of God's Will to Men. In Deuteronomy he left it thus written And the Lord said unto me I will raise them up a Prophet from among their Brethren like unto thee and I will put my Word in his Mouth and he shall speak unto them those things which I shall command him And whosoever shall not hear those things which that Prophet shall speak in my Name I will punish him for it God declared even by the Law giver himself that he would send his own Son that is a Living and Present Law and would abrogate that Old Law given by a Mortal Man that he might by him who should be Eternal again Confirm and Ratifie the Eternal Law Thus he and whoever is acquainted with the Writings of Lactantius may I think easily perceive that by the Eternal Law he meant the Everlasting Gospel or Covenant and Law of Grace which the Eternal Christ hath Confirmed and Ratified by his Blood shedding and Death This may appear yet clearer to some Persons from Matth. 17.5 And behold a Voice out of the Cloud which said This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him Where again We have 1. A Supernatural Revelation of Christ as the Son of God 2. We have a positive Command of God to hear him that is to believe on him and obey him as the word hear signifies according to the Hebrew idiom Now this Voice out of the Cloud was not the Voice of the Law of Nature but of the Father as such speaking by supernatural Revelation nor was this a Command of the Law of Nature but it was a positive Command of God as the Authour of Grace which positive Command recorded in Scripture is to us Christians a positive Law whatever it be to Unbelievers It is a positive Law which obliges us to Faith in Christ by the Evidence of Supernatural Revelation applying the Veracity and Authority of God to our Consciences Such it was to Melancthon one of our first Reformers who often hath recourse to it as a Command of the Gospel distinct from the Natural Moral Law Particularly he hath recourse to it twice in his Answer to the 22th Article of the Bavarian Inquisition And as the foresaid Supernatural Revelations carryed in them a Positive Command expresly so the first obscurer Revelation of that kind that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents Head Gen. 3.15 implyed the like Positive Command to believe in Christ to come though it be not so express in the first Written Record as it is conveyed down to us We have no ground to believe that God said not one word more to our First Parents after the Fall than what we find expresly written in the Third of Genesis And suppose he did not say one word more as on the other hand no Man can prove that he did Yet there is a Promise of Mercy to be shewed unto Fallen Man by means of the Seed of the Woman as is confest Now Melancthon has told us as he was quoted before That (m) Quoties igitur de misericordiâ dicitur intelligendum est fidem requiri Melanct. Apol. og pro Aug. Confess p. 116. As often as there is mention made of Mercy to wit saving Mercy by Christ we must understand that Faith is required But I insist not on that It is sufficient to our purpose that we now have a Supernatural clear Revelation of Christ See Acts 16.31 with a clear express positive Command to believe on him and that distinct from the Natural Moral Law And this express positive Command Hear ye him believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved is to us an Evangelical Law which hath more Power over our Consciences than Ten Thousand such little Sophismes set off with a Rhetorical Flourish of Words as are offered us to prove That we are not obliged to believe in Christ for Justification and Salvation by the Gospel Covenant or Law of Grace but only by the Natural Moral Law Thirdly As the Opinion under Consideration is not true because contrary to plain Scripture so it is of worse consequence to Religion than my Reverend Brother seems to be aware of For if there be no Positive Law in the Gospel distinct from the Natural Law which obliges us to Faith in Christ because if there were then the Natural Moral Law would not be perfect and prescribe all Duty nor would God be Infinitely Wise it follows by the same reason that there is no positive Law at all which obligeth us to any other Duty and indeed by this Flacian Opinion he plainly overthrows all Positive Laws and therewith all Instituted Worship And he is mistaken if he think to prevent and remedy this by reducing all to the Natural Moral Law For 1. If there be no Positive Law at all then it can never be reduced to the Natural Moral Law For a thing that is not at all cannot be reduced to a thing that really is 2. The Natural Moral Law would never oblige us to any the least part of Positive Instituted Worship if we were not first in order of Nature obliged to it by the positive Will of God instituting it and by the Institution it self immediately obliging us to the observance of it Once take away the Obligation that arises immediately from the positive Institution and the Law of Nature the Moral Natural Law will never take hold of our Consciences to oblige us thereunto For it is by means of the Special Positive Law that the General Natural Law obliges to such and such particular kind