Covenant of grace a Ro 4.11 Ge 17.7.10 immediately instituted of God b Mat â—8 19 1 Cor 11. to represent Christ and his benefits to confirme our interest in him c 1 Cor 10 16. 1 Co 11.23 25 26. Gal 3 17. as also to put a visible difference between those that belong unto the Church and the rest of the world d Ro 15.8 Exo 12.48 Gen 34 14 and solemnly to engage them to the service of God in Christ according to his word e Ro 6.3.4 1 Cor 10.16.21 II. There is in every Sacrament a spiritual relation or sacramental vnion between the sign and the thing signified whence it comes to pass that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other f Gen 27.10 Matth. 26.27 28. Titns 3.5 III. The grace which is exhibited in or by Sacraments rightly used is not conferred by any power in them neither doth the efficacy of a Sacrament depend upon the piety or intention of him that doth administer it g Rom 2.28 29. 1 Pet. 3.21 but upon the work of the Spirit h Mat. 3.11 1 Cor 12.13 and the word of institution which contains together with a precept an authorizing the use thereof a promise of benefit to worthy receives i Mat 26.27 28. Mat 28.19 20. IV. There be onely two Sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel that is to say Baptism and the Supper of the Lord neither of which may be dispensed of any but by a minister of the word lawfully ordained k Mat. 28.19 1 Cor. 11.20 23. 1 Cor 4.1 Heb 5.4 V. The Sacraments of the Old Testament in regard of the Spiritual things thereby signified and exhibited were for substance the same with those of the new l 1 Cor 10.1 2 3 4. CHAP. XXVII Of the Sacraments in General examined IN this your general Doctrine of the Sacraments you have in a general manner kept the road of truth though here and there you deviate following your misleading guides but first we allow you the retention and use of the word Sacrament though not found in the Scriptures because the thing thereby signifyed is frequent there and the term hath not onely been long retained in the Church but was at the first borrowed from a military oath obligeing the Souldier to obedience and faithfulness towards their general to express our like oligations to God and his Christ Then as to your several Sections we take no acceptions at all to your second but must crave leave to certifie you somewhat in most of the other As first in the first Section where you setting forth the ends of the Sacraments do put that in the last place which was the first and principal end of their institution that is solemnly to engage men to the service of God in Christ for it is evident that Circumcision was ordained for that end mainly Gen. 17.10 This is the Covenant which you shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee that every man child among you shall be circumcised Deut. 10.16 Circumcise therefore the fore-skin of your heart and be no more stiff-necked Jer. 4.4 Circumcise your selves to the Lord and take away the fore skin of your bearts ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem the like we finde written concerning the Passover Exod. 12.17 And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread for in this self-same day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt therefore shall ye observe this day in your generatious for ever 1 Cor. 5.8 Therefore let us keep the feast not with the old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth And as the Sacraments of the Old so those of the New Testament are instituted to instruct us in duty also Hence Baptism is called the Baptism of Repentance Mark 1.4 And Christ in the institution of the Lords supper saith do ye this in remembrance of me 1 Cor. 11.24 and verse 26. As oft as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup shew ye the Lords death till his coming viz. That spiritual coming which he promised John 14.19.23 Howbeit we do not deny but that spiritual benefits are to be expected in the performance of these duties so the repentance taught by Baptism hath remission of sins annexed to it Mark 1.4 and the spiritual body and blood of Christ of which we shall have occasion to speak in the 29. chapter are in the Sacraments of the Lords Supper assured to those that are mindful of his death and suffer with him in resisting temptations by which they are enabled to hold out and overcome when they are tempted but these benefits are signified and sealed unto us but conditionally and in the second place onely Your third use of that distinction between the people of God and the world we also allow but you have omitted one main end which the Lord had in instituting the Sacraments which was thus even by degrees to build up his Tabernacles of righteousness that was fallen down to wit the first part of it in Circumcision the second in the Passover as also in the Lords Supper and the third in his breathing upon his Disciples and saying unto them Receive ye the Holy Ghost John 20 22. For which last end both the feast of weeks in the Old Testament and Baptism in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost were instituted in the new especially that third part of Baptism