he obtained our release but conditionally upon future Terms to be performed by us or some others for then his Suretiship was not for us but to purchase Conditions for us But whether we were joynt Parties in one and the the same Bond with him and so we were actually acquitted when he made satisfaction therefore God could enjoyn no Terms of Application to us for Justification and Glory nor suspend the same upon those Terms This I deny R. What mean you by joynt Parties in one and the same Bond do you mean the Bond of Debt to the Law by reason of the Obligation of Doing and Suffering there we stood bound as Principles and not being able to discharge Christ became bound as Surety we were never bound as Sureties nor Christ as the Principle But if you mean that both were bound to pay the same debt we do affirm it 2. What do you mean by an actual Acquittance Is it not meet that he that hath his Debt satisfied should have an actual Acquittance or their Surety for them there 's no Man pays a Debt his own or anothers but he will have an Acquittance according to the Terms of Payment if they were such as you suppose viz. to purchase a Discharge upon other Terms But you say If Christ were actually acquitted and the elect in him God would not come upon new Terms with the Sinner for Justification and Glory this is as much as to say Christ paid a Fine for Sinners that they might be brought to lower Terms with the Justice of God by a milder Law How false are you when you tell us Your meaning is That Christ's Righteousness is our only justifying Righteousness whereas here you own That it obtained not our full Discharge but only the bringing us under new Terms upon which Justification and Glory are suspended is not the Performance then of those purchased Terms our immediate justifying Righteousness 3. That which you affirm in this first part is pretty unintelligible but according to my Understanding it amounts to no more than that Christ dyed pro bono nostro only which is consistent with all the Socinian Notions of Imputation But as that which you say you deny I want it to be unriddled viz. That Christ was joynt Covenant Party with all the elect in Adam's Covenant so that they are legally esteemed to make Satisfaction and yield Obedience in his doing thereof R. You seem here to suggest as if some did hold That Christ was under Adam's Covenant so as the rest of his Posterity was and consequently fell in him as they did Or do you mean that all the Elect in Christ satisfied the Law as all Adam's Posterity brake it in him and this I suppose you deny Now as unto this Point if I have hit your Meaning I will tell you what a great Divine saith in answer to a Socinian The first Adam was by God's Institution a publick Person having shewed that God's Pleasure is the first Rule of Righteousness hence in him sinning the World sinned The second Adam is not only by God's Institution a publick person but also an infinite Person because God This publick Person doing and suffering was as much as if the World of the Elect had suffered If the first Adam a finite Person was by God's Institution in that Act of Disobedience a World of Men why should it seem strange that the second Adam being an infinite Person should be by God's Institution in the course of his Obedience as the World of the Elect He being infinite there needed no more than God's Pleasure to make him the World of Men yea ten thousand Worlds That which is infinite knoweth no bounds but God's Will The kind of his Obedience was legal the same in Nature and Measure which we by the first Covenant stood bound unto This his Obedience to the Law was more acceptable to God than the Disobedience of Adam was detestable yea more acceptable than the Obedience of Adam understanding both as publick Persons had he continued in the first Covenant Nort. against Pinch p. 6. 4. That which you affirm of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness here is no more than what you say every where importing no more than as to its Effects but your Expression is strange in saying Christ's Righteousness is reputed by God as that which now plead for our Impurity c. which seems to import that it doth not actually plead but that God is willing to reckon it a kind of Plea So that the Imputation you here intend of Christ's Righteousness is to Christ himself and not to the Sinner But you tell us what you deny You say its this That it is imputed as our formal Righteousness and so we may truly plead that we our selves as Elect did legally by Proxy as our Christ satisfie and merit all and without the Interposal of the Gospel Rule we have a legal Title to glory by Adam s Covenant This I deny as that which excludâ—s Forgiveness