my Judgment as if I leaned sometime to one side and sometime to another I speak not here ad idem as they do in that Contest but when I call it a Condition of Justification my meaning is that no Man is justified until he believe And when I call it an Instrument my meaning is that it is the Righteousness of Christ apprehended by Faith which doth justify us when we believe And so I find the Generality of our Divines calling Faith sometimes a Condition and sometimes an Instrument of our Justification as here I do And if there be any Expression my Reader shall meet with which is less accurate and may be capable of another sense I crave that Candor from him that he interpret it according to this my declared Intention 5. Lastly I have added to the former a short plain practical Sermon to promote the Peace and Unity of the Churches of Christ and prevent their Relapse into past Follies In all the Parts of this Discourse I have sincerely aimed at the Purity and Peace of the Church of God and he greatly mistakes that takes me for a Man of Contention 'T is true I am here contending with my Brethren but pure necessity brought me in an unpleasing irksomeness hath attended me through it and an hearty desire and serious motion for Peace amongst all the professed Members of Christ shall close and finish it Let all Litigations of this nature at least in this Critical Juncture be suspended by common Consent since they waste our time hinder our Communion imbitter our Spirits impoverish practical Godliness grieve the Spirit of God and good Men make sport for our Common Enemies who warm their own Fingers at the Fire of our Contentions and place more Trust in our dividing Lusts than they do in their own feeble Arguments or castrated Penal Laws to effect our Ruin It is my grief the Lord knows to see the delightful Communion the Saints once enjoyed whilst they walked together under the same Ordinances of God now dissolved in such a sad and scandalous Degree by the Impressions of erroneous Opinions made both upon their Heads and Hearts I do therefore heartily joyn with Budaeus in his pious Wish That God would give his People as much Constancy in retaining the Truths they once received as they had Joy and Comfort at their first Reception of them I must in this occasion declare my just Jealousy that the Non-improvement of our Baptismal Covenant unto the great and solemn Ends thereof in our Mortification Vivification and regular Communion with the Church of Christ into which Society we were matriculated by it is at this day punished upon Professors in those fiery Heats and fierce Oppositions unto which God seemeth to have penally delivered us at this day For my own part it is my fixed Resolution to provoke no good man if I can help it But if their own intemperate Zeal shall provoke them in pursuit of their Errors to destroy the very nature of God's Covenant of Grace with Abraham and his Seed and I have a plain call as here I had at once to defend God's Truths and my Peoples Souls against them I will earnestly contend in the Cause of Truth whilst I can move my Tongue or make use of the Pen of the Scribe Reader I shall appeal to thee if thou be wise and impartial Whether any man that understands the Covenant of God renewed with Abraham which is the grand Charter by which we and our Children hold and enjoy the most invaluable Privileges can endure to see it dissolved and utterly destroyed by making it an abolished Adam's Covenant of Works and stand by as an unconcerned Spectator when challenged and provoked to speak in defence thereof Is there any thing found in God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. to make it an abolished Covenant of Works which doth not as injuriously bear upon and strike at the very life of the Covenant of Grace in the last and best Edition of it under which the whole Church of God now stands What is that thing I would fain know in God's Covenant with Abraham Is it the Promissory part of it I will be a God unto thee and to thy Seed after thee Gen. 17. 7 God forbid for the essential and sweetest part of the New Covenant is contained in that Promise Ier. 31. 33. Heb. 8. 10. Yet thou wilt find my Antagonist here forced to assert God may become a Peoples God in a special manner by virtue of the abolished Covenant of Works and such he makes this Covenant to be Or does the Restipulation Abraham and his were here required to make unto God even to walk before him and be perfect doth this make it an Adam's Covenant of Works Surely no. For as God there requires perfection of Abraham so Christ requires the same perfection of all New-covenant Foederates now Matth. 5. 48. Be ye perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect which is altogether as much as ever God required of Abraham and his in Gen. 17. 1. Take Perfection in what sense you will either for a positive Perfection consisting in truth and sincerity or a comparative Perfection consisting in the growth and more eminent degrees of Grace or a superlative Perfection which all New-covenant Foederates strive after here Phil. 3. 12 13 and shall certainly attain in Heaven Heb. 12. 