of things which fall not under the Commands of the general Natural Law Is it not very evident that though Adam before he sinned had the Moral Natural Law in its full perfection yet it would never have obliged his Conscience to forbear Eating the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil more than any other Fruit in the Garden of Eden If to the General Natural Law God had not super-added a particular positive Law forbidding him under pain of Death to eat of the Fruit of that Tree So that it was this New Positive Law which first obliged him not to eat of it and then by Vertue of that The Moral Natural Law strictly obliged him likewise not to eat of it And this holds Universally with respect to every thing that depends on the Arbitrary Will of God to make it our Duty or not It is his Positive Law signifying his Will and Pleasure that first obliges us and then by vertue thereof God's General Natural Law obliges us also and not otherwise So that upon this absurd Principle if it should prevail amongst us we must all turn Seventh day-Men and Quakers for we shall never be able to prove by any or all of the Ten Commandments without a Positive Law expresly or implicitly instituting them and still in force That the First Day of the Week is the Christian Sabbath That we ought to be Baptized
Law of Works This was briefly explained and proved in the Apology pag. 200 201. and it might be further confirmed if it were needful But it is not needful because to a Man who knows himself to be a Sinner and understands the Nature of that first Law as every Man of common understanding may do it is self-evident that that Law condemns him to Death for his Sin and that it is simply impossible for him to be justified unto Life by that very Law which every moment condemns him to death And yet it must be confessed that the first Law or Covenant of Works as fortisied with its Promissory Sanction is repeated both in the Old and New Testament where the Scripture saith to Sinful Man Do this and live Levit. 18.5 Rom. 10.5 Gal. 3.12 But we must know that this was Occonomical and Gods design in it was not to oblige any sinful Man to seek or expect Life by his doing the Works of the first Law and Covenant which Promised Life to Man only on condition that he so kept it as never to sin at all nor by Sin to break it But then you will say What was Gods design in it I answer That so far as the Lord hath given me light to see into this matter his design seems to have been 1. By setting before us the form of the First Covenant of Works to recal to our minds what Man once was and what he should still have been That once he was without all Sin and able to have continued so and to have lived for ever by keeping Covenant with God 2. To convince us that now we are all in our Natural State Dead Men by that very Law and Covenant which would have secured Life to us if we had perfectly kept it but now brings us all under the guilt of Death Temporal and Eternal Death because we have broken it 3. To stir us up to confess our Sin and Misery and to put us upon searching Whether God hath in Mercy provided any remedy against our Sin and Misery 4. To make us willing to receive and use the Remedy as soon as God discovers it to us In a word to make us despair of ever obtaining Life by the Works of that Law which condemns us to death for our sins and to make us flee for Refuge unto Christ our Help and Hope as God offers him to us in the New Covenant or Law of Grace 2dly It is to be observed That as soon as any Man takes this course assoon as any Man takes hold of the New Covenant of Grace and heartily and sincerely by Faith closes with and receives Christ and his Righteousness as offered and held forth in the said New Covenant he is instantly acquitted from the guilt of Death he was under for breaking the Law and hath a Right to Life given him only on the account of the Lord Redeemer Christ and his Satisfactory Meritorious Righteousness received and applyed by Faith alone And so he is justifyed by Faith without Works For though Faith in Christ the Mediator be in it self a Heart-work yet it is not the Works of the Law it is not any of those Works which the First Covenant or Law of Works did require to Justification It is neither a Work which the Natural Moral Law by it self immediately required nor yet is it a Work in the Sense of the Law of Works for Works in the sense of that Law and Covenant they signifie that Obedience to the Law whereby a Man in his own person fulsills the Righteousness of the Law and that for which a Man is justified But Faith is not a Work in that Sense for as much as it is no part at all of that Obedience which sulfills the Law and for which a penitent Believer is justified It is only Christs Obedience unto Death even the Death of the Cross for which Believers are justified and Faith is no part of it but is the only instrumental means or receptive applicative condition whereby we come to have interest in it and to be justified by and for it alone 3. It is to be observed that though upon our first taking hold of Gods New Covenant and Law of Grace by Faith we are for Christs sake alone instantly acquitted from the guilt of