Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	grace_n	justification_n	work_n	6,035	5	6.7945	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39697	Vindiciæ legis & fœderis: or, A reply to Mr. Philip Cary's Solemn call Wherein he pretends to answer all the arguments of Mr. Allen, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Sydenham, Mr. Sedgwick, Mr. Roberts, and Dr. Burthogge, for the right of believers infants to baptism, by proving the law at Sinai, and the covenant of circumcision with Abraham, were the very same with Adam's covenant of works, and that because the gospel-covenant is absolute. By John Flavel minister of the gospel in Dartmouth	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1690 (1690)	Wing F1205A; ESTC R218689	64,584	175

To im●…ose new Conditions though never so ●…ild is a New Covenant of Works with me Mercy but not a Covenant of race properly so called Sol. T 's true if those Works or Acts ours which God requires be under●…od of meritorious Works in our own Strength and Power to perform it destroys the Free Grace of the Covenant but this we utterly reject and speak only of Faith wrought in us by the Spirit of God which receives all from God and gives the entire Glory to God Ephes. 2. 5 8. Obj. But you will say If Faith be the Condition and that Faith be not of our selves then both the Promise and the Condition are on Gods part if you will call Faith a Condition and so still on our part the Covenant is absolute Sol. This is a mistake and the mistake in this leads you into all the rest though Faith which we call the Condition on our Part ●…e the Gift of God and the power of Believing be derived from God yet the act of believing is properly our act though the power by which we believe be of God else i●… would follow when we act any Grace as Faith Repentance or Obedience tha●… God believes repents and obeys in us and it is not we but God that doth al●… these This I hope you will not dar●… to assert They are truly our Works though wrought in Gods Strength Is●… 26. 12. Lord thou hast wrought all o●… works in us i. e. Though they be our Works yet they are wrought in us by thy Grace or Strength As for Dr. Owen 't is plain from the place you cite in the Doctrine of Justification pag. 156. he only excludes Conditions as we do in respect of the dignity of the Act and is more plain in his Treatise of Redemption pag. 103 104. in which he allows Conditions in both the Covenants and makes this the difference That the Old required them but the New effects them in all the Federates I know no Orthodox Divine in the World that presumes to thrust in any Work of Mans into the Covenant of Grace as a Condition which in the Arminian Sense he may or may not perform according to the power and pleasure of his own Free-will without the preventing or determining Grace of God which preventing Grace is contained in those Promises Ezek. 36. 25 26 27. c. Nor yet that there is any meritorious Worth either of Condignity or Congruity in the Popish Sense in the very justifying Act of Faith for the which God justifies and saves us But we say That though God in the way of preventing Grace works Faith in us and when it is so wrought we need his assisting Grace to act it yet neither this assisting nor preventing Grace makes the act of Faith no more to be our Act 'T is we that believe still tho in Gods Strength and that upon our believing or not believing we have or have not the Benefits of Gods Promises which is the very proper Notion of a Condition Argument IV. If all the Promises of the New Covenant be absolute and unconditional having no respect nor relation to any Grace wrought in us nor Duty done by us then the Trial of our Interest in Christ by Marks and Signs of Grace is not our Duty nor can we take comfort in Sanctification as an Evidence of Justification But it is a Christians Duty to try his Interest in Christ by Marks and Signs and he may take comfort in Sanctification as an evidence of Justification Ergo. The Sequel of the Major is undeniably clear for that can never be a Sign or Evidence of an Interest in Christ which that Interest may be without yea and as Dr. Crispe asserts according to his Antinomian Principles Christ is ours saith he before we have gracious Qualifications Every true Mark and Sign must be inseparable from that it signifies Now if the works of the Spirit in us be not so but an Interest in Christ may be where these are not then they are no proper Marks or Signs and if they are not it cannot be our Duty to make use of them as such and consequently if we should they can yield us no Comfort The Minor is plain in Scripture 1 John 2. 3. Hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his Commandments The meaning is we perceive and discern our selves to be sincere Believers and consequently that Christ is our Propitiation when Obedience to his Commands is become habitual and easie to us So 1 John 3. 19. Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him i. e. by our sincere cordial love to Christ and his Members as v. 18. this shall demonstrate to us that we are the Children of Truth and again 1 John 3. 14. We know that we are passed from death to life because we love the Brethren With Multitudes more to the same purpose which plainly teach Christians to fetch the Evidences of their Justification out of their Sanctification and to prove their Interest in Christ by the works of his Spirit found in their own Hearts And this is not only a Christians Liberty but his commanded duty to bring his Interest in Christ to this Touch-stone and Test 2 Cor. 13. 