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doctrine_n	apostle_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	4,180	5	9.2107	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63017	The re-assertion of grace, or, Vindiciæ evangelii a vindication of the Gospell-truths, from the unjust censure and undue aspersions of Antinomians : in a modest reply to Mr. Anth. Burgesses Vindiciæ legis, Mr. Rutherfords Triall and tryumph of faith, from which also Mr. Geerie and M. Bedford may receive a satisfactory answer / by Robert Towne.	Towne, Robert, 1592 or 3-1663.; Bushell, Seth, 1621-1684.; Towne, Robert, 1592 or 3-1663. Monomachia, or, A single reply to Mr. Rutherford's book ...	1654 (1654)	Wing T1980; ESTC R23436	205,592	262

what Gospel what then doeth it But who will regard how promiscuously he preach seeing if he desire and intend either regeneration healing or conversion of the soul or yet as pag. 192. the increase of grace and holiness the Law as Gospel may indifferently be preached by him and blessed by God And though in respect of the use and end intended the law be subservient yet in their way propounded Gods and mans righteousness and of the effects produced by either viz. life and death they are and must be contrary M. B. And this must needs be the opinion of all sound Divines whatsoever may fall from them at other times as appeareth by their common answer to the Papists question If the Law and the commands thereof be impossible to what purpose then doth he command them Then we answer That those commands are not onely informing of a duty but they are practical and operative means appointed by God to work at least in some degree that which is commanded Answ You know they do not plainly and professedly say this is their opinion and therefore without alledging one sentence out of any directly to second this of yours you labour to derive and infer it as busily as you may such poor shifts are you put unto 2. Neither is it the opinion of all for those are as sound whose answer is That the law doth therefore command things now impossible that we may see our great loss by the fall with our present disability that so we may be humbled a viled and confounded in our selves 3. To incline and dispose the soul to look into the Gospel-way in which all cometh as to beggers by faith and prayer Therefore Augustin saith God commandeth things impossible not as you say that in commanding he may give power but that we thereby feeling our owne utter insufficiency may be occasioned to turn precepts into prayers saying Da quod jubes God bids us turn not thereby to enable us but that finding thereby both the necessity of it and also our inability we may cry Turn thou us and we shall be turned Thus we see whose hand worketh the will and deed 2. You also still mince the matter saying At least in some degree you love to play at small games rather then sit out you are uncertain not resolved as yet what to affirm and stick unto this being a fiction of your owne and no Scripture or Author can be produced to confirm or countenance it It was never questioned but what is wrought by the ministry of the word is to be attributed to the Spirit as the principal efficient and other passages of which he still giveth some verbal touch being already cleared I now proceed to his Arguments M. B. I bring these Arguments to prove the Law and preaching of it the means of Conversion 1. That which is attributed to the whole word of God as it is Gods word ought not to be denyed to any part of it Now this is made the propertie of the whole word of God to be the instrument of conversion 2 Tim. 3.16 Answ 1. Your proposition is unsound and will not be granted many things are often attributed to the word in general which canot be affirmed of every part of it Rom. 15.4 Whatsoever things are written were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope that is saith Piscator through patience arising from the comfort of the Scripture viz. that be written aforetime Now in the second premise page 188. you tell us that however the law may be blest to conversion yet it cannot be the ground of our justification adoption and consolation nor a man cannot have hope nor comfort in whatever he doth but it must be the promise onely of the Gospel See how your self will not have righteousness comfort and hope from every part of the word no from no part of the law but do restrain it to the Gospel onely and yet the greatest part of what was then written was law 2. Your Assumption is denyed also viz. That it is the property of the whole word to be the instrument of conversion And your place 2 Tim. 3.16 will not conclude it For first the Apostle speaketh not there of conversion but of conversation manners and life to the converted Secondly If all Scripture were to reprove correct then none is to comfort but one part is to reprove and another for consolation a third for doctrine c. law is to kill and Gospel to make alive what part is for one effect and purpose hath not formally any partial ability or fitness for another let the eye see the tongue speak and the feet walk as being purposely made and fitted for their proper offices The whole Scripture is as a promptuary or full Treasury out of which may be drawne and taken what is needful for faith and manners but what is for manners will be unaptly used to build up in the faith Also Matth. 