makes Christs Sufferings needless denies any proper satisfâ—ction and destroys Christianity Rep. Here 1. You seem to deny Christ's imputed Righteousness to be our formal Righteousness for Christ's Righteousness we reckon to be as it were the Matter of our Justification and being imputed by an Act of Grace becomes our formal as well as material Righteousness for if it become not by Imputation our formal Righteousness it s not our perfect Righteousness for Matter and Form are the essential Causes of the Effect 2. That we in Christ satisfied the Justice of God I know no sound Protestant but will affirm and that legally Mr. B. saith over and over Christ's Righteousness was our legal Righteousness but you will deny that we legally satisfied in Christ May not a Debtor plead that he legally paid the Debt in his Surety tho' not with his own Mony 3. You cast Reproach upon the Suretiship and federal Headship of Jesus Christ by calling him a Proxy and Attorny as our Surety and Representative A Proxy is Vicarious an inferior Person that 's imployed to do Business in the Name and by the Authority of a Superiour so that he is his Vicar or Substitute But is a Father that pays a Sons Debts and purchaseth an Estate for him out of his meer Love Pity and Compassion the Sons Proxy Or if a Man purchase an Estate for his Heirs for ever is he a Proxy to the Children yet unborn And yet their Estate is bought and paid for in him the original Right and Title lies in him the Purchaser Or a rich Man who undertakes for the Debts of an hundred poor Prisoners in Ludgate suppose the King or another great Person out of meer Pity and Commiseration is he their Proxy Is he not their Benefactor and Patron I wonder how you can speak these things without suspecting your own Spirit when you do so manifestly cast Dirt upon Jesus Christ may not I justly say you banter the Doctrin of Imputation 3. But you say
is not this Meetness a material Cause in the Gospel Law of our receiving these Effects Why then hath it not â—he same Place in respect of the new Law as Christ's Righteousness hath in repect of the old Law so that there must be at least two Righteousnesses requisite to our compleat Justification one Righteousness to answer the Old Law and another to answer the New And indeed here Christ's Righteousness is made by you most properly the subordinate Righteousness because it is in ordine ad it 's only in order to anâ—ther Righteousness In the most favouraâ—le Sense you make the Righteousness of Christ to merit ex condigno and Evangâ—lical to merit ex congruo for all Law Meetness is meriting either in respect of the reâ—unerative or minatory part of the Law All that you say over and over helps not nor covers you from those that know your Dialect nor your saying That Christ is the foundation of your Plea I may found a Plea or Argument upon a thing that is not my Plea or at least my chief Plea and how do you found it Why for the sake of Christ accepted against excluding bars you say whereby you have Permission now to come in with your Evangelical Righteousness You speak here just as in your other Book to this Point and I understand you still as I did then and you know you mean as I have represented your Meaning but you would not have the People understand what you mean and therefore you throw in an abundance of Expressions thereby to hide your Opinion but instead thereof they lay it open What is more plain than this Repl. p. 3. The Terms of the Gospel by the Promise do make us capable of being justified and saved for the Merits of Christ Now here 's your true sense of being forgiven for the Merits of Christ i. e. when we are made capable by the righteous Meetness of another Law we shall be absolved in the old Law sense by the righteousness of Christ And mark that all along its forgiveness only comes from Christ's Merits there 's no positive righteousness of Christ in active Obedience is reckoned to us this positive righteousness whereby we stand just in the Eye of the Law in your sense lies wholy in Conformity to the Rule of that Promise which is the new Law righteousness And you use the word Merits still in the way of procuration not satisfaction You say we are justified only by Christ's Merits as the sole procuring cause or righteousness for which we are justified to which you should add that the Reader might take your full sense by the righteousness of the Gospel Law That which you call the fifth Misrepresentation and is your fourth I am not convinced of but that my Inferences are truly drawn according to your natural sense and meaning of what your Expressions and what your Principles must bear 1. That you make the great end and use of Christ's Righteousness to secure