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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
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

both there and in this eleventh Argument he excludes both from the Covenant with Abraham and the work of Justification 2. Let but Martyr expound himself and then it will appear what conditions he denies and in what manner nor shall I lead you any further for discovery of this then this his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Look then Chap. 10 on those words For righteousnesse to every one that believeth and you shall find the difference betweene the Law and the Gospel thus set down by him The Law is received by doing and most exact performing that which is commanded But the Gospel by a lively and efficacious assent of faith Moses also Deut. 30. writeth concerning the Law that hee had set before the people life and death manifestly teaching that if the Law be received and fulfilled it will bring eternal life with it But seeing we are shut out from this benefit the merciful God hath provided another word to wit of faith which if by assenting to it it be received bringeth life along with it From this place it appeareth that the promises of the Law were given from the supposition or condition of Works going before But in the Gospel if works are annexed to the Promises they are not so to be understood as either the merit or causes of those Promises But we must thus conclude That these gifts of God which are promised follow after the works though they be not perfect and absolute as they are commanded in the Law This place I hope will shew that Peter Martyr was only against the condition of Works and there too against their merit or efficiency for as for their presence he allowes that they are required in the Gospel But as as for the condition of faith he is not at all against it Turne to one place more Rom. 8. If we suffer with him c. Where setting down the differences between the Promises of the Law and of the Gospel he saith They do not differ in this as some think that the Promises Evangelical have no conditions annexed but the Legal Promises are never offered without conditions for as it s said Honour thy Father and thy mother that thou maist live long upon the earth And if ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the Land So we read also in the Gospel Forgive and it shall be forgiven give and it shall be given c. Wherefore seeing this is not the difference we must seek out some other It appeareth therefore to him that diligently considereth that the conditions of the Law might bee causes of the obtainment of the rewards promised for if they had been perfect and absolute as the Law required them they might be compared with the rewards themselves and had also had esteem of merit but seeing these cannot be performed by men God of his mercy gave in their stead Evangelical Promises which although they have conditions added yet are offered freely Wherefore if thou joyne these three things together that the Evangelical rewards are promised freely that the conditions cannot be compared unto or equalized with them that the Promises must be most firme and take away the account of merit you may see wherein these differ from those of the Law And thus I hope it is manifest that they were conditions of Works which Peter Martyr did deny that he did not deny them simply neither but only as meritorious and causal of the benefits promised that he held faith to be the Requisite or the Condition of the Gospel So that you must give me leave to take Martyr from you too and put him down with the forenamed Authors for a patron of our Cause 3. Next unto Peter Martyr you cite Olevian but whether with any more advantage to your Cause then the former or disadvantage to us is the businesse of our present enquiry If you please with second thoughts which are most commonly the best to look into him you shall find that when he denies conditions in the Covenant they are only such as first are performed by and proceeding from our own strength which we with him do acknowledg to be none and therefore also deny the same 2. Which arise from or carry along with them a consideration of dignity or worthinesse in our selves 3. Are of a meritorious nature Such conditions as these we together with him disclaim That these are the conditions which he doth deny is so clear and plain that he which runs may read If you begin with his definition of the Covenant of Grace you shall find him in the close thereof expressing himself thus Without the condition or stipulation of any good thoughts from their own strength Having spoken concerning God who makes the Covenant he comes afterward to consider the persons with whom this Covenant is made and shewes that the very Elect themselves to whom it doth especially belong are by nature children of wrath dead in sins such whose hearts are hearts of stone unable to think a good thought of themselves meer darknesse enemies to God slaves to sinne and Satan Now forasmuch as they are such God saith he promiseth he will not make any such Covenant with them which in the least part thereof should be founded on their own strength to perform it Wherefore lest the Covenant should fail and be of none effect men being miserable dead in sins having hearts of stone such as are not subject to the Law of God neither in deed can be Rom. 8. Who are not able of themselves to think any thought that is good but that it may remain firm and everlasting he promiseth such a Covenant the whole essence whereof doth depend on himself alone and is founded in his Son Jesus Christ He promiseth also such a manner of executing in us this his decree and purpose the strength and efficacy whereof doth not proceed from corrupt man but from himself alone A little after he sums up all that he had said concerning the nature and substance of the Covenant thus Wherefore if you look upon God the efficient cause and those to whom he promiseth the Covenant or if you consider the matter and form thereof you shall still find it is a Covenant of free grace and that it doth not Depend on any condition of our worthinesse merits or our proper strength The most merciful God did see the promise would be vain in respect of our vanity which should depend on the condition of our own strength What here he doth deliver so plainly and in such expresse termes you may if you please to look into him find him afterwards repeating againe and again Sir By these passages you may see you have not gained any thing by Olevian nor your Adversaries lost by what he speaks against conditions in the Covenant Now that you may further see that he speaks rather on their side whom you oppose then for you I shall intreat you to consider some

