters of Recommendation from us but as counting this Testimony to Truth and this expression of respect to him a Debt to the spontaneous payment whereof nothing more was requisite besides such a fair occasion as the Providence of God hath now laid before us inviting us thereunto John Howe Vin. Alsop Nath. Mather Increase Mather John Turner Rich. Bures Tho. Powel AN EPISTLE TO THE READER Candid Reader CEnsure not this Treatise of ERRORS as an Error in my Prudentials in sending it forth at such an improper time as this I should never spontaneously have awakened sleeping Controversies after God's severe castigation of his people for them and in the most proper and hopeful season for their Redintegration And beside what I have formerly said I think fit here to add That if the attacque had been general and not so immediately and particularly upon that Post or Quarter I was set to defend I should with Elihu have modestly waited till some abler and more skilful hand had undertaken the defence of this Cause If ever I felt a temptation to envy the happiness of my Brethren it hath been whilst I saw them quietly feeding their Flocks and my self forced 〈◊〉 some part of my precious 〈…〉 time devoted to the 〈…〉 combating with unquiet and erring Br●thren But I see I must not be my own chuser Notwithstanding I hope and am in some measure persuaded That publick benefit will redound to the Church from this irks●me Labour of mine And that this strife will spread no further but the Malady be cured by an Antidote growing in the very place where it began And that the Christian Camp will not take a general Alarm from such a ●ingle Duel The Book now in thy hands consisteth of Four parts viz. 1. A general Discourse of the Causes and Cures of Errors very necessary at all times especially at this time for the reduction and establishment of seduced and staggering Christians and nothing of that nature having occurred to my observation among the manifold Polemical Tracts that are extant I thought it might be of some use to the Churches of Christ in such a vertigenous Age as we live in and the blessing of the Lord go forth with it for benefit and establishment 2. Next thou hast here the Controversies moved by my Antagonist first about the Mosaick Law complexly taken which he boldly pronounces to be an Adam's Covenant of works And secondly about God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. which he also makes the same with that God made with Adam in Paradise and affirms Circumcision expresly called a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith to be the Seal of the said Covenant of Works first made with Adam 3. Finding my Adversary in the pursuit of his design running into many Antinomian delirations to the reproach and damage of the Cause he contends for I thought it necessary to take the principal Errors of Antinomianism into examination especially at such a time as this when they seem to spring afresh to the hazard of God's Truth and the Churches Peace wherein I have dealt with becoming-modesty and plainness if haply I might be any way instrumental in my plain and home way of Argumentation to detect the falsity and dangerous nature of those notions which some good men have vented and preserve the sounder part of the Church from so dangerous a contagion 4. In the next place I think it necessary to advertise the Reader That whereas in my first Appendix under that head of the Conditionality of the New Covenant I have asserted Faith to be the Condition of it and do acknowledg p. 246. that the word Condition is variously used among Iurists yet I do not use in any sense which implies or insinuates that there is any such condition in the New Covenant as that in Adam's Covenant was consisting in perfect personal and perpetual obedience or any thing in its own nature meritorious of the benefits promised or capable to be performed by us in our own strength but plainly that it be an act of ours tho' done in God's strength which must be necessarily done before we can be actually justified or saved and so there is found in it the true suspending nature of a condition which is the thing I contend for when I affirm Faith is the condition of the New Covenant How many senses soever may be given of this word Condition this is the determinate sense in which I use it throughout this Controversy And whosoever denies the suspending Nature of Faith with respect to actual Justification pleads according to my understanding for the actual Justification of Infidels And thus I find a Condition defined by Navar Iohan. Baptist. Petrus de Perus c. Conditio est Suspensio alicujus dispositionis tantisper dum aliquid futurum fiat And again Conditio est quidam futurus eventus in quem dispositio suspenditur Once more My Reader possibly may be stumbled at my calling Faith sometimes the Instrument and sometimes the Condition of our Justification when there is so great a Controversy depending among Learned Men with respect to the use of both those terms I therefore desire the Reader to take notice That I dive not into that Controversy here much less presume to determine it but finding both those Notions equally opposed by our Antinomians who reject our actual Justification by Faith either way and allow to Faith no other use in our actual Justification but only to manifest to us what was done from Eternity I do therefore use both those terms viz. the Conditionality and Instrumentality of Faith with respect unto our Justification and shew in what sense those terms are useful in this Controversy and are