23. In this also the Covenant with Abraham and with us are truly and substantially one and the same Or doth my mistaken Friend imagine that God required this Perfection of Abraham and his as in the First Covenant he required it from Adam and all his viz. to be performed and maintained in his own strength under penalty of the Curse but now though Christ command perfection yet what duty lies in any command answerable strength for it lies in the Promise Very well and was it not so then compare the Command Deuter. 10. 16. Circumcise therefore the fore-skins of your hearts with the answerable gracious Promise to enable them so to do Deut. 30. 6. The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy Seed to love the Lord thy God Or lastly Did Circumcision the Sign and Seal added to Abraham's Covenant make it an Adam's Covenant of Works That 's equally impossible with the former for no man but such a daring Man as I am concerned with will dare to say that a Seal of the righteousness of Faith as Circumcision was Rom. 4. 11. can make the Covenant to which it is affixed and which I have shewn in all the other substantial parts the very same with that we are now under to become an Adam's Covenant of Works These things I have here superadded to leave as little as is possible behind me to be an occasion of further trouble and contention Let all strife therefore in so plain a case be ended Contentious Spirits are not the most excellent Spirits among Christians Fire and so Contention is
to confound Law and Gospel Adam's and Christ's Covenant but the distinction betwixt them is his own therefore my assumption was just That this blood was typically the blood of Christ and that the Holy Ghost signified the one by the other is plain from Heb. 9. 7 8. And I never met with that man that scrupled it before Mr. Cary. So then my first Argument to prove Abraham's Covenant of Circumcision to be the Covenant of Grace and not an Adam's Covenant or any part thereof stands firm after Mr. C's passionate Reply which I hope the Lord will pardon to him though he had scarce Charity enough left to desire a pardon for his Friend who had neither wronged the Truth nor him Argument II. My second Argument was this If Circumcision was the seal of the Righteousness of Faith it did not pertain to the Covenant of Works for the Righteousness of Faith and Works are opposite But Circumcision was the Seal of the Righteousness of Faith Rom. 4. 11. Ergo. The sum of what he answers to this p. 72 73 c. as far as I can pick his true sense out of a multitude of needless words is this He confesses this Argument seems very plausible but however Abraham was a Believer before Circumcision and tho indeed it sealed the Righteousness of Faith to him yet it sealed it to him only as the Father of Believers and denies that ever Jacob or Isaac or any other enrolled in that Covenant were sealed by it but to all the rest beside Abraham it was rather a token of servitude and bondage This is the sum and substance of his Reply But Sir let me ask you two or three plain Questions 1. What is the reason you silently slide over the Question I asked you p. 41. of my Vindiciae c Did you find it an hot Iron which you durst not touch 'T is like you did My Question was this Had Adam 's Covenant a seal of the righteousness of faith annexed to it as this had Rom. 4. 11 The righteousness of faith is evangelical righteousness and this Circumcision sealed Say not it was to Abraham only that it sealed it for 't is an injurious restriction put upon the Seal of a Covenant which extended to the Fathers as well as to Abraham however you admit that it sealed evangelical righteousness to Abraham but I hope you will not say that a Seal of the Covenant of Works for so you make Circumcision to be ever did or could seal evangelical righteousness to any individual person in the World I find you a man of great confidence but certainly here it failed you not one word in Reply to this 2. I told you your distinction was invented by Bellarmine and shew'd you where it was confuted by Dr. Ames but not a word to that 3. I show'd That the extending of that Seal to all Believers as well as Abraham is most agreeable to the drift and scope of the Apostle's Argument which is to prove that both Iews and Gentiles are justified by Faith as Abraham was and that the ground of â—ustification is common to both and that how great soever Abraham was yet in this case he hath found nothing whereof to glory And is not your Exposition a notable one to prove the community of the priviledge of Justification because the Seal of it was peculiar to Abraham alone p. 47 48. Sir You have spent words enough upon this Head to tire your Reader But why can I not meet with one word among them that fairly advances to grapple with my Argument or answer the important Questions before you upon which the matter depends If this be all you have to say I must tell you You are a weak manager of a bad Cause which is the less hazard to Truth Argument III. In the Covenant of Circumcision Gen. 17. God makes over himself to Abraham and his Seed to be their God or gives them a special interest in himself But in the Covenant of Works God doth not since the Fall make over himself to any to be their God by way of special interest Therefore the Covenant of Circumcision cannot be the Covenant of Works The sum of your Reply in p. 76. is under two Heads 1. You boldly tell me That God doth in the Covenant of Works make over himself to Sinners to be their God by way of special interest but it being upon such hard terms that it 's utterly impossible for Sinners that way to attain unto life he hath therefore been pleased to abolish that and make a new Covenant and bring Exod. 20. 