Death and receive a right to Life yet God hath made it one of the Articles of the new Covenant that according to our time and talents we must afterwards yield sincere Obedience to his several Laws and Institutions both Moral Natural and Positive before we be admitted to full possession of Eternal Life in Heavenly Glory God doth not require this sincere Obedience in order to our being first justified but in order to our being at last glorified And he requires it as a necessary condition to qualifie and prepare us for the full possession of that Heavenly Glory which Christ hath purchased for us and God for Christs sake gives unto us Hence 4. It is to be observed That thus the Moral Natural Law it self comes to be in the hand of Christ the Mediatour of the new Covenant or Law of Grace and to belong to the Gospel so far as that sincere Obedience to it together with all Gods positive Laws and Institutions is made an Article of the Gospel Covenant and a condition necessary to be performed by us before we enjoy the ultimate benefit promised in the said Covenant 5. It is to be observed That we must distinguish carefully betwixt what the Moral Law as to the matter of its Precepts requires of Believers and what it requires as coming under a new ferm that is plainly as cloathed with a new sanction to wit the sanction of the new Covenant In the first sense the Moral Law as to the matter of its Precepts doth still require of all even of Believers a perfect ever sinless Obedience de futuro but there is this vast difference between the case of Believers and Unbelievers that though for every the least disobedience it condemn the Unbeliever yet doth it not nor can it condemn the true penirent Believer who walks not after the Flesh but the Spirit because the Apostle saith There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Rom. 8.1 such are not under the Law not under its condemmng power but under Grace Rom. 6.14 In the second sense the Moral Law formally considered as cloathed with the new Covenant form that is with the sanction of the new Covenant so it requires not of true penitent Believers an ever sinless and most perfect personal perpetual Obedience as a means or condition necessary to qualifie and prepare them for the possession of Eternal Glory but it requires of them or God by it as taken into the Gospel requires of them only sincere Evangelical Obedience perseverance in true Faith and sincere Holiness under that formal consideration as a means or condition necessary to the end aforesaid
Pardon of Sin by Faith in Christs Blood Hence in the same Book he saith (p) Vitam nobis morte acquisivit Christus morte superatâ nulla igitur spes alia consequendae immortalitatis Homini datur nisi crediderit in eum illam crucem portandam patiendamque susceperit Lactant. Divin Institut lib. 4. cap. 19. Christ by his Death hath purchased Life for us having overcome Death therefore Man hath no other ground of hope given him of obtaining Immortality unless he believe in him and take up and patiently bear that Cross to wit of Christ Julius Firmicus also writeth thus (q) Misericordia Dei dives est libenter ignoscit Relictis nonaginta novem ovibus amissam quaerit unam reverso Pater prodigo Filio vestem reddit parat coenam Nulla vos desperare faciat criminum multitudo Deus summus per Filium suum Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum volentes liberat poenitentibus libenter ignoscit nec multa exigit ut ignoscat Fide tantùm poenitentiâ potestis redimere quicquid sceleratis Diaboli persuasionibus perdidistis Julius Firmicus Maternus lib. de errore profan Relig. pag. 11. Edit Oxon. 1678. God 's Mercy is rich he willingly forgives Having left the ninety and nine sheep he seeks the one which was lost And the Father bestows a Garment upon and prepares a Supper for the Prodigal Son when he returns Let not any multitude of your Sins cause you to despair the most high God by his Son Jesus Christ our Lord delivers or redeems those that are willing and willingly forgives the penitent nor doth he require of us many things that he may forgive By Faith and Repentance only ye may recover whatever ye have lest by the wicked perswasions of the Devil The word redimere is not here used by this Antient Authour in a strict and proper but in a large improper sense and signifies to recover as I have translated it And so the word to save is taken largely and improperly in Holy Scripture when Men are said by Christ or his Apostles to save themselves Luke 7.50 Thy faith hath saved thee Acts 2.40 Save your selves from this untoward generation 1 Tim. 4.16 In doing this thou shalt both save thy self and them that hear thee And that I have rightly Translated the foresaid word used by Julius Firmicus Maternus will evidently appear to any that shall be at the pains to read in the same Book Page 61. Line 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 c. And again Page 65 66. for by his own words there first to the Heathens and then to the Emperours it doth plainly appear that he was sound and orthodox in the point of our Redemption by the Obediential Sufferings of Christ God-Man and Mediatour between God and Men. But though it be thus that