Secondly Whereas you say in your third Section That the efficacy of a Sacrament doth not depend at all upon the piety and good intention of him that doth administer it you therein speak very unadvisedly For wheras the efficacy of a Sacrament is either obligement unto duty or the assurance of grace and help are not both obstructed by him that administers it if he be ignorant and not able to declare the Mystery of the Sacrament or if he administers the same in a profane and absurd manner or to other ends then it is ordained for or being a wicked person hath his prayers for efficacy rejected And on the contrary do not the spiritual abilities of the Minister his piety and fervent payers conduce much both to the edifying of the people in that service and the drawing down a blessing upon himself and them therein Thirdly Though we must grant you in the fourth Section that there are but two proper and compleat Sacraments in the New Testament yet there are many as it were semi Sacraments to be found there which are holy signes instituted by God in the time of the Gospel or before of which some represent our duties some the grace of God and some both such is the washing and wiping of the Disciples feet John 13.4 15. Secondly The anointing with oyl such as were sick and to be healed by the Disciples and Elders of the Church Mark 6.13 And they cast
unto us a spiritual verticum wereby we may be inabled to keep a spiritual Passover with him from death to life and become the more strengthened to follow him in his like sufferings and death and so to be better armed and fortified against all encounters of the enemy Thus was the sacrifices of the Old Testament accompanied with a meat offering and drink offering to shew that we must be furnished with the body and blood of Christ to help us in the sacrificing and offering up our spiritual sacrifice of sin Thus Melchizedek met Abraham when he was weary and faint with his late fight and brought him bread and wine to revive and strengthen him Thus furnished we ought to remember and shew forth the Lords death till his comming to us in the spirit 1 Cor. 11.23 26. and by eating of this one bread we also become one bread or flesh or bread with Christ and each other as St. Paul speaks 1 Cor. 10.16 and so this Sacrament without all controversie was ordained as you speak afterwards to oblige us unto duty and to further our communion with Christ and with each other that we may be made one bread and one body with him and in him yet not in your sens or way but as St Paul speaks 1 Cor 10.16 17. by being all made pertakers of one bread to wit his word and 1 Coâ— 12.13 by being all made to drink into one spirit as before it was shewed at large In your second Section you truely say That in this Sacrament Christ is not offered up to his Father as a sacrifice for the quick and the dead but Christ here offereth himself in his Mystical flesh and blood as a true meat offering and drink offering to his true beleevers and followers nor is it advisedly said of you there That at or in this Sacrament there is no real sacrifice at all made beside the commemoration of his own offering of himself with all possible praise to God for the same for in the right celebration of this Supper we ought to offer up both the sacrifices of a broken and contrite heart Psal 51.17 and to sacrifice the remainder of our sins as our daily offering in the holy of Gods Tabernacle in true conformity to Christ and through the help of his spiritual flesh and blood 1 Pet. 4.1 2. yet it is Christ himself and not his sacrifice that is the alone propitiation for all men John 12.1.2 In your third Section you set forth some of the duties of the person who is to administer this Sacrament truly but you have omitted the many parts of his office which are to declare the time and ends of its institution with the holy mysteries which it signifies and to stir up the people to lay hold of these benefits and to follow Christ unto the death with sutable prayers and thanksgivings In your fourth Section you truly affirm That the Priest or Minister should not observe or take this Sacrament alone and that he should communicate in both kindes to the true beleevers and followers of Christ and you do not without cause deny pompous elevations of and processions with the host for adoration sake and other superstitious reservations and abuses of the bread or host In your fifth you mistake much saying That the Elements in their signification have relation to Christ crucified as we have shewed before Yet it is true that the names of the Elements are attributed to the body and blood of Christ which they are designed to represent but the predication is Sacramental as you speak and lies in the verbe substantive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much as doth signifie est for significat as Gen. 41.25 26 27. and Gen. 50.12 18. It is likewise true which you there affirm That the Elements even after consecration remain for nature and substance bread and wine still In your sixth Section you justly tax and refute the Doctrine of Popish transubstantiation and might have reproved