pleased to keep up among them Nevertheless that does not hinder but God Almighty might make use thereof farther for types and representations of other things that is to say Spiritual and so the Law be a Paedagogy under a temporal dispensation leading many to Heaven This is certain that the Covenants of Nature Grace being made with Man-kind are not matters of concernment only to the Jews but to the whole world as well as to them for everlasting life and death and it is not to be conceived therefore that either of them should receive any detriment by the Covenant made with that particular Nation This I say that the Covenant confirmed before of God in Christ the Law which was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disannul that it should make the Promise of no effect The Covenant of God in Christ is the covenant of grace and that we see a-foot in the world before the Law and before Abraham for when it was confirmed to Abraham it must be in being before on necessity and ever was since the Fall or else none after could be saved And if this be not disannul'd then cannot that whatsoever it be which is given by this covenant come to the Jews by the Law For as the Apostle argues If there had been a Law given that could have given life verily Righteousness should have been by the Law If the Law of Nature could be kept by man there would be no need of a covenant of Grace by Christ So do I argue if Righteousness unto justification of life was to come by the Law the Promise or Covenant of Grace as soon as that was given might be spared But for-as-much as eternal life and justification does come only by the covenant of grace it follows that the covenant made with the Jews must needs be a covenant which concern'd their outward state or political welfare as I have said and that neither Salvation nor Condemnation as to the life to come was the primary intention or the direct and proper effect of it If Salvation or Condemnation was the proper issue of the Law then could neither any of those holy men as the Patriarchs nor any of the wicked world who were before the Law as the men of Sodom and Gomorah be condemned at the day of Judgment For where no Law is there is no Transgression and so no Condemnation And indeed if this covenant was conceived any other than some such thing as I make it how could it be that the most substantial part or body of the Jews Nation should be Sadduces in Christ's time The Covenant of Nature is that which lays all the world guilty before God so that He who believes not is Condemned already he is condemned by the Law of his Creation writ in his heart he needs no outward Law to condemne him Whatsoever things the Law saith it saith to them who are under the Law If there were no Curse nor Death but that which the Jews Law doth speak then were there none but the Jew should suffer Condemnation If a man on the contrary side does believe and repent he needs no other Law than that of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus to set him free from this Law of Sin and Death So long as he does not believe he abides under that Wrath and it is not for want of Faith as the cause of his Condemnation to justify God in not giving all men that alike but for want of it N B as that which should be the remedy that he perishes Salvation then and Condemnation which is Eternall does proceed from the covenants of grace and works and it is not to be imagined that God should deal otherwise with the Jews than with the rest of the world as to the terms of a future life I have set before you Life and Death says Moses And Cursed be he that continueth not in all the Law to do it But what this Life and Death these Blessings and Curses are we see express in Deuteronomy and in the fifth Commandement The Laws which God did give the Jews were about Religion and about Civil matters Religion concern'd their Eternal civil things their Temporal good Yet whether they are commanded the observation of the one or the other the sanction of both does lye in the threats and promises of Temporal blessings and judgments Even as in the Laws of our Realm Rellgion and the Service of God is required under a civil forfeiture when it is the Gospel it self must threaten farther Vengeance to the Transgressor In short herein will lye the mistery and sum of all The Law as it was in the hand of Moses and given to the peculiar Nation of the Jews must be no other than a temporal covenant yet did this temporal covenant contain in it patterns of things as the Apostle speaks in the Heavens And as the ten Commandements particularly written in stone are a transcript of the Moral Law written by Nature in our hearts I do take the Law to represent the covenant of works and by vertue of that representation alone or of that it represents does it operate to future judgment and is the ministration of condemnation The Law indeed taken at large for all that is contained in the whole books of the Old Testament may be supposed to hold forth whatsoever is in the covenant of works and grace but the Law taken separately from both as a third covenant cannot hold forth any other than the external government of God with propriety over the Jews and that consisting in these two things to wit a hard task of burdensome dutyes under the danger of temporal judgments and a redress from them by Sacrifices the one typifying our estate according to the Law of works and the other the grace which comes to