5. Examine your selves prove your selves c. 2 Pet. 1. 10. Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure i. e. your Election by your calling No Man can make his Election sure a priori nor can any Man make it surer than it is in se therefore it is only capable of being made sure to us a posteriori arguing from the work of Sanctification in us to God's eternal choice of us And as the Saints in all Ages have taken this course so they have taken great and lawful Comfort in the use of these Marks and Signs of Grace 2 Kings 20. 3. 2 Cor. 1. 12. I am sensible how vehemently the Antinomian Party Dr. Crispe Mr. Eyre and some others do oppugn this truth representing it as legal and impracticable for they are for the absolute and unconditional Nature of the new Covenant as well as you but by your espousing their Principle you have even run Anabaptism into Antinomianism and must by this Principle of yours renounce all Marks and Tryals of an Interest in Christ by any work of the Spirit wrought in us You must only stick to the immediate Sealings of the Spirit which if such a thing be at all it is but rare and extraordinary I will not deny but there may be an immediate Testimony of the Spirit but sure I am his mediate Testimony by his Graces in us is his usual way of sealing Believers We do not affirm any of these his works to be meritorious causes of our Justification or that considered abstractedly from the Spirit they can of themselves Seal or evidence our Interest in Christ. Neither do we affirm that any of them are compleat and perfect Works but this we say that

disown'd by you when we have liberty to amplifie and confirm our Testimony in the peaceful improvement of our common Liberty But if your meaning be as I strongly suspect it is that we must not expect to be own'd by Christ except we give up Infants Baptism then I say it is the most uncharitable as well as unwarrantable and dangerous Censure that ever dropt from the Pen of a sober Christian 'T is certainly your great evil to lay Salvation it self on such a point as the proper Subject of Baptism and to make it Articulus Stantis vel cadentis Religionis the very Basis on which the whole Christian Religion and its Professors Salvation must stand I hope the rest of your Brethren are more charitable than your self but however it be I do openly profess that I ever have and still do own you and many more of your Perswasion for my Brethren in Christ and am perswaded Christ will own you too notwithstanding your many Errors and Mistakes about the lesser and lower matters of Religion Nor need your Censure much to affect us as long as we are satisfied you have neither a Faculty nor Commission thus solemnly to pronounce it upon us But what 's the condition upon which this dreadful Sentence depends why it is our attendance or non-attendance to the primitive purity of the Gospel Doctrine Sir I hope we do attend it and in some respects better than some greater Pretenders to primitive Purity who have cast off not only the initiating Sign of Gods Covenant this did not Abraham but also that most comfortable and ancient Ordinance of singing Psalms and what other primitive Ordinance of God may be cashier'd next who can tell We have a Witness in your Bosom that the Defence of Christs pure Worship and Institutions hath cost us something and as for me were I convinced by all that you have here said or any of your Friends that in baptizing the Infants of Believers we did really depart from the Primitive purity I would renounce it and turn Anabaptist the same day But really Sir this Discourse of yours hath very much convinc'd me of the weakness and sickliness of your Cause which is forc'd to seek a new Foundation and is here laid by you upon such a Foundation as must inevitably ruin it if your Party as well as your self have but resolution enough to venture it thereupon And it appears to me very probable that they intend to fight us upon the new ground you have here chosen and mark'd out for them by the high Encomiums they give your Book in their Epistles to it wherein they tell us Your Notions are of so rare a nature that you are not beholding to any other for them and it is a wonder if you should for I think it never entred into any sober Christians Head before you that Abraham's Covenant Gen. 17. was the very same with Adam's Covenant made in Paradise or that Moses Abraham and all the Elect of God in those days were absolutely under the very rigour and tyranny of the Covenant of Works and at the same time under the Covenant of Grace and all the Blessings and Priviledges thereof with many other such rare Notions of which it is pity but you should have the sole propriety I am particularly concern'd to detect your dangerous mistakes both in love to your own Soul and care of my Peoples amongst whom you have dispersed them though I foresee by M. E's Epistle to your Book what measure I am like to have for my plain and faithful dealing with you For if that Gentleman upon a meer surmise and presumption that one or other would oppose your Book dare adventure to call your unknown Answerer before ever he put Pen to Paper a Man-pleaser a Quarreller at Reformation and rank him with the Papists which opposed the Faithful for their non-conformity to their Inventions What must I expect from such rash Censurers for my sober plain and rational confutation of your Errors As to the Controversie betwixt us you truly say in your Title Page and many parts of your Book and your Brethren comprobate it in their Epistles that the main Arguments made use of by the Paedo-Baptists for the support of their practice are taken from the Covenant of God with Abraham Gen. 17. You call this the very hinge of the Controversie and therefore if you can but prove this to be the very same Covenant of Works with that made with Adam in Paradise we shall then see what improvements you will quickly make of it Ay Sir You are sensible of the Advantage no less than a compleat Victory you shall obtain by it and therefore being a more hardy and adventurous Man than others put desperately upon it which never any before you durst attempt to prove Abraham's Covenant which stands so much in the way of your Cause to be a meer Covenant of Works and therefore now abolished My proper Province is to discover here that part of the Foundation I mean Abraham's Covenant whence our Divines with great Strength and Evidence deduce the Right of Believers Infants to Baptism now Next to evince the Absurdity of your Assertions and Arguments you bring to destroy it And lastly To reflect briefly upon the Answers you give in the beginning of your Book to those several Texts of Scripture pleaded by the learned and judicious Divines you oppose for the Justification of Infants Baptism 1. Those that plead God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. as a Scripture Foundation for Baptizing Believers Infants under the Gospel proceed generally upon these four Grounds or Principles 1. That God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. was the same Covenant for substance we Gentile Believers are now under and they substantially prove it from Luke 1. from the 54. to the 74. Verse which place evidently shews the sameness of the Covenant of Grace they were and we are now under and from Matt. 21. 41 43. the same Vineyard and Kingdom the Jews then had is now let out to us Gentiles and from Rom. 11. that the Gentile-Christians are grafted into the same Olive-Tree from which the Jews were broken off for their Unbelief and that the Blessing of Abraham cometh now upon the Gentiles Gal. 3. 8 14 16. and in a word that the Partition Wall betwixt them and us is now pulled down and that we through Faith are let into the self-same Covenant and all the Priviledges they then enjoy'd Ephes. 2. 13. 2. They assert and prove That in Abraham's Covenant the Infant-Seed were taken in with their Parents and that in token thereof they were to have the Sign of the Covenant applied to them Gen. 17. 9. 3. They affirm and prove That the Promise of God to Abraham and his Seed with the Priviledges thereof to his Children do for the Substance of them descend to Believers now and their Seed Acts 2. 38 39. and though the external Sign viz. Circumcision be changed yet Baptism takes its place under

the Gospel Col. 2. 11 12. 4. They constantly affirm That none of those Grants or Priviledges made to the Infant-Seed of Abraham's Family were ever repealed or revoked by Christ or his Apostles and therefore Believers Children now are in the rightful Possession of them and that therefore there needed no new Command or Promise in Abraham's Command we find our Duty to Sign our Children with the Sign of the Covenant and in Abraham's Promise we find God's gracious Grant to our Children as well as his especially since the Apostle directs us in this very respect to the Covenant of God with Abraham Acts 2. 38 39. These Sir are the Principles on which we lay as you say great Stress and which to this day you have never been able to shake down here therefore you attempt a new Method to do it by proving this Covenant is now abolished and this is your Method in which you promise your self great Success Three things you pretend to prove 1. That the Sinai Covenant Exod. 20. 2. That Abraham's Covenant Gen. 17. are no Gospel-Covenants and that because 3. The Gospel-Covenant is Absolute and Unconditional How you come to hook in the Mosaick Covenant into this Controversie is not very evident unless you think it were easie for you to prove that to be a Covenant of Works and then Abraham's Covenant Gen. 17. being an Old Testament Covenant were the more easily proved to be of the same nature I am obliged to examine your three Positions above noted and if I evidence to the World the Falsity of them the Cause you manage is so far lost and the right of Believers Infants to Baptism stands firm upon its old and sure Foundation I begin therefore with your I Position That the Covenant made with Israel on Mount Sinai is the very same Covenant of Works made with Adam in Innocency P. 122. and divers other places of your Book the very same Now if I prove that this Assertion of yours doth naturally and regularly draw many false and absurd Consequents upon you which you are and must be forced to own then this your Position cannot be true for from true Premisses nothing but truth can naturally and regularly follow but I shall make it plain to you that this your Position regularly draws many false Conclusions and gross Absurdities upon you some of which you own expresly and others you as good as own being able to return nothing rational or satisfactory in your own defence against them 1. From this Assertion