13. the word compared to the seed is vers 19. called by Christ himself the word of the kingdom or note of distinction and by it is meant the Gospel as all know Lastly for that place Heb. 4.12 let Piscator satisfie you if the context will not serve you he saith it is Sermo Evangelii the word of the Gospel which is effectual to pierce the heart and convince the minde of the truth of the heavenly doctrine in it so that none can with a quiet conscience derogate from the credit or verity of it And he addeth that usitatissimum est c. It is a very usual thing with Paul by the word of God in general to mean the word of the Gospel M. B. 2. Argument is taken from those places where the law is expresly named to be instrumental in this great work not to name that place Rom. 7.14 where the law is called spiritual in that respect as well as in others because it is that which worketh spiritually in us as Paul was carnal because he wrought carnally Answ Indeed that place might well have been spared in this controversie for you finde nothing in it for your turne It is called spiritual because of the spiritual nature of it in opposition to Pauls which was carnal and because Paul was carnal therefore he wrought carnally but his working carnally did not make him carnal Also the law is called spiritual because of its spiritual discovering and convincing power or efficacy but not because of any spiritual change it wrought upon Paul as the whole context and every circumstance there maketh it plain the law let him see the vitiousness of his nature what repugnancy and contrariety was in him to that purity holiness and perfection held forth in the law and so occasionally by the commandment sin became exceeding sinful vers 13. M. B. The places are clear out of Psalm 119. and Psal 19.7 The Law of God is perfect converting the soul That which the Antinomian objecteth

vertue or efficacie which he will use to effect what he is pleased Besides there is a prevalent yea omnipotent power in Truth it self when it shews forth its native lustre All his adversaries could not resist the wisdom in Stephen These men came forth Goliah-like full of stomack and with resolution to lay all level with the earth Down with them down with these Antinomians and sons of Belial even to the ground But like some Meteors that give a fiery flash of light a short time and for want of matter are forthwith spent and extinguished so these Champions spirits are now much cooled and their courage abated Look now on them whom being at a distance defied the invincible Verity how presently upon the first Onset their eyes be sore dazled and their mindes dazed with the glory and presence of it Like them Psal 48.4 5 6. they seem half vanquished already What may a few more rays and beams effect I hope ere long to see my desire viz. the Truth cleared and received in love by both sides and our selves happily fought to be friends O our God! this is easie with thee In the interim do they not decline the battel and yeeld in great part what was contended for For 1. Now they assert not that the Law is without a condemning power but that it doth not actually condemn a believer 2. The Covenant though opposed at first is now not properly conditional saith Mr. Rutherf the whole of it lieth on God and is given and wrought of meer free grace 3. The Law was said to be the instrument of Regeneration and Conversion but Mr. Burgess is brought to this That it is a practical and operative mean appointed to work at least in some degree that which is commanded Mr. Rutherford giveth it a tender touch as if he were afraid or unwilling to meddle much with it And they are pleased to mistake the controverted points and so to quarrel for what we never asserted nor questioned as 1. They contend for the inherencie of sin after justification Who denied it 2. That Christ was not intrinsecally and actively a sinner But who ever affirmed so horrid a blasphemy 3. That believers are subject to the Cross 4. Believers are to hate sin as sin though freed from the peril of condemnation c. Now who fight they against they may seek their adversaries 5. We decry duties say they are against Repentance teach that the Law is of no use would cast it out of the Church But where do they read or finde these The Accuser of the brethren can help them to enough of the like stamp Also in many other of the main things they strangely shuffle and shift in the business for though they make a fair flourish in the eyes of the simpler sort who are not able to look thorowly into them yet a judicious spirit seeth their arguments without nerves or their grounds to be sandie and failing And Mr. Burgess above all hath devised unheard-of distinctions and much quaint Divinity all to support their rotten and tottering tenets And it is no sin with them to bely disguise us and with open mouth to declaim against us as Antinomians sons of Belial Seducers Libertines disobedient unholy profane c. which are our genuine epithets Doctor Tayler and right characters saith their prime Doctor Such lyes indignities and falshoods either are no breaches of their law or it wanteth power to condemn them they are priviledged for impunity But this is to beget and breed misconceits and undeserved hatred of our persons in the mindes of people that so the truth of doctrine may be suspected and despised But whoso is wise will see with his own eyes and not receive all by tradition When shalt thou learn the pure and genuine Protestant doctrine of a faithless Papist Lastly The manor of their proceeding against us doth convincingly argue their great diffidence in their Cause For 1. Motions for a loving and brotherly meeting and conference or to write pro con or