us by Christ Jesus What use may be made of this I leave to minds which are searching I am never out of my way I count so long as I meet with any such Only there is one in a late Book who seems to fall a little too hard on a grave Preacher for making the dispensation of the Old Testament in some Sermons of his to be more terrible than ours under the New For doing which he hath thus much the more reason indeed if as I say that life and death which is Eternal comes not from the Law but from the Covenants of Works and Grace which were before it and cannot be made voyd by it There is therefore the Believing Penitent Sinner and the Vnbelieving and Impenitent For the man that sins and repents not it is true that he hath no less reason to fear under the Gospel than under the Law but rather the more in regard that the threatnings of the Law were directly I take it only of temporal punishments but the Gospel does manifestly threaten Eternal Of how much sorer punnishment says the Scripture worthy he is But for the Penitent and Believing the case is otherwise and the
I will confess though in my judgment I am perswaded that what I have writ is the truth and it is nothing but truth that made me write it yet does my heart a little misgive me that it were better to let pious men alone to such apprehensions as they have imbibed though mingled with much darkness and some errour in such a point as this where so much of their peace and life is bound up then to offer them any unsettlement by cleerer light though I were able indeed to bring it to them I may be allowed to be sorry if I offend any body but I ought to have a care I stumble none who are good men and live godly Neither would I streighten my own soul If there be any thing more therefore in the imputation of Christs righteousness then I have expressed in that paper which I know not I doe not part with my portion in it I protest thus much but will rather renounce all upon the conviction to cleave to it That Christs righteousness does justify us from the Law and so from sin and from condemnation I do hold no less then others but that Christs righteousness does justify us by the Law is an overgrown conception It is certain that no works of man be we never so holy are able to stand before God in his disstrict judgment that is if he should deal with us according to the exact justice of the Law without shewing us any mercy which will be acknowledged by Protestants and Papists who are ready to pray both with David Enter not into judgment with thy servants O Lord for in thy sight shall no flesh living be justified If any Papist then shall think that mans righteousness is made so perfect by Christs merits or any Protestant that Christs righteousness it self is so made ours as that we are justified by the Law upon that account they are both mistaken This is the only true extreamity on both sides for it is not by the Law but by Faith by the Evangelical covenant or by Grace that we are justified We are not under the Law sayes the the Apostle but under grace It is enough for a poor sinner to have a righteousness imputed to him without works and that he is pardoned but to have a righteonsness imputed to him with works is more then we can sind to be allowed him Christs righteousness is such and to have that made ours in it self or so as that in Gods reckoning we must be as righteous as he I must needs say it is not harder perhaps to believe that the bread is turned into Christs body where we have a text for it in the Sacrament then to believe such a conceit for which we have no Scripture at all in the matter of Justification What then Do I deny Imputation No but I explain it It is by the righteousness of Christ not inherent in us our Divines will say Ordinarily but imputed to us that we are justified And what if I thus interpret this for them that is not as if we had done in his person what Christ did but by his righteousness made ours in the effects only So the very Learned Bishop Forbs expresly Hoc est Quoad effectum fructum See Considerationes modestae De justificatione l. 2. c. 2. I will use the same words as they use but I am not bound to the same construction Even as I will speak of mans insufficiency I mentioned before as other Divines do and as the Scriptures do that we can do nothing but I will keep the due interpretation I will say we can and that we cannot without loss of my liberty for I must understand it with its right measures I will say I can in confession of my sin and acknowledging God just I will say I cannot in the sense of my corruption and the imploring his grace Indeed a man can hardly consider the Doctrin of St. James never so little with that of Paul which is one part of my paper but it will lead him to the other which is to see that what our Protestants say ordinarily on this matter does need a favourable exposition It is a jejune thing I count to bring the great dispute that Paul hath with the Jewes about justification to this result only whether we are justified by Faith or the proper Work or Fruits of it It is but a little more satisfactory to bring it only to this whether it be by the observation of Moses Law For though this was the occasion of the dispute and the Apostle therefore does shew them how it was by the Promise and so by Faith that Abraham and the Jewes themselves had life and not by the Law which was but a Schoolmaster to lead them thereunto or unto Christ yet it is manifest that