the consubstantiation of the Lutherans also upon good grounds but if that those terms or phrases were used to teach us that we must be spiritually consubstantiated with Christs body and blood aforesaid or transubstantiated into the same it might pass in a good sense of spiritual conformity In your seventh Section you comfort your selves and your worthy receivers with vain words and hopes concerning the presence not real only but spiritual also of that body and blood of Christ which were never signified by this Sacrament so that herein the Papists Lutherans and Calvinists do litigate de lanâ— Caprina and do not once discern which are the spiâ—itual flesh and blood of Christ there intended In your last Section you say That in this Sacrament persons ignorant of the mystery though made pertakers of the outward Elements yet they receive not the things therby signified wherein you speak truly though the speech laies hold on your selves among others but it is a question whether all that come ignorantly to this Sacrament be guilty of the body and blood of Christ we for our parts hope many are not neither doth it seem consonant to reason that all wicked or unworthy receivers that are pertakers of the Elements though they sin in coming uncalled or unprepared to this ordinance should at that time be guilty of the true body and blood of Christ which perhaps they never understood but all they that esteem not aright of the body and blood of Christ when truly offered unto them and rightly understood are guilty of the profaining of the same and much more if they by Apostacy turn therefrom as we heard before Hebr. 10.29 CHAP. XXX Of Church censures THE Lord Jesus as King and Head of his Church hath therein appointed a Government in the hand of Church Officers distinct from the Civil Magistrate a Isa 9.6 7. 1 Tim 5 17. acts 20 27 28. Heb 13.7 17 24 1 cor 12.18 Mat 28 18 19 20. II. To these Officers the keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven are committed by vertue whereof they have power respectively to retain and remit sins to shut that Kingdom against the impenitent both by the word and censures and to open it unto the penitent sinners by the mystery of the Gospel and by absolution from censures as occasion shall require b Mat. 16.19 Mat 18 17 18. Ioh 20 20 21 22 23. 2 cor 1.6 7 8. III. Church censures are necessary for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren for deterring of others from the like offences for purging out of that leaven which might infect the whole lump for vindicating the honour of Christ and the holy profession of the Gospel and for preventing the wrath of God which might justly fall upon the Church if they should suffer his Covenant and the seals thereof to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders c 1 Cor 5. chapter 1 Tim 5.20 Mat 7.6 1 Tim. 1 20 1 Cor 11.27
cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his fight Where you may take these things into consideration First Whom he reconcileth All the members of the Church who are regenerate Secondly From what from the enmity in their minds whereby they are set upon wicked works Thirdly Where through the spiritual blood of the Covenant or the spirit of grace which is called the blood of his cross because it is then sent unto us and poured down upon us when we are upon the cross with him and suffer with him not yeelding unto temptations Fourthly That Christ is said to be still doing of that work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly In what way as a precedent for us he hath done it to wit in the body of his flesh through death as these ensuing Scriptures shew 2 Tim. 2.11 12. 'T is a faithful saying for if we be dead with him we shall also live with him if we suffer wiâ—h him we shall also raign with him see Rom. 6.8 But that it is unpossible to have reconcilement and communion with God unless it be in such a way the Apostle witnesses likewise 1 John 1.5 6 7. This then is the message we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darknesâ— we lye and haue not the truth But if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all Sin Thus far of Christ's spiritual and true reconciling us unto God which is then perfected and consummate when besides the slaying of the enmity aforesaid he hath made us in all things of one spirit with the Father For which unity and reconcilement he prayeth John 17.21 That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us Now for the purchasing of an everlasting inheritance for us eternal life is the free gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 8.23 And as the Father hath it in his hand to bestow so it is in the Sons gift likewise and consequently as it seems to us he needs not to purchase it But if you will call the fulfilling of that way and process whereby the faln man must attain it the way race of obedience aforesaid a purchasing of it it is by the inward and spiritual obedience of Christ especially that we attain Heb. 10.36 For ye have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God ye may receive the promise Howbeit his outward passive