accommodate enough to the design and purpose for which I use them how repugnant soever they are in that particular wherein the Learned contend about the Use and Application of them To be plain when I say Faith justifies us as an Organ or Instrument my only meaning is that it receives or apprehends the Righteousness of Christ by which we are justified and so speaking to the Quomodo or manner of our Justification I say with the general Suffrage of Divines we are justified instrumentally by Faith But in our Controversy with the Antinomians where another different Question is moved about the Quando or time of our actual Justification there I affirm that we are actually justified at the time of our believing and not before and this being the Act upon which our Justification is suspended I call Faith the Condition of our Justification This I desire may be observed lest in my use of both those terms my Reader should think either that I am not aware of the Controversy depending about those terms or that I do herein manifest the vacillancy of

Opinions or Judgments from the perfect Rule of the Divine Law And to this all men by nature are not only liable but inclinable Indeed man by Nature can do nothing else but Err Psal. 58. 3. he goeth astray as soon as born makes not one true step till renewed by Grace and many false ones after his Renovation The Life of the Holiest man is a Book with many Errata's but the whole Edition of a wicked man's Life is but one continued Error he that thinks he cannot Err manifestly Errs in so thinking The Pope's supposed and pretended Infallibility hath made him the great deceiver of the World A good man may Err but is willing to know his Error and will not obstinately maintain it when he once plainly discerns it Error and Heresy among other things differ in this Heresie is accompanied with pertinacy and therefore the Heretick is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sels-condemned his own Conscience condemns him whilst men labour in vain to convince him He doth not formally and in terms Condemn himself but he doth so equivalently whilst he continues to own and maintain Doctrines and Opinions which he finds himself unable to defend against the evidence of Truth Humane frailty may lead a man into the first but Devilish Pride fixes him in the last The word of God which is our rule must therefore be the only Test and Touchstone to try and discover Errors for Regula est index sui obliqui 'T is not enough to convince a man of Error that his Judgment differs from other mens you must bring it to the Word and try how it agrees or disagrees therewith else he that charges another with Error may be found in as great or greater an Error himself None are more disposed easily to receive and tenaciously to defend Errors than those who are the Antesignani Heads or Leaders of Erroneous Sects especially after they have fought in defence of bad Causes and deeply engaged their Reputation The following Discourse justly entitles it self A BLOW AT THE ROOT And though you will here find the Roots of many Errors laid bare and open which comparatively are of far different degrees of Danger and Malignity which I here mention together many of them springing from the same Root Yet I am far from censuring them alike nor would I have any that are concerned in lesser Errors be exasperated because their lesser Mistakes are mentioned with greater and more pernicious ones this Candor I not only intreat but justly challenge from my Reader And because there are many general and very useful Observations about Errors which will not so conveniently come under the Laws of that Method which governs the main part of this Discourse viz. the CAVSES and CVRES of Error I have therefore sorted them by themselves and premised them to the following Part in Twenty Observations next ensuing Twenty general Observations about the rise and increase of the Errors of the times First Observation TRuth is the proper Object the natural and pleasant food of the Understanding Iob 12. 11. Doth not the ear that is the understanding by the ear try words as the mouth tasteth meat Knowledg is the assimilation of the Understanding to the truths received by it Nothing is more natural to man than a desire to know Knowledg never cloys the Mind as food doth the natural Appetite but as the one increaseth the other is proportionably sharpened and provoked The Minds of all that are not wholly immers'd in Sensuality spend their Strength in the laborious search and pursuit of Truth Sometimes climbing up from the Effects to the Causes and then descending again from the Causes to the Effects and all to discover Truth Fervent Prayer sedulous Study fixed Meditations are the labours of inquisitive Souls after Truth All the Objections and Counter-arguments the mind meets in its way are but the pauses and hesitations of a bivious Soul not able to determine whether Truth lies upon this side or upon that Answerable to the sharpness of the Minds appetite is the fine edg of Pleasure and Delight it feels in the discovery and acquisition of Truth When it hath Rack'd and Tortured it self upon knotty Problems and at last discovered the Truth it sought for with what joy doth the Soul dilate it self and run as it were with open arms to clasp and welcome it The Understanding of man at first was perspicacious and clear all Truths lay obvious in their comely order and ravishing beauty before it God made man upright Eccl. 7. 29. this rectitude of his mind consisted in Light and Knowledg as appears by the prescribed method of his Recovery Col. 3. 