he advances the point higher while he tells them that by Works neither Jew nor Gemile could be justified so that by works he must mean the observation of that Law of works which was common to both and not Moses Law only and the resolution of the dispute in both Apostles comes to this as I have said that it is by the performance of the covenant of Grace and not of the ovenant of works or Law of Moses that a man is to look for life everlasting I must add Nor are they to be heard in a third place who say that the dispute between Paul and the Jewes is neither of these but whether we are justified by our own righteousness or by the righteousness of Christ and so resolve that it is not by any works which we do even Faith it self as a work but by the works Christ hath done for us that is by the obedience of his life and death only For though this be taught ordinarily by our Protestants and is coincident with the first result there is one thing I must say these Divines have not considered which I have offered them in my paper that must bring them to another understanding It is this that the Apostle does indeed stand much upon the Righteousness of God in opposition to works in the business of justification but never opposes our works to the Righteousness of Christ the Righteousness of Christ in their sense being truly a very contrary thing to the Righteousness of God in the sense of the Apostle The righteousness of God according to the A ostle if I may then describe it but as well as I can and as the thing is and a little more fully then I have in my former paper is on Gods part his taking our human frailey or falne nature into that meet consideration as not to deale with us in his district judgment which we cannot beare but according to his Covenant of Mercy the righteousness sacrifice attonement or satisfaction of Christ being supposed as the foundation upon which his Justice does stand good notwithstanding this condescention And consequently on Mans part this righteousness is our imperfect duty performed in sincerity
good works in or through Christ Jesus When God made man at first and gave him a Law it was that he should live Holy When righteousness then was the end of his Creation and the Law thereof how is this said to be the end of his Redemption I answer Righteousness or holiness as they are one we must know does lye in a conformity to the Law which God gives us There is nothing else and nothing less then this the full performance of a Law given that is Righteousness Upon this account as soon as man once fell and broke the Law of his creation it was impossible he should be righteous any more unless there were a new Law brought in in the performance whereof he might attain to that again which he had lost Now to this end was it that Christ came and died this was the very main business I count of his Redemption even the procuring this new Law or another Law with lower termes which some men performing they do thereby become righteous and so have righteousness according to that Law imputed to them for remission and life eternal Here you see what that righteousness indeed is which Christ is said to bring in and in what sense he hath brought it in or how such Texts as those before do attribute our Holiness to him The obedience of Christs life and death we know was fulfilled on earth and of this he himself hath once said It is finished But the righteousness he is said to bring in is called an Everlasting righteousness And what then can that be but the righteousness of the Gospel which upon the same account also is called the Everlasting Gospel That is because it is by this righteousness in opposition to that of the Law or the righteousness of works that all men from the beginning of the world to the end of it and so is it to be accounted ever of force do obtain everlasting Salvation I know the great difficulty of this Doctrin will lye on the point of remission Our Divines do generally place justification in the remission of Sin so do the Papists with something else and so have I my self after others Nevertheless as I remember St. Augustine in one place does find fault with this in Pelagius so hath the perplexity of it of late lead me into the like thoughts The truth is Pardon of Sin is a benefit unto which the justified person is adjudged as eternal life is but remission of Sin must not be made the formal reason of justification Our Divines may define justification to be an Act of Grace whereby God gives us Eternal Life or a right to it as well as an act of grace whereby he pardons our sins That act that very only act wherein the form of justification does lye is Gods accounting or pronouncing a man righteous and this is a forensical act according to Law the Law or Covenant of grace Which covenant promising Forgivencss and Life upon the performance of its Conditions when a man hath performed them he hath a right to those benefits and when God does declare or account that a man hath performed them which is all one as to judge him righteous these benefits flow to him from that judgment or are confer'd on him by that act as Effects of that cause and consequently cannot be the very act it self which is the cause of them To forgive a mans sin and declare him righteous are two things inconsistent one with another in the same respect and therefore when God pronounces a man just it is according to the Law of Faith and when he pardons his Sin it is in respect to