to set down the chief tenets of both sides that so they might be seen and examined have still been refused whenas for number they were ten to one Either we must go in their way without question or scruple of any thing or Out with us These are their own words 2. Being writ unto they would not answer Yet certain of their noted disciples have with oily words come and urged me as the Jews did Christ to speak many things still saying they intended me no harm I must not have such a thought of them and at our parting gave me the hand never to open their mouth more against me And yet the next news was can you credit me that out of our Conference misconstruing and perverting what was said they had compiled and exhibited to the Bishop eighteen Propositions or Articles By this kinde of Ministers and Professors who can set a fair gloss on all their doings pretending much of God and for his Law I have been brought into divers Courts and into the High-Commission-Court where I was twice imprisoned my Ministery restrained and I compelled to attend the Court two yeers together and all that while nothing was proved no adversary would shew his face At last I was dismissed nothing worthy the least punishment being found in me Afterward a Minister in Lancashire excepted against my Sermon termed it A dish of poyson and being much pressed through the importunity of one yeer a Gentleman prevailed so far that I should know my error before four Divines of his own chusing so that they might be Judges Motion was made that I might name one but it would not be granted And the error was that I said the Covenant of Grace was absolute and free in respect of man The Divines were to his minde he knew that beforehand And they said I was in the error I desired to know the Condition The gravest and prime of them now scarce ulli secundus in the Assembly uti fertur answered that Good works was the condition of it Then I demanded What was the condition of the covenant of Works or wherein they differed So in some passion and discontent they arose and we parted This was in the Prelates time So not long after I was cited again to Chester where I found an odious black Bill exhibited by Sir John Lucifuga Since that I was summoned before the Ministers at Manchester where they charged me with old things I told them 1. I was falsly accus'd 2. I had given satisfaction to the Court But that should not serve to acquit me said they And a Minister unknown to me informed them that he heard me deliver many Antinomian errours in Stopworth Where prove that ever I preached I would lose my head But I desired to know some one errour and could not They voted me out of my place and Ministery and by vertue of a pretended Ordinance of Parliament commanded me to leave Lancashire and would not let me

So in the Closure of your said Preface is a too over-weening conceit and high esteem of this your elaborate and profound Treatise which is become as a Sun newly risen in our Church the which if it let us not see what is Truth what is Error a thousand Suns cannot It had been well if you had brought one of the least beams of the true Sun In Iob we read of one who darkned knowledg and I am sure the true Sun of Righteousness doth not shine forth to the world any more clearly by these Lectures To say no more I could reduce all your Exceptions and the Points in controversie to a few Heads which I find dispread and infinitely repeated but then perhaps you would think your self somewhat wronged or else the Reader would not be so fully satisfied Therefore as you do so I am enforced to set before him the same dish of sodden Colworts usque ad nauseam and yet leasure will not serve it would prove also too tedious to speak to all your Book My intent then is only to examine what you writ against your special eye-sore the Antinomian how candidly you deal with him and how solidly you confute his Positions or Tenets LECTURE I. Mr. B. Text 1 Tim. 1.8 9. Knowing the Law is good if a man use it lawfully Answer In Page 3 and 4. you say the Law is good in three several Respects in the prosecution of all which I could except against divers things but that I shall have often occasion and a more proper place to speak them all afterwards Mr. B. pag. 4. It the Law is good in respect of the Sanction of it for it 's accompanied with Promises c. and therefore the Law doth include Christ secondarily and occasionally though not primarily Ans I stand musing at this your Novel-assertion That the Moral Law for of this you will have us to understand you not of the Ceremonal doth include Christ whereas the Apostle saith Rom. 3.21 That the righteousness of Faith is revealed without the Law And Gal. 3.11 The Law is not of Faith Now if the Doctrine of Christian Righteousness and Faith be not contained in the Law I see not how Christ should be there included And yet you presently add It 's true the righteousness of the Law and that of the Gospel differ toto coelo We must place one in suprema parte coeli and the other in ima parte terrae as Luther Now I thus argue 1. Christ and his Righteousness are inseparable If Christs Righteousness which is the only Righteousness of the Gospel be as far above and out of the bounds of the Law as the highest part of Heaven is distant from the lowest part of the Earth then it is impossible that Christ should any way be included in the Law Or 2. You will make the Law more capacious and of far larger extent then is the righteousness of it so that the righteousness of the Law must be kept below but the Law it self filleth