he maintained we are properly redeemed by Christ only and that none could ever obtain Life but by the Merit of his Obedience and Death yet it is withal most certain that he held not only Faith in Christ Jesus but also Repentance towards God to be necessary yea and antecedently necessary in order to the obtaining pardon of Sin For these are his express words (r) Quaere potius spem salutis quaere exordium lucis quaere quod te summo Deo aut commendet aut reddat Et cum veram viam salutis inveneris gaude tunc erectâ Sermonis libertate proclama 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum ab his calamitatibus post poenitentiam tuam summi Dei fueris indulgentiâ liberatus Ibid. pag. 6 7. Seek rather the hope of Salvation seek the beginning or rising of the Light seek that which may either commend thee or restore thee to God and when thou hast found the true way of Salvation rejoyce and then with an uplifted or loud freedom or boldness of speech proclaim it saying as the Heathens used to do in the Worship of Isis when they had found the Body of Osiris We have found it rejoyce we together when by the mercy of the most high God thou shalt be delivered from these calamities after thy Repentance And as the Apostles and Fathers after them as is shewn more largely in the Apology taught that the Gospel requires Evangelical Repentance in order to pardon of Sin so did our first Reformers and Protestant Divines since the Reformation As for our first Reformers abroad let the Augustan Confession which they all subscribed bear witness what their Judgment in that matter was I have spoken to this before and shewed from the express words of the Augustan Confession quoted at large in the Apology Pag. 88. That the Gospel requires Repentance in order to pardon of Sin and at the same time offers Remission of Sins freely for Christs sake to all that are truly penitent Melancthen who drew up that Confession and wrote an Apology for it is so clear in the case that it is matter of wonder to me that any should be so immodest as to deny so plain and certain a matter of fact For after he had said in his common places That the Particle gratis freely in Rom. 3.24 doth not exclude Faith but excludes the condition of our own worthiness and transfers the cause of the benefit from us unto Christ and moreover having said that the Particle freely doth neither exclude our own Obedience but only transfers the cause of the benefit from the worth of our Obedience unto Christ that the benefit may be sure Finally having said that the Gospel preaches Repentance but that our reconciliation may be iure it teaches that our Sins are pardoned and that we please God not for the dignity or merit of our Repentance or newness of Heart and Life but for Christs sake only and that this consolation is necessary to pious Consciences From the premisses he makes his inference in these words following (s) Atque hinc judicari potest quomodo haec consentiant quòd diximus Evangelium concionari de poenitentiâ tamen gratis promittere reconciliationem Definit itaque Christus Evangelium Luc. ultimo plane ut artifex cum jubet docere poenitentiam remissionem peccatorum in nomine suo Est igitur Evangelium praedicatio poenitentiae promissio quam ratio non tenet naturaliter c. Melancth loc com loco de Evang pag. 398. And hence it may be judged how these things agree that we said the Gospel preaches concerning Repentance and yet it freely promises Reconciliation Christ therefore in the last of Luke chap. 24. ver 47. defines the Gospel plainly or altogether as an Artist when he commands to teach Repentance and Remission of Sins in his Name The Gospel then is a preaching of Repentance and a Promise which Reason doth not naturally attain unto c. Thus Melancthon and I could quote more out of his Writings to this purpose but this is enough He who cannot see by this little that Melancthon believed the
under that formal Consideration he lays upon no Man the Yoke and Burden of Personal Perpetual Sinless Obedience to the Precepts of the Old Law and Covenant of Works as the indispensably necessary Means and Condition of Life and Happyness 2 The Yoke and Burden of Personal perpetually Sinless Obedience to the Law of Works as the Condition of Life is so far from being Light and Easie that ever since the Fall of Man it hath been intollerably heavy and impossible to be born by any of the ordinary Sons of Adam by any meer Man 3. Christ here promises to all that come unto him and take his Easie Yoke and Light Burden upon them that he will give them Rest even Rest to their Souls which promise amongst other things which it singifies doubtless implyes That he will give their Souls Rest and Ease from the most heavy galling Yoke and insupportable Burden of Personal and ever-sinless Obedience to the Precepts of the Law of Works as the Condition of Life Christ here promises unto Believers Rest and Ease from the Condemning Power and Rigorous Exaction of the Law of Works and therefore he speaks not here of that Foederal Law and its Precepts as such but of the Gospel and its Precepts His Easie Yoke and Light Burden are the Precepts of the Gospel-Covenant that is the Precepts of the Moral