the Law of works And how then can two acts incompatable but in divers respects cùm omne ens sit unum be made to enter one and the same definition It is true as all agree that there are no works that man does or can doe able to make God any amends for our offences so that remission of sin must be attributed altogether to the merits of Christ in regard to the attonement made But we must distinguish of Remission Remission is either Conditional and Universal as it lyes in the Covenant and is the purchase of Christ or Actual as it lyes in the application thereof to particular persons upon performance of the condition When Divines do say we can doe nothing our selves for procuring reconciliation and remission it is to be understood of Conditional universal remission No mortal could do any thing toward the obtaining of that God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their trespasses But as for remission Actual that man must be blind who sees not that God does every where require us to repent beleeve confess our faults forsake them do good works forgive others that we may have pardon and be saved Conditional pardon now is antecedent to a mans justification and contained in our redemption In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of Sins Actual remission is subsequent to justification for we must be supposed first to have performed the condition and be pronounced righteous and then pardoned When there is no remission then but what does either goe before or follow justification it cannot be made the very act it self of our justification There is one Text may be opposed Even as David also described the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without works Saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven It seems that the Righteousness which Paul speaks of without works in the one verse is described by pardon in the other This I my self have alleadged but upon farther consideration I answer The man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works or the blessedness of that man is described but we may suppose not the Righteousness without works The scope of the Apostle is plainly to shew us only that it is not by works of the Law or such works as would make the reward of debt and not of grace as appeares in the immediate verses before which are perfect works that a man is justified And he proves it by this argument because the man is blessed whose sins are forgiven that is as much as to say not he who is without sin but he who hath sin and it is forgiven The man who is blessed is justified But the man who is blessed hath sin to be forgiven Therefore the righteousness which a man hath or is imputed to him is not a righteousness according to the Law of works but according to the Covenant of Grace This I say is the scope of the place Gods imputing Righteousness to a person is indeed a phrase signifying Gods accounting him righteous or justifying him and the Apostle Proves a man is justified without works that is perfect works because he hath sin to be covered I will yet repcate The man to whom righteousness is imputed without works is pardoned but it followes not that this Righteousness without works
is pardon To have righteousness imputed to a man without works is all one as to have faith imputed to him for righteousness so repentance or evangelical obedience and that is not pardon though these are never divided from the same subject I will conclude therefore with that I have said once before will say it again at my parting with the point that it is strange to me our Protestant Divines should be so offward to this cleer Determination To wit God judges and will judge all men according to the Gospel Those who perform the condition of it he accounts or pronounces righteous They whom he accounts righteous are justified I will add That the righteousness of Christ which is the meritorious cause of our justification without dispute on all hands that is the impulsive procatartick cause which alwayes comes under the Efficient cannot for the same reason be the Formal or Material cause of it It is not the infusion of Righteousness with the Papist which is our sanctification nor the imputation of Christs righteousness with the Protestant which is not to be understood but in genere causae Efficientis nor remission of Sin with Protestant and Papist which I have now bin disproving but the imputing to a person his performance of the new covenant for righteousness or the accounting or pronouncing him righteous according to that covenant is the form formal Cause or formal Reason of his justification Do not think this strange Justification I will grant virtually or Eminenter as unum aggregatione containes in it many things and so remission among others for we must find line to speak as Divines use but Justification Formaliter as unum simplex I say is only Gods pronouncing us Just or sincere penitent believers and remission is a benefit which in order of Nature does follow the performance of that condition And so I proceed to my third Paper Of the Covenants Of the Law and Gospel For the Doctrin of the Covenants There is the Covenant of Works say Divines and the Covenant of Grace The Covenant of works say they was made with Adam in his integrity being that Law which is written in all mens hearts and so requires perfection and for the least transgression threatens Death The Covenant of grace is made with man in his Estate