us from the old Law Mr. B. calls it our legal Righteousness and therefore our Justification is not an immediate effect of that Righteousness but of our evangelical Righteousness 2. That he merited only that we might Merit i. e. that he procured our Justification by evangelical Righteousness you will not call it Merit call it what you will it s a Law of Meetness and a Law meetness I think gives a claim and challenge of Pardon and if we should pray in your Dialect we should pray thus Lord I am meet to be pardoned for the Righteousness of Christ 3. That you make Faith and Repentance the meritorious cause of Pardon and Glory by the new Law and that 's true for all conformity to and complyance with the conditional Preceptive part of a Law gives right a legal right to Remuneration and the benefit becomes a reward of Debt and if so the meetness is a Merit ex Pacto All these tho you say you disown yet in what you declare you say but what you said before and from whence the same Consequences will follow viz. That God requires a meetness in a Sinner for Justification and that this meetness is a federal condition 1. You say Christ satisfied Justice and merited Pardon and Glory i. e. he satisfied Justice in respect of the old Law and merited Pardon and Glory to be bestowed as Rewards of Obedience to another Law And that 2. The Sinner thus partaking of them is as Fruits of his Death and this is all done for his sake 3. You say God in Christ hath declared a way and order how he will dispense his Benefits this way is by another Law in which he acts in a way of distribution of Justice upon performance of Law conditions p. 4. And therefore you say Gospel conditions have no other use to our Interest in these Benefits than a complyance with this stated Rule of the distribution of Pardon and Glory p. 4. Adam's obedience had no other use than a compliance with the stated Rule of Gods distribution of Life promised and Pardon and Glory is no other than Life promised So that you make your Law to be every whit the same in specie with a Covenant or Law of Works the condition works out the reward of Debt but this is all the difference that Man fell under the first Covenant of Works by Creation but under the second by Redemption he was redeemed from the Curse of the old Law that he might be justified by another Law Covenant and this is your plain meaning as you say And these things you do but say over and over again in this Book as in the former And what doth this conditional Grant of these Effects import but that we should have Justification Adoption c. upon the performance of obedience to another Law Which is as much as to say Christ purchased another Law and Obedience to it must let us into Pardon by Christ This purchasing conditional Grants and Propositions is a new sort of Divinity suiting the highest degree of Arminian Doctrin and will strike at the nature of absolute Election which gives ground of suspecting you also in that Point as well as what you say of the savability of the none Elect tho' I acknowledge you often assert absolute Election but how well that Principle will comport with indefinite Redemption upon a conditional Grant let the rational judge You go on again and say as from Chap. 10. Pag. 84. of your first Book When Sinners are pardoned the whole meritorious cause of that Pardon is that attonement and what is required of Sinners is only a meetness to receive the Effects You need quote no more to give us an account of what you mean in these things if the Reader desires to be further confirmed in the truth of my representation of your Principles let him read pag. 4 5. of your Reply You quote Passages in p. 30 31. of my Book for the first Head from whence you say I endeavour to
A REJOYNDER TO Mr. DANIEL WILLIAMS HIS REPLY To the First Part of Neomianism Vnmaskt WHEREIN His Defence is Examined and his Arguments Answered whereby he endeavours to prove the Gospel to be a New Law with Sanction And the contrary is proved By ISAAC CHAVNCY M. A. LONDON Printed for H. Barnard at the Bible in the Poultry MDCXCIII A REJOYNDER TO Mr. Daniel Williams his REPLY Reverend Sir YOU say you are misrepresented in my saying You hold the Vacating or Abrogating the Old Law A. This is no false Charge or Misrepresentation for if the Sanction be changed as you expressly say both in the former Book and in this the Law is vacated it ceaseth to be Norma Judicii and what Passage you refer to in p. 198. of your former Book relieves you not P. 198. where you say The holiest Action of the holiest Saint needs forgiveness For upon your Hypothesis there is general Pardon purchased conditionally which Faith and sincere Holiness entitleth us to The old Law itself is