2. to prove it This is new and strange Divinity with me 1. That God should become a People's God by way of special interest by vertue of the broken Covenant of Works This wholly alters the nature of that Covenant for then it was a Law that could give life contrary to Gal. 3. 21. unless you can suppose a Soul that 's totally dead in Sin to have a special interest in God as his God 2. This Answer of yours yields the Controversy about the nature of the Sinai Law for this very Concession of yours is the Medium by which our Divines prove it to be a Covenant of Grace 3. This Concession of yours confounds the two Covenants by communicating the essential property and prime privilege of the Covenant of Grace to Adam's Covenant of Works Either therefore expunge Ier. 31. 33. as a Covenant of Grace I will be their God and they shall be my people or allow that in Gen. 17. 7. to be specifically the same and that Exod. 20. though more obscurely delivered 4. You assert That God may actually become a Peoples God by way of special interest and yet the salvation of that People be suspended upon impossible terms You sent them before to Purgatory but by this you must send them directly to Hell for if the salvation of God's peculiar People be upon impossible terms 't is certain they cannot be saved And lastly It is an horrid reflection upon the Wisdom and Goodness of God who never did or will make any Covenant wherein he takes fallen Men to be his peculiar People and make over himself to be their God and yet not make provision for their Salvation in the same Covenant but leave their Salvation for many Ages upon hard and impossible terms i. e. leave them under damnation 2. I told you in my Vindiciae c. p. 49. that you were fain to cut Abraham's Covenant Gen. 17. into two parts and make the first to be the pure Covenant of Grace which is the promisory part to the 9th verse and the Restipulation as you call it p. 205. to be as pure a Covenant of Works Which I truly said was a bold Action and in so calling it I gave it a softer name than the nature of it deserved The sum of what you reply to this is 1. By denying the matter of fact and charging me with misrepresentation and in
the whole Law for Righteousness You may ponder this Argument at your leisure and not think to refute it at so cheap a rate as by calling it a corrupt gloss of my own And thus I hope I have sufficiently fortified and confirmed my Third Argument to prove Abraham's Covenant to be a Covenant of Grace My Fourth was this Argument IV. That which in its direct and primary end teacheth Man the corruption of his Nature by sin and the mortification of sin by the Spirit of Christ cannot be a condition of the Covenant of Works But so did Circumcision in the very direct and primary end of it Therefore c. Your Reply to this is That when I have substantially proved that the Sinai Covenant as it contained the Passeover Sacrifices Types and Appendages under which were vailed many spiritual Mysteries relating to Christ and mortification of sin by his Grace and Spirit to be no Covenant of Works but a Gospel-covenant you will then grant with me that the present Argument is convincing p. 96 97. of your Reply Sir I take you for an honest man and every honest man will be as good as his word Either I have fully proved against you that the Sinai Law taken in that latitude you here express it is not an Adam's Covenant of Works or I have not If I have not doubtless you have reserved your more pertinent and strong Replies in your own breast and trust not to those weak and silly ones which you see here baffled and have only served to involve you in greater Absurdities than before But if you have brought forth all your strength as in such a desperate strait no man can imagine but you would then I have fully proved the point against you And if I have I expect you to be ingenuous and candid in making good your word That you will then grant with me that this Argument is convincing to the end for which it was designed And so I hope we have fully issued the Controversy between us relating to God's Covenant with Abraham You have indeed four Arguments p. 59 60 61 62. of your Reply to prove Abraham's Covenant a Covenant of Works of the same nature with Adam's Covenant 1. Because as life was implicitly promised to Adam upon his obedience and death explicitly threatned in case of his disobedience which made that properly a Covenant of Works so it was in the Covenant of Circumcision Gen. 17. 