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

on both these places doth Dr. Ames expresse himselfe for that conditionality in the Covenant which we maintain and that in the same place whence you fetch your proof against us Was it for this my good friend that you took the paynes to write so much out of the Doctor and that you shewed me your written copy and not the book when I was with you lest if you had brought the book the place it self should have spoken answered for it selfe Whether this were the cause or no I leave it to your conscience but assuredly your carriage in this and that other passage about Chamien whom you would not take notice of to hold conditions proper though it followed immediately your allegation out of him until I read it to you and then would not look upon it nor hardly hear it but put it off with saying that he did eat his owne words I say these carriages make me and mine and your dear friend who was with me fear that your Opinion sticks more in your will then in your mind Your eies and ears are open and ready to entertaine any Author though a Popish one that makes for your opinion but if he be against your Tenent though he be never so godly hardly have you patience to look upon him Well Sir what hath now been as also what was formerly alledged out of Dr. Ames do abundantly prove him to have been for that conditionality of the Covenant we defend 7. Passe we on to Doctor Preston where againe you may be blamed for when the Doctor laid down a distinction betweene the Covenants or rather between the Promises of the same Covenant viz. the promise of Grace which he calleth an absolute Covenant made with the Elect Jer. 31. Ezek. 36. and the Promise of life which he cals a conditional Covenant made with all If thou believe thou shalt be saved You run away with a piece and put downe Dr. Preston for a defender of the absolutenesse of the Covenant though both there and in his Treatise of the Covenant of which I believe you were not ignorant he writes many leaves to the contrary But I hope you will wipe this Author also out of your list after I have rehearsed some passages unto you out of him Look then either in that or the Sermon foregoing for I have not the Book now by me and you shall find Dr. Preston asserting faith to be required and that precedently to our being in Covenant For thus he writes That which is required of them is only that they take it And there is nothing precedently required or looked for on our parts but taking and applying of it So page 18 The taking of Christ makes Christ ours Faith is that whereby the right of Christ is made ours unto salvation Pag 62 63 he tels us of the reconciling and justifying act of faith which he saith is direct and is that whereby we take Christ as well as of its pacifying act which he calls reflex and saith it is that whereby we know we take him yea he tells us that Humiliation is required not as a qualification but as our sense of sicknesse is required to our seeking of cure so this to our seeking of Christ without which wee will never come to Christ And would you know what this taking of Christ is which he saith is precedently required He tells you toward the latter end of the first Sermon that it is to know Christ rightly as Prophet Priest and King To obey him To forsake all other for him To pitch on him with our whole deliberate and sincere will Moreover after this our receipt of him We are saith he required to obey him to be holy as he is holy to forsake all which he calls after-clap conditions and hard conditions And pag. 25. Those that be humble and see Gods wrath what it is that have their consciences awakened to see sin will come in and be glad to have Christ though on these conditions but the other will not If you will have Christ on these conditions you may But we preach in vain all the world refuseth Christ because they will not leave their Covetousnesse Pride c. And all because they be not humbled Now whereas he excludes conditions in some passages he tells you in what sense he excludes them Pag. 15. When we exclude all conditions we exclude such a frame and habit of mind which we think is necessarily required to make us worthy to take him By which it appears clearly they were meritorious conditions he excluded To these I may add how in his Treatise of the New Covenant page 217. he gives this for his fourth Reason why uprightnesse is required viz. That there might be an integrity on both sides A Covenant as on Gods part so on ours That as he promiseth he will be all-sufficient so he requireth this again on our parts That we be altogether his And pag 357. That the Condition God required of Abraham was that he should believe where he spends many leaves in shewing that and why faith is the condition of the New Covenant Page 389. That Repentance the condition required of us is part of the Covenant both on Gods part and on ours The condition that is required of us as part of the Covenant is the doing of this the action But the ability whereby we are able to perform these is a part of the Covenant on the Lords part Pag. 398. That when we do believe at that very hour we enter into Covenant and are translated from death to life And pag. 458. When the heart gives her full consent and takes the Lord for her God and Governour then is the Contract made up between them These passages Sir abundantly satisfie me concerning that holy and reverend Author that he held faith to be the grand condition of the Gospel precedently required to not only our knowing our selves in state of Grace but our very being therein and right thereto If he say that the Covenant that is one part of it viz. the Promise of Grace is absolute he saith no more then others for I know none of our side that hold that part to be antecedently conditional Some call it a Free others an Absolute promise others a Covenant with Christ for us c. Yea in regard of the freenesse and absolutenesse of it they grant the Covenant in respect of the Elect to be equivalent to an absolute Promise and the purchase equivalent to an absolute purchase as you may see Owen Vniv Redempt lib. 3. c. 2. the conditions on which salvation is promised being purchased and promised as well as the salvation Notable are the expressions of Mr. Rutherford in this particular We teach faith a condition on our part and also a grace promised Christ brings himselfe his righteousnesse and the condition of faith too which doth receive him As if some Prince should freely promise to marry some maid of low estate on condition she wear