laid aside as that which will never trouble the Believer Christ hath satisfied that for him but it is the new Law which the Believer must be tryed by which is the Gospel Law and hath another Sanction to the preceptive part of the Law which the Covenant of Works had prescribed P. 6. This new Law you say fixeth new Terms viz. True Repentance and Faith unfeigned to be the Terms of Pardon which Terms you say the Covenant of Works admitteth not so that the Terms or Conditions being changed the Sanction is changed What remains then but a new Law the righteousness of which must be our justifying Righteousness for there 's no Justification by any Law without fulfilling it by performance of that very Righteousness by our selves or another which that Law requires And tho' you say we are bound to the Duties of the Moral Law yet you say the use of Faith and Holiness in respect of the Benefits is not from their conformity to the Precept so that Conformity to the Precept of the old Law hath nothing to do as Righteousness in the new Law but their Conformity to the Rule of the Promise which can be no other than the Rule of the new Law Hence it is manifest That with you this new Law is distinct both in Precept and Sanction therefore it 's out a doors Lastly none can deny But that how good soever the Precept of a Law is if the sanction be vacated or changed so that it ceaseth to be Norma Judicii it ceaseth to be a Law and where a Law ceaseth to be Norma Judicii there 's no tryal to be made thereby of Men's Actions no Judicial Proceedings thereby nor Justification or Condemnation by it whatever we are in respect of another Law our Righteousness must be judged of and tryed by the Law in Force and this is your plain Judgment See p. 131. you say If Men have nothing to do for Salvation then Christ hath no Rule to judge them who lived under the Gospel So that Men under the Gospel are judged by a Rule of doing which is your Rule of the Promise And again ibid. Consider the description of the last Day and you 'l find God Saves and Damns with respect to Mens Neglects and Compliance with the Gospel You say it 's true the Sanction of the Law of Works is removed p. 135. Your granting That we deserve Wrath in respect of the Covenant of Works and that the Law is a Rule of Duty c. is nothing for 't is not meer satisfying that Law will save us or the Righteousness thereof but a Compliance with and obedience to a new Law You say The Law cannot hinder our Relief by Christ from the Sentence Christ stands between us and that Law that we may be saved by another Forgiveness you say is not by sinless Obedience we say it is by Christ's which s sinless Obedience but it is by our imperfect Obedience that must follow You say also in this Reply p. 23. Were not the Gospel to be a Rule of Judgment norma Judicii I cannot see how that can be a Judgment Day it must be only an Execution Day for by the Law of Adam no Believer could be acquitted that Law must be altered by the Law-giver to admit Satisfaction which is a strange Expression as if Christ could not satisfy Adam's Law without altering it the Law must be vacated if Christ satisfied and fulfilled it cujus contrarium verum est and it is by the Gospel only he hath enacted the way how this Satisfaction shall be applyed And that way enacted is your new Law that comes in the room and stead of the old Law vacated Therefore I beseech you consider your own Reputation more than to say I misrepresent you in saying You hold that which your Words shew your Scheme must contain and you know in your Conscience is your Principle Again you charge me for misrepresenting you whenas you say Christ's Sufferings are the Foundation of our Pardon that our Sins are forgiven for Christ's Sufferings By my saying Your Fundamentally is only a remote causality Causa sine qua non by something else besides them R. You know whatever you say to palliate it that you mean Christ's Righteousness is our legal Righteousness but our Faith and Obedience our evangelical Righteousness which you own under the Name of a subordinate Righteousness and is not the Inference of causa sine qua non p. 20. Very natural when you say For the Sufferings of Christ our Sins are forgiven and explain it thus Without them Sin cannot be forgiven How can a Causa sine qua non be more plainly expressed as thus The going out of my Door is the Causa sine qua non of my going into Cheapside How so without going out of my House which is in another Street I cannot go into Cheapside You say It 's strange that any one should infer That you deny the Righteousness of Christ to be the sole meritorious or material Cause of our Pardon which in Judicial Acts are the same Rej. All this may be and