7 8. compared with vers 10 14. This Argument or Reason can never conclude because as God never required of Abraham and his Children personal perfect and perpetual obedience to the whole Law for life as he did of Adam so the death or cutting off spoken of here seems to be another thing from that threatned to Adam Circumcision as I told you before was appointed to be the discriminating Sign betwixt Abraham's Seed and the Heathen World and the wilful neglect thereof is here threatned with cutting off by Civil or Ecclesiastical Excommunication from the Commonwealth and Church of Israel as Luther Calvin Paraeus Musculus c. expounds not by death of Body and Soul as was threatned to Adam without place for repentance or hope of mercy 2. You say Abraham's Covenant could not be a Covenant of Faith because Faith was not reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness in Circumcision but in Uncircumcision Rom. 4. 9 10. This is weak reasoning Circumcision could not belong to a gospel-Gospel-covenant because Abraham was a Believer before he was circumcised You may as well deny the Lord's Supper to be the Seal of a gospel-Gospel-Covenant because the Partakers of it are Believers before they partake of it Beside you cannot deny but it sealed the Righteousness of â—aith to Abraham and I desired you before to prove that a Seal of the Covenant of Works iâ— capable of being applied to such an use and service which you have not done nor ever will be able to do but politickly slided by it 3. You say it cannot be a Covenant of Grace because it is contra-distinguished to the Righteousness of Faith Rom. 4. 13. The Law in that place is put strictly for the pure Law of Nature and Metaleptically signifies the Works of the Law which is a far different thing from the Law taken in that latitude wherein you take it And is not this a pretty Argument that because the promise to Abraham and his Seed was not through the Law but through the Righteousness of Faith therefore the Covenant of God made with Abraham and his Seed Gen. 17. cannot be a gracious but a legal Covenant This Promise mentioned Rom. 4. 13. was made to Abraham long before the Law was given by Moses and Free-grace not Abraham's legal Righteousness was the impulsive cause moving God to make that Promise to Abraham and to his Seed and their enjoyment of the Mercies promised was not to be through the Law but through the Righteousness of Faith By what rule of art this Scripture is alledged to prove God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. to be a Covenant of Works I am utterly to seek If it be only because Circumcision was added to it that 's answered over and over before and you neither have nor can reply to it 4. Lastly It cannot say you be a Covenant of Grace because it 's represented to us in Scripture as a Bondage-covenant Acts 15. 10 c. Gal. 5. 1. 'T is time I see to make an end Your discourse runs low and dreggy Do you think it is one and the same thing to say That the Ceremonial Law was a yoke of bondage to them that were under it and to say it was an Adam's Covenant Are these two parallel distinctions in your Logick Alas Sir there is a wide difference The difficulty variety and chargeableness of those Ceremonies made them indeed burthensome and tiresome to that People but they did not make the Covenant to which they were annexed to become an Adam's Covenant of Works for in the very next breath vers 11. the Apostle will tell you they were saved yea and tells us that we shall be saved even as they So that either they that were under this yoke were saved by Faith in the way of Free-grace as we now are or we must be saved in the way of legal Obedience as they were Take which you please for one of them you must take We shall be saved even as they Acts 15. 10 11. If you can make no stronger opposition to my Arguments than such as you have here made your Cause is lost though your confidence and obstinancy remain It were easy for me to fill more Paper than I have written on this Subject with Names of principal note in the Church of God who with one voice decry your groundless Position and constantly affirm that the Law in the complex sense you take it as it comprehends the Ceremonial Rites and Ordinances whereunto Circumcision pertains is and can be no other than the
not on the one hand to injure the memory of the Dead and on the other to prevent hurt or danger to the Living Nor do we say thus much of him as if he sought or did need any Letters of Recommendation from us but as counting this Testimony to Truth and this expression of respect to him a Debt to the spontaneous payment whereof nothing more was requisite besides such a fair occasion as the Providence of God hath now laid before us inviting us thereunto John Howe Vin. Alsop Nath. Mather Increase Mather John Turner Rich. Bures Tho. Powel AN EPISTLE TO THE READER Candid Reader CEnsure not this Treatise of ERRORS as an Error in my Prudentials in sending it forth at such an improper time as this I should never spontaneously have awakened sleeping Controversies after God's severe castigation of his people for them and in the most proper and hopeful season for their Redintegration And beside what I have formerly said I think fit here to add That if the attacque had been general and not so immediately and particularly upon that Post or Quarter I was set to defend I should with Elihu have modestly waited till some abler and more skilful hand had undertaken the