Heaven and Earth or is above as well as below even where Christ is This is your New Divinity a late Upstart It is strange to see what shifts you are often put unto and how to strain your wits if not conscience also for as you want no good-will to maintain and uphold the tot ring Ministry and Doctrine of your Party so perceiving Dr. Taylor and others in a way scarce justifiable and to use Arguments and distinctions not solid and ineffectual to convince the Adversary or to confirm your Opinions you are thus resolved to go in an unbeaten and new-found path in hope to effect your desire But to proceed And know also that your said Author Dr. Luther saith That Christ is no more in the Law nor yet the Christian then Christ is now in the grave or Peter in the Prison Again saith he A believer is out of the limits of the Law in another Kingdom c. How far your secondarily and occasionally shall be made to extend or how you will expound them I know not you promise more hereafter that is a supersede as now M. B. It 's the hardest task in Divinity to give them Law and Gospel their bounds Ans Yet you have undertaken that task and presume to have done it magnis excidis ausis M. B. It 's true if we take Law and Gospel in this strict difference as some Divines do that all the Precepts where-ever they are must be under the Law and all the Promises be reduced to the Gospel whether in the Old or new Testament in which sence Divines then say Lex jubat Gratia juvat and Lex imperat fides impetrat then the Law can have no Sanction by the Promise But where can this be shewed in Scripture Ans What struggling is here to evade Your reading exceeds mine I remember none who so reduced and marshalled Precepts and Promises If I credit you in this it is not material I am sure that all Orthodox Divines I read Promiss aliae conditionales viz. logales Evangel gratuitae Mela. and the Scripture do witness That there be legal Promises which be conditional As He that doth these things shall live in them Gal. 3.12 And to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality is promised eternal life Rom. 2.7 And that the Gospel-Promises are absolute and free being onely founded in Christ in whom they have their sanction and establishment 2 Cor. 1.20 All the Promises of God in him are Yea and in him Amen unto the glory of God by us Secondly August Luther Calvin Zanchy Melancthon with others in whom we read those expressions and the like viz. That what is only propounded and commanded in the Law is obtained wrought and established by the grace and faith of the Gospel according to that in Rom. 3.31 We through faith establish the Law These Authors I say do yet make a clear difference between Evangelical and legal Promises and therefore cannot be understood in this your sence But lastly If the Spirit do convert quicken and give power by the Precepts and in and by commanding God do convey his grace of Regeneration which is your Opinion then this question is to no purpose Whether all the Promises be reduced to the Gospel or not Neither can it be truly affirmed then That the Law is established by the grace and faith of the Gospel which yet is both according to the verity of Scripture and the Testimonies of all Authors as is already shewed Now let the Reader judg or your self whether the Law can have Sanction by promise or no. M. B. I wonder much at an Antinomian Author saying It cannot be a Law unless it also be a cursing Law Assert of Gr. p. 31. For besides that the same Author doth acknowledg the Moral Law to be a Rule to a Believer and regula hath vim praecepti as well as doctrinae Ans The Author you mention doth

to life but by death And when a man hath seen and felt nothing but sin and death in himself the law cannot tell him nor let him know of a righteousness and life ordained for him in another out of himself and therefore here it ceaseth to help He that expecteth conversion by the Law may as well seek light in darkness life in death conversion where confusion terrour and desperation is Who can credit your bare word in this that the law which is found both by Scripture and experience to be the word that revealeth and worketh wrath and death should yet be the ministry also of conversion to the soul I cannot do it M. B. Onely two things must be premised Answ Nay not onely two but a third also viz. that what you say is infallibly true without exception your new divinity must pass for current M. B. First that the law could never work to regeneration were it not for the Gospels promise Answ You mean not that the Gospel-promise should be any ingredient to the ministry of the law and so by the vertue and efficacy of this as some special pearl used amongst other things in themselves of little or no force this cure or work should be effected but you say that vertue should go forth equally and indifferently by law or Gospel and this because God hath promised to give a new heart through Christ as the Medium by and in whom he creates and changes it anew for so you would contradict your self but thus you intend that Gods promise to give this heart is grounded on Christ as the reason of making it but the performance may be by the law But is it your part to make this to appear for truth By regeneration we are become children to God but if this be by the law then are we but like Ishmael children of the bond-woman Well your words want weight and credit too I wonder you should think such private fancies would ever be received having no warrant but your pen. What have you no Text nor Author to