fallen or with Christ in his behalf and requires only our Faith repentance and sincerity unto Life which being held forth under the Title of the Promise to Adam Abraham David and all during the Law was ratified by the death and blood of Christ the Redeemer under the Gospel and so promulgated to the world to continue still on force and in that as in one regard called new as long as that lasts Behold the dayes come saith the Lord when I will make a new Covenant not according to the Covenant I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt Here is the Old Covenant and the New Covenant The Old is that which God made with the Jews when Moses lead them in the wilderness The New is that which we have under the Gospel The old Covenant then is not the Covenant of works for that was made with all in Adam and as written in our hearts must be eternally obligatory But the old Covenant was made with the Jews in opposition to other Nations and as peculiar to them is vanished and binds not Neither is it the Covenant of grace for the same reason as also because the covenant of grace is the new covenant but the New is not the Old The Old and New covenants say Divines indeed ordinarily are both the covenant of grace in opposition to that of works the same in substance but differing in the Administration But this with me is not so easy to be received without the distinction of an A and The in the case The Old covenant may be a covenant of grace or covenant of works or both but not the covenant of works or the covenant of grace There are some plead it is a subservient covenant as Camero Some that it is a mixt covenant as Ball. Some that it is a covenant of works as the Loyden Divines The most of our own late Divines do make it a covenant of grace Whereof one voluminous Authour denying the other three opinions does yet say it was so dispensed as to tender life both upon the condition of Faith and works But if it proposed life on condition of perfect doing it was a covenant of works If on believing too a Covenant mixt both of Works and Grace And as perfect doing was urged only in tendency to believing a Covenant-Subservient and so all say true as to the main and yet none so distinctly true as to leave any enquiring man without confusion in what they say There is one thing then I apprehend will serve much for the enodation of many difficulties in theis matter and that is to conceive aright what the Old Covenant is And there is another like it to the same purpose to know what kind of Covenant it was As for the former we have hitherto been seeing but what it is not only now to understand what it is Let us separate what Moses did deliver to the Israelites from that which was before in promise to the Patriarks as single by it self and this is the Old Covenant Or take that and all that whatsoever and in what manner soever that was added to the Covenant of Grace which Abraham and the Patriarks were under and that abstracted therefrom is I count the Old Covenant Let me yet speak more fully Take Abraham before he was ninety years old when he at first Believed and that Faith was imputed to him for Righteousness upon which he became the Father of the faithful while as yet he was in his Uncircumcision for the Law of Circumcision which was after given in peculiar reference to his natural Seed the Jews in pursuance of the temporal Benediction is to be reckoned as Preambulatory to the Law and belonging to it and when you have pared away Circumcision and all that which Moses commanded the Jews afterwards from Walk before me only and be perfect all this rest this pared away from that whatsoever it be is I say the Old Covenant or the Law strictly taken From this in the first place we have light to distinguish between the Law taken strictly and largely In regard whereof we shall find the Apostles somtimes proving the Righteousness of Faith from the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets and another time setting the Law and Gospel at the widest distance and opposition As the Law is taken comprehensively for the promise to Abraham as well as the Covenant made with the Jews that is for the whole state they stood in who were under the Law by vertue of the Covenant confirm'd to their fore Fathers as by vertue of that given by Moses the Law and Gospel are
confounded As the Law is taken strictly or precisely for the Old Covenant or the Law of Moses with Circumcision its appurtenance that is for all that apart that was added to the promise before-going and abstracted there-from as I have said so are they distinguished and their differences to be owned and maintained In the next place we may understand from this how the Jews were under both conditions of Believing and Doing Of doing this and live and of believing also that they might be saved To wit As the Covenant of Grace was delivered to their fore-Fathers and so on foot before it must needs hold forth life to them on their Faith as well as to Abraham their Progenitour who received Circumcision as a seal of Righteousness thereby or to come thereby and not by the Law which as yet was not given And as the Law was added as the Apostle speaks to this Covenant or Promise it did tye the Jews to a performance of it as a condition of living by it in some sense as neither the Patriarks before nor we since are under and in regard whereof that which is said by a reverend person that the Old Testament-Spirit was a fearing Spirit