defence of this Cause If ever I felt a temptation to envy the happiness of my Brethren it hath been whilst I saw them quietly feeding their Flocks and my self forced 〈◊〉 some part of my precious 〈…〉 time devoted to the 〈…〉 combating with unquiet and erring Brâ—thren But I see I must not be my own chuser Notwithstanding I hope and am in some measure persuaded That publick benefit will redound to the Church from this irksâ—me Labour of mine And that this strife will spread no further but the Malady be cured by an Antidote growing in the very place where it began And that the Christian Camp will not take a general Alarm from such a â—ingle Duel The Book now in thy hands consisteth of Four parts viz. 1. A general Discourse of the Causes and Cures of Errors very necessary at all times especially at this time for the reduction and establishment of seduced and staggering Christians and nothing of that nature having occurred to my observation among the manifold Polemical Tracts that are extant I thought it might be of some use to the Churches of Christ in such a vertigenous Age as we live in and the blessing of the Lord go forth with it for benefit and establishment 2. Next thou hast here the Controversies moved by my Antagonist first about the Mosaick Law complexly taken which he boldly pronounces to be an Adam's Covenant of works And secondly about God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. which he also makes the same with that God made with Adam in Paradise and affirms Circumcision expresly called a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith to be the Seal of the said Covenant of Works first made with Adam 3. Finding my Adversary in the pursuit of his design running into many Antinomian delirations to the reproach and damage of the Cause he contends for I thought it necessary to take the principal Errors of Antinomianism into examination especially at such a time as this when they seem to spring afresh to the hazard of God's Truth and the Churches Peace wherein I have dealt with becoming-modesty and plainness if haply I might be any way instrumental in my plain and home way of Argumentation to detect the falsity and dangerous nature of those notions which some good men have vented and preserve the sounder part of the Church from so dangerous a contagion 4. In the next place I think it necessary to advertise the Reader That whereas in my first Appendix under that head of the Conditionality of the New Covenant I have asserted Faith to be the Condition of it and do acknowledg p. 246. that the word Condition is variously used among Iurists yet I do not use in any sense which implies or insinuates that there is any such condition in the New Covenant as that in Adam's Covenant was consisting in perfect personal and perpetual obedience or any thing in its own nature meritorious of the benefits promised or capable to be performed by us in our own strength but plainly that it be an act of ours tho' done in God's strength which must be necessarily done before we can be actually justified or saved and so there is found in it the true suspending nature of a condition which is the thing I contend for when I affirm Faith is the condition of the New Covenant How many senses soever may be given of this word Condition this is the determinate sense in which I use it throughout this Controversy And whosoever denies the suspending Nature of Faith with respect to actual Justification pleads according to my understanding for the actual Justification of Infidels And thus I find a Condition defined by Navar Iohan. Baptist. Petrus de Perus c. Conditio est Suspensio alicujus dispositionis tantisper dum aliquid futurum fiat And again Conditio est quidam futurus eventus in quem dispositio suspenditur Once more My Reader possibly may be stumbled at my calling Faith sometimes the Instrument and sometimes the Condition of our Justification when there is so great a Controversy depending among Learned Men with respect to the use of both those terms I therefore desire the Reader to take notice That I dive not into that Controversy here much less presume to determine it but finding both those Notions equally opposed by our Antinomians who reject our actual Justification by Faith either way and allow to Faith no other use in our actual Justification but only to manifest to us what was done from Eternity I do therefore use both those terms viz. the Conditionality and Instrumentality of Faith with respect unto our Justification and shew in what sense those terms are useful in this Controversy and are accommodate enough to the design and purpose for which I use them how repugnant soever they are in that particular wherein the Learned contend about the Use and Application of them To be plain when I say Faith justifies us as an Organ or Instrument my only meaning is that it receives or apprehends the Righteousness of Christ by which we are justified and so speaking to the Quomodo or manner of our Justification I say with the general Suffrage of Divines we are justified instrumentally by Faith But in our Controversy with the Antinomians where another different Question is moved about the Quando or time of our actual Justification there I affirm that we are actually justified at the time of our believing and not before and this being the Act upon which our Justification is suspended I call Faith the Condition of our Justification This I desire may be observed lest in my use of both those terms my Reader should think either that I am not aware of the Controversy depending about those terms or that I do herein manifest the vacillancy of