Law as stript of their Old Covenant Legal Form and taken into the Gospel or New Covenant and cloathed with its New Gospel Form the Precepts of the Moral Law thus Evangelized together with the few positive Institutions and Ordinances of the Gospel are Christ's Yoke and Burden and a light Burden and easie Yoke they certainly are to True Believers and sincere Lovers of the Lord Jesus They are so light and easie through Grace that the Saints love them and delight in them As David said Psal 119.35 make me to go in the Path of thy Commandments for therein do I delight And ver 47. I will deligh my self in thy Commandments which I have loved The Gospel then hath Precepts and Christ by the Gospel-Covenant Commands Believers to take upon them his Easie Yoke and Light Burden and to all that do so he promises Rest even Rest to their Souls When Salvian of old had quoted this Text he immediately subjoyned these words (b) Non ergo nos ad laborem vocat Dominus sed ad refectionem quid namque a nobis exigit quid praestari sibâ— a nobis jubet nisi solam tantummodo fidem castitatem humilitatem sobrietatem misericordiam Sanctitatem quae utique omnia non onerant nos sed ornant Nec solùm hoc sed adeo vitam praesentem ornant ut fuâ—uram plus ornare possint O bonum O pium O Inestimabilis Misericordiae Dominum â—qui ad hoc nobis in praesenti Religionis munera tribuit ut ipsa in nobis postea quae nunc dat munera muneretur Salvian de Gubern Dei lib. 7. p. 234 235. Edit Oxon. 1633. The Lord then doth not call us to labour but to Refreshment for what doth he require of us what doth be Command to be done unto him or for him but only Faith alone Chastity Humility Sobriety Mercy Sanctity All which do not burden but beautifie and adorn us And not only that but they so much adorn the present Life that they may the more Adorn the Life to come O how good is the Lord how gracious how incstemably merciful Who to this end now in this present Life gives unto us the gifts of Religion that hereafter in the Life to come he may reward in us these very gifts which now he confers upon us Thus that Ancient Father Whereby it plainly appears that it was his Judgment that this Scripture speaks of the Precepts of the Gospel or Covenant of Grace and not of the Precepts of the Law or Covenant of Works as such And the Assemblies Annotations on Matth. 11.29 Take my Yoke upon you obeying my Commandments And on ver 30. my Yoke is easie that which I command you is good for you and easie In like manner the Dutch Annotations on Matth. 11.29 Take my Yoke upon you that is My Doctrine consisting as well in Commands as Promises See them on ver 30. where they say that Christ's Burden is Light because Christ makes it Light Rom. 8.26 1 John 5.3 4. and that it is said to be Light in opposition to the Importable Yoke of the Law Acts. 15.10 c. And our last English Annotations on Matth. 11.29 Take my Yoke upon you Our Lord by this Precept lets us know there can be no True Faith without Obedience to the Commands of Christ And the rest in the Text is not promised to either of them severally but to both joyntly A Second Testimony to prove this is that of our Saviour John 13.17 If ye know these things happy are ye if you do them In which words Christ Preached not the Law of Works but the Gospel of Grace to his Disciples For the Promise of Happyness is not made to Believers and sinful Mens doing the Law of Works but to their Evangelical Obedience unto the Precepts of the Gospel or New Covenant For 1. Consider Christ here speaks to sinful Men though Believers 2. He requires of them the doing of those things which he had taught them by his own Example As Love Humility Mutual Serviceableness For here is a Conditional Promise and in every Conditional Promise of God to Men there is implyed a Precept to perform the Condition 3. He promises them Happiness if they do these things although they were not without all Sin which shews plainly that it is not a Legal but a Gospel Promise It is a Gospel-Promise implying a Precept that requires Duty and expresly signifying the Lord's Will to give the Reward of happiness to them who perform the Duty The like Promise we have before in John 8.51 Verily verily I say unto you if a Man keep my saying He shall never see Death This is not a Legal Promise like that of the First Covenant of Works Repeated Occonemocally after the fall If thou keep the Law thou shalt live But it is a Gospel Promise which being Conditional doth plainly imply a Precept requiring the Condition and Duty of keeping Christ's saying upon which it is expresly promised that a Man shall never see Death that is shall never be punished with Eternal Death Indeed the Conditional Form of Words in which the Old Covenant of Works is repeated and proposed to Sinful Men after the Fall being Oeconomical in the Sense before explained it doth not imply a Precept of God intentionally obliging Men now to have no Sin at all as the Duty and Condition of that Covenant for they were Sinners already before that repetition of the form of the Old Covenant and what hath been implyes now a contradiction not to have been and the Infinitely Wise Just and Good God never Commands any Man to do a thing which