that the Sinai Covenant was a pure Covenant of Works the very same with Adam's Covenant it regularly and necessarily follows that either Moses and all Israel were Damned there being no Salvation possible to be attained by that first Covenant or else that there was a Covenant of Grace at the same time running parallel with that Covenant of Works and so the Elect People of God were at one and the same time under the first as a Covenant of Death and Condemnation and under the second as a Covenant of Grace and Justification This Dilemma pinches you to assert that Moses and all the Elect of God under that Dispensation were damned you dare not and if you had you must have expunged the 11th Chapter to the Hebrews and a great part of the New Testament together with all your hopes of sitting down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven The latter therefore seeing you cannot avoid you are forc'd upon and in plain words yield it p. 174 175. That Moses and the whole body of the Children of Israel without exception of any were under yea absolutely under the severest penalties of a dreadful Curse That the Covenant they were under could be no other than a Covenant of Works a ministration of Death and Condemnation when yet it is also evident from the same Holy Scriptures of Truth that at the same time both Moses and all the Elect among that People were under a pure Covenant of Gospel-grace and that these two Covenants were just opposite the one to the other but to this you have nothing to say but with the Apostle in another case O the depth Here Sir you father a pure and perfect contradiction upon the Holy Scriptures that it speaks things just opposite and contradictory the one to the other and of necessity one part or member of a contradiction must be false this all the rational World knows but so it is say you and fly to the infinite Wisdom to reconcile them for you say you know not what to say to it Just so the Papists serve us in the Controversie about Transubstantiation when they cannot reconcile one thing with another they fly to the Omnipotent Power to do it But Sir I wonder how you hold and hug a Principle that runs naturally into such gross absurdities Do you see what follows from hence by unavoidable consequence you must according to this Principle hold That Moses and all Gods peculiar elect People in Israel must during their Life hang mid-way between Justification and Condemnation and after Death between Heaven and Hell 1. During Life they must hang mid-way between Justification and Condemnation justify'd they could not be for Justification is the Souls passing from Death to Life 1 John 3. 14. John 5. 24. This they could not possibly do for the ministration of Death and Condemnation hindred He that is under Condemnation by the Law cannot during that state pass into Life And yet to be under Condemnation is as impossible on the other side for he that is justified cannot at the same time be under Condemnation Rom. 8. 1. John 5. 24. What remains then but that during Life they must stick mid-way betwixt both neither justify'd nor condemned and yet both so and so Justification is our Life and Condemnation our Death in Law Betwixt these two which are privatively oppos'd there can be no Medium of participation and yet such a Medium you here fancy 2. And then after Death they must necessarily hang betwixt Heaven and Hell to Heaven none can go that are under the very rigour and tyranny of the Law a pure Covenant of Works as you say they were To Hell they could not go being under the pure Covenant of Grace What remains then but some third state must be assigned them and so at last we have found the Limbus Patrum and your Position leads us right to Purgatory a Conclusion which I believe you your self abhor as much as I. 2ly This Hypothesis pinches you with another Dilemma viz. Either there was pardon on Repentance in Moses his Covenant and the Sinai Dispensation of the Law or there was none if you say ●…one you directly contradict Lev. 26. 40 46. If there were then it cannot be Adam's Covenant of Works You answer pag. 179. That God promiseth pardon for the Breach of Moses his Covenant and of Adam 's Covenant too but neither Adam 's Covenant nor the Jewish legal Covenant promised any

they being true and sincere though imperfect Graces they are our usual and standing Evidences to make out our Interest in Christ by And I hope you and the whole Antinomian Party will find it hard yea and impossible to remove the Saints from that comfortable and scriptural way of examining their Interest in Christ by the Graces of his Spirit in them as the Saints who are gone to Heaven before them have done in all Generations Argument V. If the Covenant of Grace be altogether Absolute and Unconditional requiring nothing to be done on our part to entitle us to its Benefits then it cannot be Man's Duty in entring Covenant with God to deliberate the Terms count the Cost or give his consent by word or writing explicitly to the Terms of this Covenant But it is Man's Duty in entring Covenant with God to deliberate the Terms and count the Cost Luke 14. 26. to 34. and explicitly to give his consent thereto either by Word or Writing Ergo The Sequel of the Major is self-evident for where there are no terms or Conditions required on our part there can be none to deliberate or give our consent to and so a Man may be in Covenant without his own consent The Minor is undeniable in the Text cited If you say these are Duties but not Conditions I reply they are such Duties without the performance of which we can have no Benefit by Christ and the new Covenant Luke 14. 