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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

a Righteousness of his own in the way of doing was pleased to revive the Law of Nature as to its matter in the Sinai Dispensation which was 430 Years after the first Promise had been renewed and further opened unto Abraham of whose Seed Christ should come and this he did not in opposition to the Promise but in subserviency thereto Gal. 3. 21. And though the matter and substance of the Law of Nature be found in the Sinai Covenant strictly taken for the Ten Commandments yet the Ends and Intentions of God in that terrible Sinai Dispensation were two-fold 1. To convince Fallen Man of the sinfulness and impotency of his Nature and the impossibility of obtaining Righteousness by the Law and so by a blessed necessity to shut him up to Christ his only Remedy And 2. To be a standing Rule of Duty both towards God and Man to the end of the World But if we take the Sinai Covenant more largely as inclusive of the Ceremonial with the Moral Law as it is often taken and is so by you in the New Testament then it did not only serve for a Conviction of Impotency and a Rule of Duty but exhibited and taught much of Christ and the Mysteries of the New Covenant in those its Ceremonies wherein he was prefigured to them 5. Whence it evidently appear that the Sinai Covenant was neither repugnant to the New Covenant in its scope and aim The law is not against the promise Gal. 3. 21. nor yet set up as co-ordinate with it with a design to open two different ways of Salvation to Fallen Man but was added to the Promise in respect of its Evangelical purposes and designs on which account it is call'd by some a Covenant of Faith or Grace in respect of its subserviency unto Christ who is the end of the Law for righteousness Rom. 10. 4. and by others a Subservient Covenant according to Gal. 3. 23 24. and accordingly we find both Tables of the Law put into the Ark Heb. 9. 4. which shews their Consistency and Subordination with and to the method of Salvation by Christ in the New Covenant 6. This design and intention of God was fatally mistaken by the Jews ever since God promulg'd that Law at Sinai and was by them notoriously perverted to a quite contrary end to that which God promulged it for even to give Righteousness and Life in the way of personal and perfect Obedience Rom. 10. 3. for they being ignorant of Gods righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God Hence Christ came to be slighted by them and his righteousness rejected for they rested in the Law Rom. 2. 17. were married to the Law as an Husband Rom. 7. 2 3. and so might have no Conjugal Communion with Christ. However Moses Abraham and all the Elect discerned Christ as the end of the Law for righteousness and were led to him thereby 7ly This fatal Mistake of the Use and Intent of the Law is the ground of those seeming Contradictions in Paul's Epistles Sometimes he magnifies the Law when he speaks of it according to Gods end and purpose in its Promulgation Rom. 7. 12 14 16. but as it was fatally mistaken by the Jews and set in opposition to Christ so he thunders against it calls it a ministration of Death and Condemnation and all its appendent Ceremonies weak and beggarly elements and by this distinction whatsoever seems repugnant in Paul's Epistles may be sweetly reconciled and 't is a distinction of his own making 1 Tim. 1. 8. We know that the Law is good if we use it lawfully There is a good and an evil use of the Law Had you attended these things you had not so confidently and inconsiderately pronounced it a pure Covenant of Works II Position Secondly you affirm with like Confidence That the Covenant of Circumcision is also the same viz. The Covenant of Works made with Adam in Paradise This I utterly deny and will try whether you have any better Success in the Proof of your second than you had in your first Position and to convince you of your mistake let us consider what the general nature of this Ordinance of Circumcision was what its ends were and then prove that it cannot be what you affirm it to be the very same Covenant God made with Adam before the Fall but must needs be a Covenant of Grace 1. Circumcision in its general Nature was 1. an Ordinance of God's own Institution in the 99th year of Abraham's Age at which time of its Institution God renewed the Covenant with him Gen. 17. 9 10. 2. That it consisted as all Sacraments do of an external Sign and a Spiritual Mystery signified thereby The external part of it which we call the Sign was the cutting off the Foreskin of the Genital part of the Hebrew Males on the eighth Day from their Birth The Spiritual Mystery thereby signified and represented was the cutting off the Filth and Guilt of Sin from their Souls by Regeneration and Justification called the Circumcision of the heart Deut. 10. 16. And though this was laid upon them by the Command as their Duty yet a gracious Promise of Power from God to perform that Duty was added to the Command Deut. 30. 