10. Renewed in knowledg after the Image of him that created him Truth in the Mind or the Minds union with Truth being part of the Divine Image in man discovers to us the Sin and Mischief of Error which is a defacing so far as it prevails of the Image of God No sooner was man created but by the exercise of knowledg he soon discovered God's Image in him a●d by his Ambition after more lost what he had So that now there is an haziness or cloud spread over Truth by Ignorance and Error the sad effects of the Fall Second Observation Of Knowledg there are divers sorts and kinds some is Humane and some Divine some Speculative and some Practical some Ingrafted as the Notions of Morality and some Acquired by painful search and Study But of all knowledg none like that Divine and Supernatural knowledg of saving truths revealed by Christ in the Scriptures from whence ariseth the different degrees both of the Sinfulness and danger of Errors those Errors being always the worst which are committed against the most important Truths revealed in the Gospel These Truths lye infolded either in the plain words or evident and necessary consequences from the words of the Holy Scriptures Scripture-Consequences are of great use for the refutation of Errors it was by a Scripture-consequence that Christ successfully proved the Resurrection against the Sadduces Matth. 22. The Arrians and other Hereticks rejected consequential proofs and required the express words of Scripture only hoping that way to defend and secure their Errors against the arguments and assaults of the Orthodox Some think that reason and natural light is abundantly sufficient for the direction of life but certainly nothing is more necessary to us for that end than the written Word for though the remains of natural light have their place and use in directing us about natural and earthly things yet they are utterly insufficient to guide us in spiritual and heavenly things 1 Cor. 2. 14. The natural man receiveth not the things of God c. Eph. 5. 8. Once were ye darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now are ye light in the Lord i. e. by a beam of heavenly light shining from the Spirit of Christ through the written Word into you minds or understandings 'T is the written Word which shines upon the path of our Duty

to Babylon against the very Grammar of the Text and the Truth of the History And so again that place Isa. 58. 8. The glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward through ignorance of the word read re-reward that is a double reward to his people But these are small matters compared with those grosser abuses of Scripture by the ignorant and unlearned which prejudice Truth and too much countenance Popish Reproaches The Remedies The proper way to prevent and remedy this mischief is not by depriving any Man of his just Liberty either to read or judge for himself what God speaks in his Word and think that way to cure Errors that were the same thing as to cut off the Head to cure an Head-ach Leave that sinful policy with the false Religion Let those only that know they do evil be afraid of coming to the light But the proper course of preventing the mischiefs that come this way is by labouring to bound and contain Christians within those limits Christ himself hath set unto this liberty which he hath granted them And these are such as follow Limitation I. Tho' Christ have indulged to the meanest and weakest Christian a liberty to read and judge of the Scriptures for himself yet he hath neither thereby nor therewith granted him a liberty publickly to Expound and Preach the Word to others That 's quite another thing Every Man that can read the Scriptures and judge of their sense is not thereby presently made Christ's Commission-Officer publickly and authoritatively to Preach and Inculcate the same to others Two things are requisite to such an employment viz. Proper Qualifications 1 Tim. 3. And a solemn Call or designation Rom. 10. 14 15. The Ministry is a distinct Office Acts 20. 17 28. 1 Thes. 5. 12. and none but qualified and ordained persons can Authoritatively Preach the Word 2 Tim. 1. 6. 1 Tim. 4. 14. 1 Tim. 5. 22. Christians may privately edify one another by reading the Scriptures communicating their sense one to another of them admonishing counselling reproving one another in a private fraternal way at seasons wherein they interfere not with more publick Duties But for every one that hath confidence enough and the ignorant usually are best stock'd with it to assume a liberty without due Qualification or Call to Expound and give the Sense of Scriptures and pour forth his crude and unstudied Notions as the pure sense and meaning of God's Spirit in the Scriptures this is what Christ never allowed and through this Flood-gate Errors have broken in and overflowed the Church of God to the great scandal of Religion and confirmation of Popish Enemies Limitation II. Though there be no part of Scripture shut up or restrained from the knowledg or use of any Christian yet Jesus Christ hath recommended to Christians of different abilities the study of some parts of Scripture rather than others as more proper and agreeable to their Age and Stature in Religion Christians are by the Apostle rank'd into three Classes Fathers Young-men and Little Children 1 Iohn 2. 13. and accordingly the Wisdom of Christ hath directed to that sort of food which is proper to either For there is in the Word all sorts of Food suitable to all Ages in Christ there 's both Milk for Babes and strong Meat for grown Christians Heb. 5. 