produce not one sentence or word from either for confirmation M. B. So that while a Minister preaching of any commandment doth thereby mold and new frame the heart Answ You want a probatum est for it M. B. All this cometh by Christ who therefore dyed and ascended into heaven c. Answ Every word of God is pure add thou not to his word lest he prove thee and thou be found a lyer Prov. 30.5 6. Where is it said that Christ dyed and ascended to give such power and vertue unto the law M. B. So that there never was in the Church meer pure Law nor meer pure Gospel Answ It is a heavy accusation and charge never what not in the Prophets Apostles nor yet Christs time but alway a Miscellaneous or mixt doctrine this seemeth too bold and rash If you shuffle all together it was not alway so the promise in Paradise That the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the Serpent and that to Abraham Gen. 12. That in Christ all the families of the earth shall be blessed was surely pure Gospel without any Law M. B. But they have been subservient to each other in the great work of conversion Answ Subserviency was alway granted and taught but that may be without mixture Christ or the Gospel and the Law cannot be and dwell together and as the dead fly marreth the Ointment in the box so the least thing of the law mingled with the Gospel corrupteth it and wholly destroyeth it saith Luther they are so repugnant and opposite you know the nature and operations of contraries and the doctrine of grace and of works are contrary Rom. 11. If of grace it is no more of works You say you approve of Luther Qui scit inter legem Evang discernere c. sciat se esse theologum but you will not meddle with that now Answ No nor no time else it is needless if they were alway intermingled how can they be otherwise now and if either severally or both joyntly may effect true conversion what need we make a difference or why it is of so great consequence to give an exact difference between them I understand not But in the closure you seem as if you would have eat your own words saying God may make the opening of the moral law instrumentally to concur thereunto you are providing hereby some moor rome aforehand for fear of that strait your former assertion brought you into M. B. The second thing which I premise is this That howsoever the law preached may be blest to conversion yet the matter of it cannot be blest to Justification Adoption or consolation Answ More strange still what conversion is it which is not included in Justification by it the soul is re-united and reconciled to God Totus processus a peccate c. The learned have taught and told us that the whole passage and way from sin wrath and death unto righteousness favour and life is by mean of free justification What is blest to justifie is blest to convert us to God but the Gospel and not the Law you grant is blest to Justification Adoption Consolation When Paul did beseech the Corinthians to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.19 20 or to receive the Atonement was not that to turn to God no God had the heart to eschew evil and do good is not to turne unto God My son give me thy heart and then let thy eyes observe my wayes Christ is the way to God Again is it possible to partake of Adoption whereby we become children by one doctrine and to receive the qualification or divine image or likeness reinstambed on us by another doctrine 3. Is not our Reconciliation or coversion the ground of our hope and consolation The promise of the Gospel giveth no ground of hope or consolation to the unconverted 1 Pet. 1.3 We are begotten again to a lively hope Who can have hope in God or consolation from him but he that is regenerated or converted or is there any ground or reason of either but onely in this that we are called and converted to the faith of the Gospel Blessed be God who hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace 2 Thes 2.16 You put in after Not in any thing he doth as if you made no difference between conversion and mans doing or work which is gross And yet elsewhere you erect much hope and consolation of future good and glory upon mans doing and duty which here you deny see pag. 40. where you say there is a promise made to our works c. M. B. Therefore let us not confound Law and Gospel nor yet make them so contrary in their natures and effects that where one is the other cannot be An. If this your doctrine doth not confound them while you say they were never pure nor distinct in the Church and not telling what is Law

could not save by faith and salvation now not to be sought by grace onely in Jesus Christ saith the Margent But we believe through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to be saved even as they Fathers do Learned Zanchy stateth the question between Paul and the false teachers to be An praeter Christum c. whether besides Christ good works also be necessary to salvation Mr. B. And if this should be the sense of the Text then it was clear that the Galatians were not made partakers of Gods spirit by the corrupt doctrine that was taught them of late by their Seducers but before while they did receive the pure doctrine of Christ and therefore it was their folly having begun in the spirit to end in the flesh this may be a probable interpretation Answ Yet these exceptions may be against the latter part 1. The question made by the Apostle is divisive whether they received the Spirit by the doctrine of faith or by the other for by one they must needs have it And not whether they received