6. The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart to love him c. just as Promises of Grace in the New Testament are added to commands of Duty 3. Betwixt this outward visible Sign and Spiritual Mystery there was a Sacramental Relation from which Relation it is called the Token of the Covenant Gen. 17. 12. The Sign and Seal of the Covenant Rom. 4. 11. yea the Covenant it self Acts 7. 8. 2. Next let us consider the ends for which Circumcision was instituted and ordained of God of which these were the Principal 1. It was instituted to be a convictive Sign of their natural Corruption propagated by the way of natural Generation For which reason this natural Corruption goes in Scripture under the name of the Uncircumcision of the heart 〈◊〉 9. 26. 2. It also signified the putting off of this Body of Sin in the vertue of Christ's Death Col. 2. 11. 3. It was appointed to be the initiating Sign of the Covenant or a token of their Matriculation and Admission into the Church and Covenant of God Gen. 17. 9 10 11. 4. It was ordained to be a discriminating Mark betwixt God's Covenanted People and the Pagan World who were Strangers to the Covenant and without God in the World And accordingly both Parties were from this Ordinance denominated the Circumcision and the Uncircumcision Col. 3. 11. 5. It was also an obliging Sign to Abraham and his Seed to walk with God in the Uprightness and Sincerity of their Hearts in the performance of all covenanted Duties in which Duties Abraham and the Faithful wa●…ked Obedientially with God looking to Christ for Righteousness but the carnal Jews resting in and trusting to

and the Supposition of such an Opinion of it and design in it for in it self and with respect to Gods design in the Institution of it it was to be a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith Rom. 4. 11. and so it was an excellent useful instructive Ordinance to all Believers as long as the Ceremonial Law stood and even when it was expiring as the Gospel began to open more and more clearly there was yet some kind of Toleration of it to such as were born of Jewish Parents Thus Paul himself circumcised Timothy his Mother being a Jewess Acts 16. 1 3. but Titus being a Greek was not circumcised and that because of these false Teachers that would make an ill use of that their Liberty Gal. 2. 3 4. this Paul could never have done in case Circumcision in the nature of the act had bound Timothy to keep the Law for Justification By which it appears that the action in its own nature did not oblige to the keeping of the whole Law but from the Intention of the Agent and therefore as the Apostle rightly argues if a Man be circumcised with this design to be justified by it he would thereby bind himself to the whole Law and frustrate the Death of Christ to himself but it was now to have its Funeral with all other parts of the Ceremonial Law which vanish'd and were accomplished in the Death of Christ and it falling out that such a vile use was made of it at that time the Apostle thus thunders against it Had this been observed as also the like abuse of the Moral Law you would have known how to have reconciled the Apostles Encomiums of them both with his sharp Invectives against the one and the other But being Ignorant of these two great and necessary Distinctions of the Law according to Gods Intention in the Promulgation of it at Sinai and the carnal Jews Sense of it as a pure Covenant of works against which the Apostle so sharply inveighs in the places by you cited all your 23 Arguments from Page 183. to Page 187. fall to the Ground at one stroke your Medius Terminus having one sense in your Major Proposition and another in your Minor and so every Argument hath four Terms in it as will easily be evinced by the particular consideration of the respective places from whence you draw them So in like manner in your arguing here against Circumcision as a Bond to keep the whole Law and as such vacating the Death of Christ is a stumble at the same stone not distinguishing as you ought to have done betwixt an Obligation arising out of the nature of the work and out of the end and intention of the Workers and this every learned and judicious Eye will easily discern But we proceed to Argument IV. That which in its direct and primary end teacheth Man the Corruption of his Nature by Sin and the Mortification of Sin by the Spirit of Christ cannot be a condition of the Covenant of works but so did Circumcision in the very direct and primary end of it This Ordinance supposeth the Fall of Man points to the Means and Instruments of his Sin and Misery and also to the Remedy thereof by Christ. 1. It singles out that Genital part by which original Sin was propagated Gen. 17. 11. Psalm 51. 