33. and such Duties have the true suspending nature of Conditions in them If you say they are only subsequent Duties but not antecedent or concomitant Acts the 28th Verse directly opposes you Let him first sit down and count the cost And for those overt acts whereby we explicitly declare our consent to the terms of the Covenant at our first entring into the Bond of it I hope you will not say that 's a legal Covenant too Isa. 44. 3 4. I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and flouds upon the dry ground I will pour my spirit upon thy Seed and my Blessing upon thine Off-spring and they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses One shall say I am the Lords and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord c. A plain allusion to Souldiers when they List themselves under a Captain or General What remains now to reply to these Arguments but either that the places by me cited and argued upon do not intend the new Covenant under which we are or that this new Covenant hath its Conditions and is not altogether Absolute as you have asserted it to be And thus Sir you are fairly beaten off if I mistake not from the new Ground you had chosen and marked out to raise your Battery upon to demolish that strong Fort which secures the Right of Believers Infants to Baptism and you must return again to the old answers of Mr. Tombes and others to our solid and substantial Arguments from Abraham's Covenant Gen. 17. which have been bassled over and over by Baxter Blake Sydenham and many other stout Champions for Infants Baptism All that I am further concerned about is to examine so many of those Scriptures as you have spoken to which are by us produced in defence of those four Grounds or Principles mentioned in the beginning of this Discourse whereon we establish the Right of Infants Baptism and to vindicate those Scriptures from your strained and injurious Interpretations of them Which being done they will each of them stand in those eminent places of Service where they have been so long useful to the Cause we defend As for your pretended Solutions of the incomparable Mr. Baxter's and the learned and acute Dr. Burthogg's Arguments I admire at your Confidence therein and let me tell you without breach of Charity 't is an high piece of Confidence in you to throw the Gantlet and bid Defiance to two such Worthies yet alive and easily able to detect your Folly in the Weakness and Impertinency of your Answers Alas my Friend you little know what it is to have such weak and inartificial Discourses as yours brought under the strict Examen of such acute and judicious Eyes But Sic Dama leonem Insequitur audetque viro concurrere Virgo Nor will I presume to anticipate either of their Answers to your Discourse if they shall think it worthy of an Answer but rather briefly reflect upon what you return to the Arguments of those eminent Divines that are gone to Glory in the Faith of that Truth you oppose and are not capable of defending their solid and regular Interpretations of Scriptures against the Notions you force upon them contrary both to the Grammar and Scope of several of them And here Sir in the beginning let me mind you what a learned and judicious Person saith about all Interpretations of Scriptures Four things saith he commend an Interpretation and establish it as a King upon the Throne against whom there is no rising up 1. If the Letter and Grammar of the Text will fairly bear it 2. If the Scope and Argument of the place will close directly with it 3. If the Interpretation set up against it cannot stand before both or either of the former 4. If the Judgment of learned wise and impartial Men be found generally agreeable to it According to these Rules whereat you can have no just Exception I shall briefly yet I hope clearly and sufficiently answer some of the Replies you make to the Arguments of those deceased Worthies And 1. In Page 1. you produce Mr. William Allen's Argument ad hominem against your Practice He tells you your own Principle condemns you for you reject the Baptizing of Infants because there is no Example in the New Testament for it and yet baptize Persons at Age whose Parents were Christians which is as much without a Gospel-president or example as the former The Sum of your Reply is That though it should be granted that there is no express example for the Baptizing of such in Scripture yet there are Examples enough concerning the Baptism of Believers Reply Here you grant all that Mr. Allen objects viz. That you are altogether without Example or President for your Practice And object to him and us what neither he nor we ever scrupled or denied viz. The Baptizing of some adult Persons upon the personal Profession of their Faith I have done it my self and in like Circumstances am ready to do it again Once you clearly yield it that you have no President nor Example for your Practice in the Gospel That 's all that he seeks and what he seeks you plainly grant As to the Precept and Examples of Baptizing adult Believers whose Parents were Unbelievers and themselves never baptized in Infancy that 's not the Point you are now to speak to Nor have we any Controversie about it Certainly you are none of the fittest Persons