your contrary Sense to us still the same 1. It 's one thing to be a meritorious cause of Pardon and another thing to be our very sole justifying Righteousness I can say Christ's Righteousness is the sole meritorious Cause of Sanctification for which we are sanctified as well as for which we are forgiven and yet we are sanctified by the Spirit and so for which we are adopted Hence you will say Christ's Righteousness is the meritorious Cause for which we are pardoned and justified by the Gospel-law the Condition whereof you make Meetness what is required of Sinners is only a meetness to receive the Effects this Meetness is the Evangelical Righteousness this is the Condition we shall be tryed by at the last Day and this is the Law Condition upon which we receive the effects of Christ's Righteousness not the righteousness itself neither And
particular that most worthy Divine Mr. Traughton in his Lutherus redivivus a Book worth every Christian 's having You say p. 25. Hath the Gospel-Covenant no Sanction what think you of Heb. 8.6 R. You might have said Heb. 9.15 16. I said not that the Gospel-Covenant hath no Sanction it hath a Sanction as a Testament in the Death of Christ in which the Law is satisfied for us and upon which the better absolute and clear Promises are founded and herein was that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 placed the establishment of the Promises of Life and Salvation on the sure Conditions of Christ's Righteousness and not of our Performances You say What will become of Dr. Owen 's Law of Justification p. 167. R. His Law of Justification is the Law that Christ came under in doing and suffering the fulfilling God's Will for the justification of a sinner this was the Law that was in his heart for the Doctor 's words are Not that he did as a King constitute the the Law of Justification as you say for it was given and established in the first Promise and he came to put it in execution You say It 's one thing to be justified for Faith and another to be justified by it R. I say so too if it be in the Apostle's sense by Faith be in opposition to by Works but if you make Faith a Law-condition then this by becomes for and it signifies just as much as being justified by Works And thus Mr. Bulkly in your own Quotation is against you for he saith If we make the Commandment of Believing to be legal then the Promise of Life upon the Condition of Believing must be legal also And so it must needs be upon your Hypothesis that the Gospel is a Law You often say the Gospel-Law is not a Law of Works and that Paul saith so p. 26. What is so said either by the Apostle or you the Gospel is denied thereby to be a Law with Sanction or Law-Covenant for if there be no Works as Condition of it there 's nothing but Promise but where is your sincere conditional imperfect Obedience if there be no Works It 's absurd to say the first Grace is a Condition required of us because you grant it absolute You tell us what Dr. O. saith on Ps 130 p. 230. This is the inviolable Law of the Gospel i. e. believing and forgiveness are inseparably conjoyned which hath nothing of your sense in it Concerning Faith's being the Condition of a Law with Sanction he saith nothing he means no more but that they are connexed by God's constitution So there are many things connexed in the Promise as Faith and Forgiveness Faith and Repentance Faith and Love Justification and Sanctification and Glorification I could quote you a hundred places out of Dr. O. where he militates against this very Principle of yours See Dr. O. of Justifie p. 407. The Apostle speaks not one word of the Exclusion of the Merit of Works only he excludes all Works whatsoever Some think they are injuriously dealt withal when they are charged with maintaining Merit Yet those that best understand themselves and the Controversie are not so averse to any kind of merits knowing that it 's inseparable from Works Those among us who plead for Works in our Justification as they use many distinctions to explain their minds and free themselves from a co-incidence with that of the Papists they deny the name of Merit in the sense of the Church of Rome and so do the Socinians See more p. 408 409. where he shews all Works before and after Grace are excluded What you quote out of my honoured Father's Book I see nothing contradicts me if rightly understood had not your Doctrin been contrary to his tho' I hope I should defend the truth according to my light and conscience tho' against my own Father I should never have given you the least opposition but it 's not Human Authority must turn the Scales in these Matters You quote Mens transient Expressions that speak of a Gospel-law and Conditions in