the spirit by both doctrines conjoyned and confounded so that you mistake the form of the question 2. They begun in the spirit while they abode in the doctrine of Christ for righteousness and salvation onely and their folly in ending in the flesh was in that besides the righteousness of faith they would have also works of the law for salvation for this is to end in the flesh that is in themselves having begun in Christ by the spirit or as saith Piscator this is called an ending in the flesh because it is a way both heavy and impossible Mr. B. That which I shall stand upon is this The Jews and false Apostles when they went furthest joyned Christ and the observance of the moral Law equally together for justification and salvation whereas the Law separated from Christ did nothing but curse and condemn not being able to help the soul at all Answ It is as probable if not more as I said that they held Christ sufficient to justifie but not to save without works 2. They joyned Christ and the Law for justification and salvation say you And you joyn them for sanctification and salvation so no such great difference 3. If the Law separated from Christ did nothing but accuse and condemn then it seemeth if it be joyned with Christ it will acquit and justifie or you think it hath left that power to condemn being joyned to Christ Came Christ to take that power from the Law or to mitigate and meeken it by uniting it to himself or to redeem his elect from under the Law to live and abide where no Law is to accuse Rom. 8. Who can lay any thing to their charge Is not Christ also our sanctification and redemption as well as our justification without the Law 1 Cor. 1.30 This doctrine is of God saith Paul there but yours is but of man Also you disclaim that the Law of it self is able to stirre up the least Godly affection in us but Christ and Law together can and not Christ without it If the soul be married to Chist her husband he cannot make her to bring forth fruits to God but Moses the former dead husband must be raised up again and so the beleiver hath two husbands to make him fruitfull and both at one time a thing utterly against the Law and the Ordinance of Mariage civill or spirituall for as in the civill two are thereby become one flesh so they that are joyned to Christ are one spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 Mr. B. More places of Scripture are brought against this but they will come in more fitly under the notion of the Law as a Covenant Answ It 's true there are many more pag. 165. of the Assert unto which as many might be added but you have enough of these the rest you reserve to a more fit occasion And I had thought to have enlarged this point but that it is lost labour and I may ill spare any Mr. B. Thus therefore I shall conclude this point acknowledging that many learned and orthodox men speak otherwise and that there is a difficulty in clearing every particular about this question but as yet that which I have delivered carrieth the more probability with me Answ I thank you for your ingenuous and free acknowledgement I am not alone in this my opinion as yet I think you are in yours for any thing I mean that can be read in the Orthodox for otherwise the whole Colledge would not have given you such hearty thanks and your book so superlative commendation if they inclined not your way 2. Whereas you find difficulty that is because you have taken the staffe by the wrong and worst end contending against the clear truth I will not say against the light and checks of conscience But the more difficult the more fit for one of your quality and parts to encounter with that so your victory might happily have been more glorious Yet you have brought it no further even in your own thoughts but to be questio probabilis and you found it in as perfect condition and state when you entred upon it nay I say more I never read that it was controverted by any Protestant till now but your words imply that you may be of another mind to morrow The Lord instruct and establish us Mr. B. And I will give one Text more which I have not yet mentioned that is Act. 7.38 where the moral Law is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the lively cracles that is not verba vitae but verba viva vivificantia so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 giving life not that we could have life by vertue of obedience to them but when we by grace are inabled to obey them God of his mercy bestoweth eternal life Answ Before you were onely defensive sheilding your self as busily as you could against those Scriptures that fought against you but now you are disposed to give your adversary one stroke and yet the arm or weapon rather will not serve to fasten one blow either to hurt or fright this is but a childish skirmish or flourish It is granted the moral Law may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lively oracles or words and so it is in its own nature yea and in the Ministry of it life is propounded as Deut. 30.19 I have set before you life and death and Levit. 18.5 Ye shall keep my statutes and my judgements which if a man keep he shall live in them but this life it promiseth to give is upon such tearms and impossible conditions that as yet none was quickned by it but contrarily it brought death upon all by reason of that poysonfull enmity and maliciousness of our common nature whereupon Paul is bold and peremptory to affirm that all that are of the works of the Law are cursed Gal. 3. this inbred enmity is discovered but not cured by