obedience was requisite thereunto without which as we could not be delivered from the curse so neither could we come to inherit life By this you see we stand in need of an inward and spiritual mediation from Christ aswel as that outward of which alone you here speak Nor can we partake of the benefit of the outward till qualified and prepared first thereunto by the work of the inward In your Sixth Section you proclaim your great ignorance or small regard of our great and most necessary redemption from the power of sin and Satan saying That the work of redemption was not actually wrought till after Christs incarnation For were not the fathers before and after the flood with the Prophets and other holy Saints in the Old Testament in their respective times spiritually saved and redeemed by Christ And much more doth that great secret of the Father's sparing and forbearing us along time for his Sons sake who in patience and meekness hath been led as a lamb to the slaughter and the end of whose long sufferance in us is salvation as St. Peter speaks Epist 2 3. Chap. 15. seem to be hidden from you Yet here you grant some truths at unawares as that Christ is the promised enmity against sin who must break the Serpents head and consequenly that his power and Kingdom must be within us where Satan is to be trodden down Rom. 16.20 You grant also that he is the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world But whereas you add for a proof thereof out of Hebr. 13.9 That Christ is the same yesterday and to day and for ever That speakes of his immutable Deity and not of his humanity though now made unchangeable Yet this we say brethren ere we leave this Section that you hold forth a very lame and imperfect redeemer which which hath indeed redeemed us by his death from the curse of the Law when our iniquities are put away from us but who must redeem us from all our corruptionsâ— who must save and deliver us out of the hand of all our enemies who must inable us to keep and fulfil the Law of God who must renew the Image of God in us Is not the true Christ made of God unto us wisdom righteousness and sanctification as well as redemption 1 Cor 1.30 In your Seventh Section As we grant it to be true that Christ in the entire office of a Mediator acteth according to both natures joyntly or severally as occasion requires doing by each that which is proper to its self so perhaps it may be granted that sometimes in the Scriptures by reason of the unity of the person that which is proper to one nature is attributed to the person denominated by the other Howbeit the places to which you refer us do not prove so much for that of Acts the 20.28 It s true First of Christ in the Godhead that he hath purchased his Church with his own blood having redeemed it from the power of Satan by his Spirit Secondly To that of John 3.13 it may be said that as Christ is spiritually born in us he is the Son of man which comes from Heaven and is or dwells in the heavenly being Finally To 1 John 3.16 It may be truly answered that Christ the Son of God hath laid down his life for us while he died in us to keep off the deserved wrath of God from us and to preserve us from the death threatned in the Law as also to set us an example how we may in following him overcome sin and recover life again we seeking his grace and help thereunto In your eighth and last Section being like checquer-work you have black as well as white errour as well as truth where your first affirmation That Christ doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate his redemption to all those for whom he hath purchased it will prove false in what sense soever it be taken For first If we here understand Christ's outward redemption as you undoubtedly do that being made for
contradict your selves in other places yet you have here and there your illegalities and mistakes also in this Chapter In your first Section you truly say That God gave to Adam and all his Posterity such a Law and covenant of works as you describe with power and ability to keep it And is he not the same God still in wisdom mercy and justice requiring nothing at any mans hand but what he will enable him to doe by his preventing or assisting grace if hee seek it In your second Section you say and that truly That the Law given to Adam being the same in effect with the Moral Law delivered upon mount Sinai continued to be a perfect rule of Righteousnesse Nor must the Israel of God think to obtrude upon the Lord any other acceptable righteousnesse for ever then is therein required and described Deut. 6.24 25. And the Lord commanded us to doe all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good alwayes that he might preserve us alive as it is this day And it shall be our righteousness if we observe to doe all these Commandments before The Lord our God as he hath commanded us Psalm 119.144 the righteousnesse of his testimonies is everlasting For the performing of which righteousnesse because it was become impossible to the fallen Man Christ is freely bestowed upon us Rom. 8.3 4. And so it is the end and drift of the law to send us unto Christ to seek our power wisdom and righteousnes from him Rom. 10.4 Gal. 3.22 23 24. But whereas you say in the end of that Section That the four first Commandments contain our duty toward God and the six last our duty to Man Perhaps it will prove a distribution more common then sound For as the whole Law is spirituall Rom. 7.14 so it seems first to require duty toward God in all the ten Commandments and then to call for Service toward men in the second place For the first four Commandments which St Augustine and some of the Ancients reduce to three only your selves doe not deny it Let us then take a view of the rest Doth not the fifth Commandment enjoyn us first of all to honour our heavenly Father and the Wisdom or Hierusalem from above our spirituall Mother 1 Sam. 2.20 For them that honour me I will honour Mal. 1.6 If I then be a Father where is mine honour Matth. 11.19 But Wisdome is justified of her children so Luke 7.35 Gal. 4.26 But Jerusalem which is from above is free which is the Mother of us all Prov. 7.4 Say unto Wisdom thou art my Sister and call understanding thy Kinswoman Doth not the sixth Commandement forbid spiritual murther in the first place to wit the killing of Christ the quenching of the Spirit and the destroying of the inward messengers and motions Jam. 5.6 Ye have condemned and killed the just one and he resisteth you not Eph. 4.30 And grieve not the holy Spirit 1 Thess 5.19 Quench not the Spirit Thus the Apostles complaines of the Apostates that they crucifie afresh the Son of God and put him to an open shame Heb. 6.6 Doth not the seventh Commandement first prohibite spiritual whoredom against God Hos 4.15 Though thou Israel play the harlot yet let not Judah offend Jam. 4.4 Yee adulterers and adulteresses c. Doth not the eighth precept first restrain us from theft and robbery against God Malac. 3.8 Will a man rob God but ye have robbed me Rom. 2.22 Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit sacriledge See Act. 12.22 in Herods example Doth not the ninth also first inhibit a false testimony against the Lord Jeremy 5.12 They have belyed the Lord and said it is not he 1 Cor. 15.15 Yea and we are found false witnesses of God c. Yea though the tenth commandement may seem to lay restraint upon us only in the behalf of our neighbor yet who hath so neer vicinity to us as God in whom we live move and have our being so that not only an open these against him in taking that which belongs to him as Achon did but even to assume or once desire that which belongs unto the Lord is impious as we see in Herod who took and consequently affected the glory that was due to God Acts 12.22 23. Nor doth the Lord want a house Isa 56.7 Mat. 21.12 13 14. Nor is he destitute of a wife Ezek. 16.8 And I sware unto thee and entered into a Covenant with thee saith the Lord and thou becamest mine See Re. 2. or of men servants and maid servants Psa 116.16 Truly O Lord I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid Nor is he without his Oxen and Asses 2 Cor. 9.10 Mat. 21.1 2 3 4 5. which if they be alienated from him in our desires it is a sin of concupiscence-against the last Commandement So that it is most true in this regard which Saint James speaks chap. 2.10 For whosoever shall keep the whole low and yet offendeth in one point is guilty of all for any one sin against God breaks all the Commandements It is Idolatry witcheraft murther adultery c. 1 Samuel 5.15.23 And as the six last first oppose sin against God so the four first in the second place restrain sins against man Thus we may not impose a false God upon our neighbor nor set up a false worship before him nor swear falsly to his hurt nor by prophaning the Lords Sabbath or everlasting rest before our neighbor insnare his soul And what we speak of the negativepart is true of the affirmative or possitive throughout all the Commandements so that the great duty of love to God and our neighbor seems to run through the veins of every Commandement And as these two are inseperable in the new creature so the whole Law by the Apostles own Testimony is fulfilled in this one Commandement Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self Rom. 13.8 Gal. 5.14 which cannot hold true except the Lord be our first neighbor who is to be loved in the first place and surely if we should not offer that wrong to God which we would not admit were we in his stead we should not sin as we do In your third Section you set not forth the whole extent of the Ceremonial Law which was to represent Christs inward death and sufferings as well as his outward He being the Lamb slain in us from the foundation of the world Rev. 13.8 and to be a document unto us shewing how we must follow him unto eternal life Howbeit you seem to go too far in saying It is wholly abrogated now under the new Testament for though the costly and burthensome yoke thereof is taken from the Gentiles yet some part of it by the words of the Prophets may remaine in use among the Jews after their calling and restauration Isa 66.23 And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another shall all flesh come to worship before