with the like expressions are not without a truth in them that desires more consideration then One of late does give them Especially when the Apostle is so express that the Jews were under a School-Master and we are not under that School-Master That the Covenant from Sinai engendered to Bondage but where the Spirit of the Lord is or the New Testament is there is Liberty From this yet in the third place we may enlarge our light further to judge of that abrogation of the Law or deliverance from it which Christians have under the Gospel A glorious thing the Apostle counts it that puts us directly into such an estate and condition as the Patriarks and those holy men before Abraham were in to live according to the light and liberty of their Consciences that is according to the Law of Nature which as it is in the hands of Christ and not of Moses to wit as delivered from the Yoke of his Ceremonies and the superstition of Idolaters and administred with Grace and the Spirit with Grace in God's acceptation of our sincerity instead of perfect obedience for the Redeemers sake and with the Spirit in his assistance of us for the performance is both the Universal Religion of Man-kind and the substance of that which is Christian unto this day I should quote Eusebius De praep Evan. See his Ecc. Hist l. 1. c. 5. From whence also we see in the way how the Covenant of Grace which Abraham and all those holy men which went before him or that ever were have had as well as we is yet called the New Covenant and that is it is called New as the lump is called a new lump by the Apostle to the Corinths That Church was leavened by the ill example of vicious Members particularly of the incestuous person they are therefore commanded to cast him out and that they should not mingle themselves or keep company with the seandalous and in so doing they should become as it were a new body or lump though they were still otherwise but the same Community Purge out therefore the old Leaven that you may be a new Lump So is it with the Covenant it was made by God with all man-kind in Christ ever since the beginning of the World and confirmed to the Patriarchs it being impossible else that any should have been saved and yet it is called a New Covenant in relation to us under the Gospel because I say that that which was added to it by Moses to wit all that which properly is the Old Covenant is removed or purged away as the Leaven in the Jews Feast by Christ our Pass-over who hath been Sacrificed and made for us that expurgation And if that which is done away was glorious how much more that which remains That which is done away was the Ministration of death engraven in stone and of the Letter that killeth That which remaineth is the Ministration of the New Testament of the Spirit which giveth Life and of Righteousness That which remaineth I pray note it That cannot be said to remain which was not before extant The Covenant of Grace with the Patriarchs and the New Covenant with us being the very same as I have said but ours only called New or renewed upon the abolishing of that which was super-added as upon this remaining too it self never to wax old and vanish For the latter what kind of Covenant I take this to be I am now in order to tell you The Old Covenant as to me it seemeth was a kind of Political Covenant made with the Nation of the Jews as Princes compacts are with their people when they first set up Government God promises them his Protection that he would lead them to a fruitful Land overcome all their Enemies with the like blessings and they promise him they will be ruled by him To this purpose did God in sundry ways appear to them to Moses to their Elders to them all in the Clouds and Fire and then causes a Tabernacle to be made for him which was a Keeping house among them where the Sacrifices and Offerings was his Provision and the Priests his Servants that lived on him and unto that Tabernacle and Ark might they repair for Counsel and Judgment This People then being peculiarly under a Theocracy which Samuel in two places does expresly signify at least until the time of Saul so that the Church and Common-wealth of the Jews were but one according to the Apostle it is no wonder if Religion be made their Laws and so required of them together with other political Ordinances and Statutes for their happiness or publick peace as a Nation From hence is it that though their Law is not to be judged the Covenant of Works or the Covenant of Grace either of the two themselves yet may we expect that it should represent both the one and the other to them because in the knowledge of both does the business of Religion and the whole of it virtually consist In the delivery of the Moral Law and that with Thunder and Lightning and such Terrour as we read of it they had a representation of the Covenant of Nature which quafaedus is doubtless in our falne Estate a Ministration only of Wrath or Law of sin and death In their Ceremonial Offerings and Priestly appointments though there was a remembrance still of sin and so matter of bondage and sear yet had they types of Christ of remedying Mercy and the Glory to come These Sacrifices were brought directly as Mulcts to their King to deliver them from the danger of present punishment being Redemptions of their lives which else they should have forfeited by his Laws and served I have said to the maintenance of his house the Tabernacle and Temple which he was