13 14. Those that are unskilful in the Word of Righteousnes should feed upon Milk that is the easie plain but most nutritive and pleasant practical Doctrines of the Gospel But strong Meat saith he that is the more abstruse deep and mysterious truths belongeth to them that are of full Age even those who by reason of use have their Senses exercised to discern both good and evil that is Truth and Error To the same purpose he speaks 1 Cor. 3. 2. I have fed you with milk and not with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it Art thou a weak unstudied Christian a Babe in Christ Then the easier and more nutritive Milk of plain Gospel-Doctrine is fitter for thee and will do thee more good than the stronger Meat of profound and more mysterious Points or the Bones of Controversy which are too hard for thee to deal with God hath blessed this Age with great variety of sound and allowed Expositors in our own Language by the diligent study of which and prayer for the illumination and guidance of the Spirit you may not only attain unto the true sense and meaning of the more plain and obvious but also unto gre●ter knowledg and clearer insight into the more obscure and controverted parts of Scripture Cause III. There is also another evil disposition in the Subject rendring it easily receptive of Errors and that is spiritual SLOTHFVLNESS and carelesness in a due and serious search of the whole Scripture with a sedate and rational consideration of every part and particle therein which may give us any though the least light to understand the mind of God in those obscure and difficult points we search after the knowledg of Truth lies deep as the rich Veins of Gold do Prov. 2. If we will get the treasure we must not only beg as he directs vers 3. but dig also vers 4. else as he speaks Prov. 14. 23. The talk of the lips tends only to poverty We are not to take up with that which lies uppermost and next at hand upon the surface of the Text but to search with the most sedate and considerative mind into all parts of the written Word examining every Text which hath any respect to the truth we are searching for heedfully to observe the Scope Antecedents and Consequents and to value every Apex Tittle and Iota for each of these are of Divine Authority Matt. 5. 18. and sometimes greater weight is laid upon a small word yea upon the addition or change of a Letter in a word as appears in the names of Abram and Sarai It will require some strength of mind and great sedulity to lay all parts of Scripture before us and to compare words with words and things with things as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 2. 13. comparing spiritual things with spiritual And though it be true that some important Doctrines as that of Iustification by Faith are methodically disposed and throughly clear'd and setled in one and the same Context yet it is as true that very many other points of Faith and Duty are not so digested but are delivered sparsinì here a little and there a little as he speaks Isa. 28. 10. You must not think to find all that belongs to one Head or Point of Faith or Duty lay'd together in a System or common place in Scripture but scattered abroad in several pieces some in the Old Testament and some in the New at a great distance one from another Now in our searches and inquiries after the full and satisfying knowledg of the Will of God in such Points it is necessary that the whole Word of God be throughly

harmony with the Doctrine of this great and excellent Divine who hath substantially proved the Point I defend against you but 't is enough II. Let us next examine what execution his Reply hath done upon my second Position set up in direct opposition to him namely That God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. unto which Circumcision was annexed is for its substance the self-same Covenant of Grace with that which Gentile-believers and their Infant-seed are now under Here I have abundant cause again to complain that Mr. C. hath so formed his Answers as if he had never read the Book he undertakes a Reply to And I do verily believe the greatest part of his Reply was made at random before ever my printed Book was in his hands For he hath not at all considered the state of the Question as I there gave it him nor kept himself to the just and necessary Rules of Disputation as I earnestly desired he would However 't is not Complaints but confirmation and vindication of my Arguments which is my proper work I shall therefore recite them briefly and vindicate and confirm them strongly contracting all into as few words as can express the sense and Argument of the Point before me Argument I. If Circumcision be a part of the Ceremonial Law and the Ceremonial Law was dedicated by Blood and whatsoever is so dedicated is by you confessed to be no part of the Covenant of Works then Circumcision can be no part of the Covenant of Works even by your own confession But it is so Ergo. To this Mr. Cary returns a Tragical Complaint instead of a Rational Answer Insinuates my falsehood and gross abuse of him Appeals to his Reader Tells him I have taken a liberty to say what I please as if there were no future Iudgment to be regarded And that I can expect no comfort another day without repentance now For those things that have thus passed betwixt him and me shall again be revised and set in order before me That he is weary of noting my Miscarriages of this kind That there is hardly a Page or Paragraph in my whole Reply but abounds with