5. to this the Sign of the Covenant is applied in Circumcision for the Remission of Sins past and the Extirpation of Sin for the future 2. Therefore it was instituted of God that Men might see both the necessity and true way of Mortifying their Lusts in the vertue of Christ's Death and Resurrection whereof Baptism that succeeds it is a Sign now as Circumcision was then as is plain from Col. 2. 11 12. In whom also ye are circumcised with the Circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the Sins of the Flesh by the Circumcision of Christ buried with him in Baptism wherein also ye are risen with him through the Faith of the operation of God who raised him from the dead 'T is clear then that Circumcision directed Men to the Death and Resurrection of Christ as the true and only means of mortifying their Lusts and if it did so sure it was not the Covenant of Works for that gives Fallen Man no hint of a remedy 3. It was also a discriminating Sign or Token betwixt the Church and the World God's People and the Heathens who were accordingly denominated from it the Circumcision and the Uncircumcision the Holy Seed and the Gentiles And now under the New Testament the Children of Abraham by Faith and the Children of the Flesh. This also shews it cannot be the Covenant of Works for in that Covenant all are equally and alike concluded under Sin and Misery Ephes. 2. 3. and there is no difference made by that Covenant betwixt Person and Person State and State If this be not enough to evince that the Covenant of Circumcision is a Covenant of Grace I promise you many more Arguments to prove it as soon as I shall find these refuted and your contrary Assertion well discharged from the gross Absurdities with which it is clog'd and loaded You see how genuine natural and congruous to Scripture the notion of it as a Covenant of Grace is and all the World may see how harsh alien and repugnant to Scripture your Notion of Circumcision as a Covenant of Works is You see into what Boggs you are again driven in defence of your Opinion Exemp gra That Circumcision is a part of the Ceremonial Law which was dedicated with Blood and therefore could be no ●…art of the Moral Law or Ten Commandments which was say you the Co●…enant of Works and yet that it is of ●…he same nature and that it 's clear 〈◊〉 is no other than a Covenant of Works Don't you there distinguish and confound all again blame and check Mr. Sedgwick without Cause and commit a greater Absurdity presently than you charged him with Don't you question whether that Covenant that was typically sealed by Blood was sealed by Christs Blood Pray Sir consider where-ever God commands typical Blood to be applyed it relates to Christs Blood Spiritually apply'd or to nothing Are not you forced in defence of your erroneous Thesis to say with Bellarmine That Circumcision was extraordinary in its Institution and applyed as a Seal to none but Abraham himself it excluded even Isaac the Type of Christ and Jacob a Prince with God O what will not Men venture upon in defence of their darling Opinions Are you not forced for your Security from the danger of the Third Argument to cut one and the same Covenant made with Abraham just in two and of the pure promissory part to make a Covenant of Grace and of the other part which you your self call a Restipulation to make another quite opposite Covenant Don't you magnifie the Bounty and Grace of God to Abraham in the first four Verses and then destroy it

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

Covenant of Works whose Terms or Condition is do this and live and the Promise or Gospel whose Condition is Believe and thou shalt be saved are not specifically different but only gradually in point of Strength and Weakness and the Reason you give is as strange that this comes to pass through the satisfaction of Christ. Good Sir enlighten us in this rare Notion Did Christ die to purchase a Reconciliation betwixt the Covenant of Works as such and the Covenant of Grace as if both were now by the Death of Christ agreed and to be justified by Works and by Faith should after Christ's Death make no Odds or Disserence between them If it be so why have you kept such a coil to prove Moses's and Adam's Covenant yea Abraham's too being Covenant of Works can never consist or mingle with the Gospel-Covenant And then I say you contradict the Apostle who so directly opposes the Covenant of Works as such to the Covenant of Grace and tells us they are utterly inconsistent and exclusive of each other and this he spake after Christ's Death and actual satisfaction But 4. That which more amazes me is the strange Answer you give to Mr. Sedgwick Page 132 133. in your return to his Argument That if the Law and the Promise can consist then the Law cannot be set up as a Covenant of Works You answer That the Law and the Promise having divers ends it doth not thence follow that there is an inconsistence betwixt them and that the Law even as it is a Covenant of Works instead of being against the Promise tends to the Establishment of it And Page 133. That by convincing Men of