a sense that may be born with when they approve themselves clear in all main Points others speaking in such a Dialect in Sermons and Practical Discourses To shew that such things as God hath conjoyned Man is not to sever As for the two great Divines besides D. O. I mean Dr. Goodwin and Mr. Clarkson I know them to be expresly against your Notion of the conditionality of the Covenant and by what you quote out of them it appears to be so See Dr. Goodwin's Judgment about Condition Whether Faith be a Condition Sermon XXII p. 301. I would have this word laid aside I see both Parties speak faintly on 't Perkins on the Galatians and another There is danger in the use of it a Condition may be pleaded 2. In those Expressions if a Man believeth he shall be saved import that he that doth so shall be saved in the event which the Elect only are to whom he giveth Faith My Beloved the nature of Faith is modest it never maketh plea for it self if it were a Condition a Man might plead it before God and the making it a Condition seems to me to import as if there were an universal Grace and that it is the Condition terminateh it to this Man and not to that What Mr. Clerkson saith is nothing to your purpose for he saith The first Blessings of the Covenant are promised absolutely and subsequent Blessings are in some sense Conditional Not that God makes a conditional Bargain with us but because divine Wisdom hath made a connexion between these Blessings that they shall never be separated c. Lastly I shall give an Account of the beginning and progress of this Neonomian Error This Doctrin was first forged by the Pharisees of old who did not believe themselves justified by perfect Obedience to the moral Law their owning the Sacrifices and other Types their Gospel being a sufficient evidence that they acknowledged themselves great Sinners and far enough from perfect Obedience they only thought that Obedience that they did perform was through the merciful Nature of God accepted to Justification of Life and their Sins expiated by Sacrifices For not only the Scriptures give us full assurance of this to be truth but it were easy to shew what the Opinion of the ancient and latter Jews were in this Matter 1. They placed their Righteousness not in perfect Obedience but in sincere So Paul before his Conversion Act. 26.5.9 Chap. 23. 1. Rom. 10.9 The Jews went to establish their own Righteousness and their imperfect Obedience as such in conjunction with the attoning Sacrifices for their Justification And R. Menahem saith Scito vitam Hominis in praeceptis Know that the Life of Man in the Precepts is according to the intention that he hath in doing them But they say Faith is the cause of Blessedness and therefore the cause of eternal Life Thus the Author of Sepher Ikkarim
And that Faith justifies as Righteousness itself for saith the same Author Our Father Abraham was praised by reason of his Faith for it 's said Gen. 15. He believed God and it was accounted to him for Righteousness And that this Doctrin was that which Paul contendeth with the judaizing Christians about and the false Teachers among them I doubt not in the least and am very apt to believe that it was these Neonomians that laid that Charge upon Paul's Doctrin that it was a Doctrin of Licentiousness and made so great a Cry against it for Antinomianism or as being destructive to the Righteousness of the Law and Obedience thereunto Philip a Presbyter and Hearer of Hierom on Job 42. tells of a Heretick then living that held this Opinion That the Gospel was a Law Christop Pelarg. The next I find it charged upon is Pelagius as one of h s grand Heresies And from the Pelagians saith Dr. Leydecker the Papists have taken up this Principle The Council of Trent Anath 20. Cuâ—se all that say the Gospel is a Promise without condition of observing the Commands And Anath 21. They Curse those that say Christ is given for a Redeemer and not a Law-maker And Anath 26. They Curse them that say The just ought not to expect a Reward for their Works Peter a Soto tells us the Catholick Church doth hold That Christ gave a new Law The same saith S. De Clara. It is generally hâ—ld by all the Jesuits Bellarmin in his Controv. de Justif contends That the Gospel as such is a Law and that it contains proper â—aws with Threats and Promises and requires Obedience as the Condition of Life and of the accomplishments of Promises which are so conditionated and that Merits cannot be otherwise defended which the Papacy holds Gregory de Valâ—ntia tells us They reject the usual distinction of Law and Gospel viz. That the Law Promises are conditional the Gospel Promises free and absolute Tom. 2. Controv. Disput 7. Q 6. Le calls it a Fiction