Transgressions of this nature He begs the Lord to forgive me and wishes he could say Father forgive him for he knows not what he doth as if my Sin were greater than the Sin of those that stoned Stephen or crucified Christ. Either I am guilty or innocent in the matters here charged upon me by Mr. C. If guilty I promise him an ingenuous acknowledgment If innocent as both my Conscience and his own Book will prove me to be then I shall only say he knoweth not what spirit he is of The Case must be tried by his own Book and it will quickly be decided These are the very words in his Solemn Call p. 148. He that is Mr. Sedgwick makes no distinction betwixt the Ceremonial Covenant that was dedicated with blood and the Law written in stones that was not so dedicated How strangely doth he confound and obscure the word and truth of God which ought to have been cleared and distinctly declared to those he had preached or written to With much more p. 149 150 151. where he saith It 's plain that the Law written in Stones and the Book wherein the Statutes and Iudgments were contained were two distinct Covenants and delivered at distinct seasons and in a distinct method the one with the other without a Mediator the one dedicated with blood and sprinkling the other that we read of not so dedicated Now let the Reader judge whether I have deserved such Tragical Complaints and dreadful Charges for inferring from these words That the Ceremonial Law being by him pronounced a distinct Covenant from the Moral Law which he makes all one with Adam's Covenant delivered at a distinct season and in a distinct method the Ceremonial Law with a Mediator the Moral Law without a Mediator the Ceremonial Law dedicated with blood and sprinkling the Moral Law not so dedicated let him judge I say whether I have wronged him in saying that by his own confession Circumcision being a part of this Ceremonial Law it can therefore be no part of the Covenant of Works But Mr. Cary hath two things to say for himself 1. That in the same place he makes the Ceremonial Law no other than a Covenant of Works And the wrong I have done him is by not distinguishing as he did betwixt A Covenant of Works and The Covenant of Works Here it seems lies my guilt upon which this dreadful out-cry against me is made But if I should chance to prove that there never was is or can be any more than one Covenant of Works and that any other Covenant which is distinguished from it as he confesses the Ceremonial Law was by a Mediator and the blood of sprinkling can be no part of that Covenant of Works what then will become of Mr. C's distinction of A Covenant of Works and The Covenant of Works Now the matter is plain and evident That as there never were are or can be more than two common Heads appointed by God namely Adam and Christ 1 Cor. 15. 45 46 47 48. Rom. 5. 15 17 18 19. so it is impossible there should be more than two Covenants under which Mankind stands under these two common Heads And the First Covenant once broken it is utterly impossible that fallen Man should ever attain life that way or that ever God should set it up again with such an intention and scope unless as Mr. Charnock speaks he had reduced man's Body to the dust and his Soul to nothing and framed another man to have governed him by a Covenant of Works but that had not been the same man that had revolted and upon his revolt was stained and disabled If Mr. C. therefore be not able to prove more Covenants of Works with Mankind than one let him rather blush at his silly distinction betwixt a● Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Works For indeed he makes at least four distinct Covenants of Works one with Adam two with Moses one Moral the other Ceremonial and a fourth with Abraham at the institution of Circumcision Gen. 17. 2. If it appear as it clearly doth that as there never was is or can be any more than one Covenant of Works so whatsoever Covenant is distinguished from it by a Mediator and dedication by the sprinkling of blood as he saith the Ceremonial Law was cannot possibly for the Reasons he gives be any part or member of Adam's Covenant of Works then I hope I have done M. C. no wrong in my assumption from his own words for which he so reviles and abuses me But this will appear as plain as the Noon-day-light for a Covenant with a Mediator and dedicated by sprinkling of blood doth and necessarily must essentially difference such a Covenant from that Covenant that had no Mediator nor dedication by blood To deny this were

any the least guilt in the Elect to be pardoned and consequently no place or room could be left for any Justification in time And then it must follow that seeing Christ died in time for sin according to the Scriptures It must be for his own sins that he died and not for the sins of the Elect Diametrically opposite to Rom. 4. 