the Impossibility of obtaining Rest and Peace in themselves and the necessity of betaking themselves to the Promise c. the Law is not against the Promise having so Blessed a Subserviency towards the Establishment thereof Here you own a Subserviency yea a Blessed Subserviency of the Law to the Promise which is that Mr. Sedgwick and my self have urged to prove it cannot be so as it is a pure Adam's Covenant but that therefore it must come under another Consideration only here we differ you say it hath a Blessed Subserviency to the Promise as it is the same with Adam's Covenant we say it can never be so as such but as it is either a Covenant of Grace though more obscure as he speaks or though the matter of it should be the same with Adam's Covenant yet it is subserviently a Covenant of Grace as others speak and under no other Consideration can it be reconciled to the Promise But will you stand to this that the Law hath no Hostile Contradiction to the Promise but a Blessed Subserviency to it as you speak Page 173. where you say That if we preach up the Law as a Covenant of Life or a Covenant of Faith and Grace which are equipollent Terms let us distinguish as we please between a Covenant of Grace Absolutely aud Subserviently such then we make an ill use of the Law by perverting it to such a Service as God never intended it for and are guilty of mingling Law and Gospel Life and Death together Reply Here Sir my Understanding is perfectly posed and I know not how to make any tolerable Orthodox Sense out of this Position Is the Law preached up as a pure Covenant of Works that is pressing Men to the personal and punctual Obedience of it in order to their Justification by Works no way repugnant to the Promise but altogether so when preached in Subserviency to Christ and Faith This is new Divinity with me and I believe must be so to every Intelligent Reader Don't I oppose the Promise when I preach up the Law as a pure Covenant of Works which therefore as such must be Exclusive of Christ and the Promise and do I oppose either when I tell Sinners the Terrors of the Law serve only to drive them to Christ their only Remedy who is the end of the Law for Righteousness to every one that Believeth Rom. 10. 4. are Works and Grace more consistent than Grace with Grace Explain your meaning in this Paradoxical Expression and leave not your self and others in such a Maze I read Gal. 3. 19. for what end God published the Law 430 years after the Promise was made to Abraham and find it was added because of Transgression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was put to not set up by it self alone as a distinct Cov●… nant but added as an Appendix to the Covenant of Grace whence it is plain that God added the Sinai Law to the Promise with Evangelical ends and Purposes If then I preach the Law to the very same Evangelical Uses and Purposes for which God added it to the Promise do I therein make an ill use of the Law and mingle Life and Death together But preaching it as a pure Covenant of Works as it holds forth Justification to Sinners by Obedience to its Precepts do I then make it blessedly subservient as you speak to the Promise or Covenant of Grace The Law was added because of Transgression that is to restrain Sin in the World and to convince Sinners under guilt of the necessity of another Righteousness than their own even that of Christ and for the same ends God added it to the Promise I always did and still shall Preach it and I am perswaded without the least danger of mingling Law and Gospel Life and Death together in your Sense 'T is plain to me that in the Publication of the Law on Sinai God did not in the least intend to give them so much 〈◊〉 a Direction how to obtain Justification ●…y their most punctual Obedience to its Precepts that being to Fallen Man utterly impossible and beside had he promulged the Law to that end and purpose he had not added it but directly opposed it to the Promise which its manifest he did not Gal. 3. 21. Is the law then against the promise of God God forbid And ver 18. makes it appear that had it been set up to that end and purpose it had utterly disannulled the Promise for if the inheritance be of the law it is no more by promise What then can be clearer than that the Law at Sinai was published with gracious Gospel-ends and purposes to lead Men to Christ which Adam's Covenant had no respect nor reference to and therefore it can never be a pure Adam's Covenant as you falsly call it neither is it capable of becoming a pure Covenant of Works to any Man but by his own Fault in rejecting the Righteousness of Christ and seeking Justification by the works of the Law as the mistaken carnal Jews did Rom. 10. 3. and other legal Justiciaries now do And upon this account only it is that Paul who so highly praises the Law in its subserviency to Christ thunders so dreadfully against it as it is thus set by ignorant mistaken Souls in direct Opposition to Christ. 5ly And