Mr. Fox in Act. Mon. Impr. 7. p. 34. vol. 1. gives this following Account of the Papist's Opinion in this Point They say Moses was a giver of the old Law Christ of the new Thus imagine they the Gospel to be nothing else but a new Law given by Christ binding to the Promises the Conditions of our doings and deservings no otherwise than to the old Law and so divide they the whole Law into three parts the Law of Nature the Law of Moses and the Law of Christ to the fulfilling whereof they attribute Justification And thus they lead the Consciences of Men in doubt and induce many Errors bringing the People into a false opinion of Christ as tho' he were not a Remedy against the Law but came as another Moses to give a new Law to the World Dr. Barns who suffered Martyrdom in Henry VIII.'s time An. Dom. 1541. vigourously opposed the Popish Bishops in this Point as appears by his excellent Treatise of Justification In defending Justification by Faith alone according to the true meaning of the Apostle Paul hath these Passages It were but lost labour for Paul to prove that Works did help to Justification for that the Jews did grant and required no mâ—re but that which they stood upon was that Works might not be clearly excluded But here peradventure it will be said that Paul condemns the Works of the old Law but not of the new Law Are you now satisfied in your Consciences Think you that you have now assoyled Paul's Argument Think you to be thus discharged before God Go boldly to the Judgment of God with this Evasion and doubt not but then you shall find St. Paul stiflly and strongly against you and your new Works as ever he was against the Jews and their old Works Briefly what Works can you excogitate to do which be not in the old Law and of the old Law Therefore he speaks of all manner of Works for the Law includeth all Works that ever God instituted the highest best and most of Perfection what Works in the new Law have you better than those of the old Law â— But grant that there be certain Works of the new Law which be not of the old yet have you not nor can prove that these shall justify for there can be no more goodness in Works than were in the Works of the old Law for they were to Gods Honour and the Profit of the Neighbour and yet you grant they cannot justify St. Paul disputâ—s against them that were Christned and had Works of the old Law and of the new yet concludes that Christ alone justified Mark his Argument If Righteousness cometh by the Law then is Christ dead in vain c. where he proceeds to enervate this Doctrin of Neomianism From the Papists the Socinians took up this Doctrin as Dr. Leidaker shews styling them Our new Pelagians They do indeed saith he exclude Ceremonial Works and Works of the Jews who oppose the Gospel but when they may seem to differ from the Roman Catholicks in the Doctrin of Merit they answer Socin saith Paul treats concerning perfect Works of that Law and seeing none can be justified by them the Law requiring perfect Obedience therefore the Apostle saith We are justified by faith and obedience so far as a man is able to perform them That Paul excludes Works of the Law not interrupted by Sin i. e. perfect persevering Works or merits not those that are performed according to the mild Law of the Gospel And he takes notice how Dr. P. Barrow a Divinity Professor in England was among the first of ours that deserted the true Doctrin and an assertor of this Doctrin That the Gospel is a new Law shewing that no Man was ever justified by a perfect observance of the Law but by that Observation which depends upon Mercy and includes pardon of Sin the regenerate do perform that Law in his Treatise de pâ—aestantia legis c. 13. This Dr. Barrow the Arminians when they began to spring up highly applauded saith Dr. Leidaker His Words are Similes habent labra lactucas He says they changed the very Decalogue into a Covenant of Grace confounding it with the Gospel asserting a Covenant of Works saying That notwithstanding the giving Christ God might have set up again a Covenant of Works but he would not because of the weakness of the Flesh Therefore in the room of the rigid Covenant of Works he substituted a milder Covenant mixed with goodness and grace in which Faith with imperfect Obedience to the Law might be accepted for perfect Righteousness unto Life These Doctrins Arminians began to vent but Episcopius taught them openly whom Curcellius also followed as his Master and more lately Dr. Limburgius who asserts That the Scripture no where teacheth Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us and saith This Error so he calls the Doctrin of the imputation of Christ's Righteousness ariseth from a false Opinion That