25. and the whole current of Scripture and faith of Christians 'T is therefore very unbecoming and unworthy of a justified person after Christ hath taken all his guilt upon himself and suffer'd all the punishment due thereunto in his place and room Instead of an humble and thankful admiration of his unparallel'd grace therein to throw more than the guilt and punishment of his sins upon Christ even the transgression it self and comparing his own Righteousness with Christ's to say he is as compleatly Righteous as Christ himself This is as if a company of Bankrupt Debtors Arrested for their own Debts ready to be cast into Prison and not having one Farthing to satisfy after their Debts have been freely and fully discharg'd by another out of his immense treasure should now compare with him yea and think they honour'd him by telling him that now they are as compleatly Rich as himself I am well assur'd no good Man would embrace an Opinion so derogatory to Christ's Honour as this is did he but see the odious consequences of it doubtless he would abhor them as much as we And as for those now in Heaven who fell into such mistakes in the way thither were they now acquainted with what is transacted here below they would exceedingly rejoyce in the detection of those mistakes and Bless God for the refutation of them Error VIII They affirm That Believers need not fear their own sins nor the sins of others for as much as neither their own or others sins can do them any hurt nor must they do any duty for their own good or salvation or for eternal rewards That we need fear no hurt from sin or may not aim at our own good in Duty are two Propositions that sound harsh in the ears of Believers I shall consider them severally and refute them as briefly as I can Proposition I. Believers need not fear their own sins or the sins of others because neither our own or others sins can do us any hurt They seem to be induced into this Error by misunderstanding the Apostle in Rom. 8. 28. as if the scope of that Text were to assert the benefits of sin to justified persons whereas he speaks there of Adversities and Afflictions befalling the Saints in this Life Vniversalis restringenda est ad materiam subjectam loquitur enim de afflictionibus piorum The subject matter saith Pareus on the place restrains the Universal expression of the Apostle For when he there saith All things shall work together for good he principally intends the afflictions of the Godly of which he treats there in that context It may be extended also to all providential events Omnia quaecunque eis accedunt forinsecus tam adversa quàm prospera All adverse and prosperous events of things without us as Estius upon the place notes Nothing is spoken of sin in this Text. And the Apostle distributing this General into Particulars verse 38. plainly shews what are the things he intended by his Universal expression verse 28. as also in what respect no creature can do the Saints any hurt namely that they shall never be able to separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Iesus our Lord. And in this respect it is true that the Sins of the Elect shall not hurt them by frustrating the purpose of God concerning their Eternal Salvation or totally and finally to separate them from his Love This we grant and yet we think it a very unwary and unsound expression That Believers need not fear their own sins because they can do them no hurt 'T is too general and unguarded a Proposition to be received for truth What if their sins cannot do them that hurt to frustrate the purpose of God and Damn them to Eternity in the World to come Can it therefore do them no hurt at all in their present state of conflict with it in this World For my part I think the greatest fear of caution is due to sin the greatest evil and that Chrysostome spake more like a Christian when he said Nil nisi peccatum timeo I fear nothing but sin Though sin cannot finally ruine the Believer yet it can many ways hurt and injure the Believer and therefore ought not to be misrepresented as such an innocent and harmless thing to them In vain are so many terrible threatnings in the Scriptures against it if it can do us no hurt and it is certain nothing can do us good but that which makes us better and more Holy But Sin can never pretend to that of all things in the World But to come to an issue Sin may be consider'd three ways 1. Formally 2. Effectively 3. Reductively First Formally as a transgression of the Preceptive part of the Law of God and under that consideration it is the most formidable evil in the whole World The evil of evils at which every gracious heart trembles and ought rather to chuse Banishment Prison and Death it self in the most terrible form than Sin or that which is most tempting in Sin the pleasures of it as Moses did Heb. 11. 25. Secondly Sin may be consider'd Effectively with respect to the manifold mischiefs and calamities it produceth in the World and the Spiritual and Corporeal Evils it infers upon Believers themselves Though it cannot Damn their Souls yet it makes War against their Souls and brings them into miserable Bondage and Captivity Rom. 7. 23. It wounds their Souls under which wounds they are feeble and sore broken yea they roar by reason of the disquietness of their hearts Psal. 38. 5 8. Is War Captivity Festering painful Wounds causing them to roar no hurt to Believers It breaks their very Bones Ps. 51. 8. And is that no hurt It draws off their Minds from God interrupts their Prayers and Meditations Rom. 7. 18 19 20 21. And is there no hurt in that It causeth their Graces to decline wither and languish to that degree that the things which are in them are ready to die Rev. 3. 1. and Rev. 2. 4. And is the loss of Grace and Spiritual strength no hurt to a Believer It hides the Face of God from them Isa. 59. 2. And is there no hurt in spiritual withdrawments of God from their Souls Why then do deserted Saints so bitterly lament and bemoan it It provokes innumerable afflictions and miseries which fall upon our Bodies Relations Estates and if Sin be the cause of all these inward and outward miseries to the People of God sure then there is some hurt in Sin for which the Saints ought to be afraid of it Thirdly Sin may be consider'd Reductively