and Adam had not sinned in that noble Virgin-faculty To defend this Idol which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are forced to oppugn and deny several other great and weighty Truths as particular eternal Election the certainty of the Saints Perseverance the necessity of preventing Grace in Conversion which Errors are but the outworks raised in defence of that Idol So in the Baptismal Controversie men would never have adventured to deny God's Covenant with Abraham to be a Covenant of Grace or to assert the Ceremonial Law so full of Christ to be an Adam's Covenant of works and Circumcision expresly called the seal of the Righteousness of Faith to be the condition of Adam's Covenant Much less would they place all the elect of God in Israel at one and the same time under the severest Curse and Rigor of the Law and under the pure Convenant of Grace were they not forced into these Errors and Absurdities by dint of Argument in defence of their darling Opinion Fourteenth Observation Errors abound most and spring fastest in the times of the Churches Peace Liberty and outward Prosperity under Indulgent Rulers Arrianism sprang up under Constantine's mild Government Christian benevolent Rulers are choice Mercies and Blessings to the Church Such as rule over men in the fear of God are to the Church as well as Civil State like the light of the morning when the Sun ariseth even a morning without Clouds as the tender Grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain 2 Sam. 23. 4. But this as well as other mercies is liable to abuse and under the influences of indulgent Governours Error as well as Truth springs up flowers and seeds Persecution gives check to the wantonness of mens Opinions and finds them other and better work to do Caterpillars and Locusts are swept away by the bitter East-winds but swarm in Halcyon days and fall upon every green thing So that the Church rides in this respect more safely in the stormy Sea than in the calm Harbour Peace and Prosperity is apt to cast its Watchmen into a sleep and whilst they sleep the envious one soweth Tares Matth. 13. 25. 'T was under Constantine's benign Government that Poison was poured out into the Churches The abuse of such an excellent mercy provokes the Lord to cut it short and cause the Clouds to gather again after the Rain We have found it so once and again alas that I must say again in this wanton and foolish Nation Professors could live quietly together Converse Fast and pray in a Christian manner together under common Calamities and Dangers differences in Opinion were suspended by consent But no sooner do we feel a warm Sun-blast of Liberty and Peace but it revives and heats our dividing Lusts and Corruptions instead of our Graces The Sheep of Christ fight with each other though their furious pushing one at another is known to presage a change of Weather Fifteenth Observation Errors in the tender bud and first spring of them are comparatively shy and modest to what they prove afterwards when they have spread and rooted themselves into the minds of multitudes and think it time to set up and justle for themselves in the World They usually begin in modest Scruples conscientious Doubts and Queries But having once gotten many Abetters and amongst them some that have subtilty and ability to plead and dispute their Cause they ruffle it out at another rate glory in their numbers piety and ability of their Party boast and glory in the conceited Victories they have atchieved over their Opposers The Masque drops off its face and it appears with a brow of Brass becomes insolent and turbulent both in Church and State Of which it is easie to give many pregnant instances in the Arians of old and more recent Errors which I shall not at present be concerned with lest I exasperate whilst I seek to heal the Wound Should a man hear the Sermons or private Discourses of Errorists whilst the Design is but forming and projecting he should meet with little to raise his jealousie They speak in Generals and guard their Discourses with politick Reserves You shall not see tho you see to see the tendency of their Discourses Hence the Apostle saith 2 per. 2. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They shall privily or covertly bring in damnable Heresies As the Boy in Plutarch being asked by a Stranger what is that you carry so closely under your Cloak wittily answered You may well know that I intend you shall not know it by my so carrying it Sixteenth Observation Nothing gives more countenance and increase to Error than a weak and feeble defence of the Truth against it The strength of Error lieth much in the weakness of the Advocates and Defendants of Truth Every Friend of Truth is not fit to make a Champion for it Many love it and pray for it that cannot defend and dispute for it I can dye for the Truth said the Martyr but I cannot dispute for it Zuinglius blamed Carolostadius for undertaking the Controversie of that Age because said he non habuit satìs humerorum his shoulders were too weak for the burthen It can be said of few as Cicero speaks of one Nullam unquà m in disputationibus rem defendit quam non probârit nullum oppugnavit quem non everterit He undertook no Cause in disputation which he could not defend he opposed no Adversary but could overthrow him He is a rare and happy Disputant who can clear and carry every point of Truth of which he undertakes the defence 'T were happy for the Church if the abilities and prudence of all her Friends were commensurate and equal to their love and Zeal Every little foyl every weak or impertinent Answer of a Friend to Truth is quickly turned into a weapon to wound in the deeper Seventeenth Observation Errors of Iudgment are not cured by compulsion and external force but by rational conviction and proper spiritual Remedies Bodily sufferings rather spread than cure intellectual Errors I deny not but fundamental Heresies breaking forth into open Blasphemies against God and Seditions in the Civil State ought to be restrained 'T is no way fit men should be permitted to go up and down the World with Plague-sores running upon them Nor do I understand why men should be more cautious to preserve their Bodies than their Souls But I speak here of such Errors as may consist with the foundations of the Christian Faith and are not destructive to Civil Government They take the ready way to spread and perpetuate them that think to root them out of the World by such improper and unwarrantable means as external force and violence The Wind never causes and Earth-quake till it be pent in and restrained from motion We neither find nor can imagine That those Church or State Exorcists should ever be able to effect their end who think to confine all the Spirits of Error within
faith consider'd and answer'd 206. Dr. Edw. Reynolds's Opinion about the Law 207 213. The Position about Abraham's Covenant being a Covenant of Grace defended 213. The first Argument for the proof of it 214. Mr. C's Reply answer'd 215. His distinction of A Covenant of Works and The Covenant of Works overthrown 217 218. The second Argument for the proof of it 220. Mr. C's Reply answer'd 221. Third Argument 222. Mr. C's Reply answer'd 223. The Covenants not made with Abraham in Gen. 17. 225 228. Circumcision did not oblige all men on whom it passed to keep the whole Law of Moses for Righteousness 230. Fourth Argument 231. Circumcision in its direct end taught them the corruption of Nature by sin and the mortification of sin by the Spirit 231. Mr. C's Reply answer'd 232. His Arguments to prove the Sinai Covenant a Covenant of Works likewise answered 233. Cutting off in Gen. 17. 14. not the same with the death threatned to Adam ibid. How faith reckon'd to Abraham for Righteousness while he was in Vncircumcision 234. How the Sinai Covenant is a Bondage Covenant 236. Dr. Crisp's Iudgment 237. Of the Conditionality of the New Covenant 242. The Question stated 243. What the word Condition signifies 245. Antecedent and consequent Conditions 246. No condition of the Covenant with respect to its first sanction with Christ 247. but hath an antecedent Condition with respect to the application of its benefits unto men 248. Which is Faith as organically consider'd 249. The Opinions of Orthodox Divines in this Question cited 250. That the Covenant is Conditional proved from M. C's own Concessions 256. Christ hath not perform'd the Condition for us 262. Tho he works Faith in us by his Spirit 263. A Condition does not imply merit 264. Arguments to prove the conditionality of the Covenant 266. First Argument 267. Second Argument 268. Third Argument ibid. Fourth Argument 270. Fifth Argument 272. Mr. Cary's Reply to it 273. The answer 274. The Reasons of my Faith and Practice in the Baptism of Infants 278. in several Theses Thes. 1. God hath dealt with his Church and People in the way of a Covenant and will do so to the end of the World 281. Thes. 2. After the Cessation of the first Covenant as a Covenant of Life God hath published a Second Covenant of Grace by Iesus Christ 283. When the Covenant of Grace took place 284. Thes. 3. Tho the primordial Light of this Covenant of Grace was comparatively weak and obscure yet God from the first publication of it hath been heightning its Privileges and amplifying its Glory in the after Editions and will more and more illustrate it to the end of the World 287. Thes. 4. It is past all doubt that the Infant-seed of Abraham under the second Edition of the Covenant of Grace were taken into God's gracious Covenant had the Seal of that Covenant applied to them and were thereby added to the visible Church 289. Thes. 5. That Rom. 11. 17. is a clear proof that believing Parents and their Seed are ingrafted into the room of the Jews who were broken off 290 291. Thes. 6. Suitably hereunto when a Christian Church was constituted the Children of such believing Parents were declared foederally holy 1 Cor. 7. 14. That the Promise which was seal'd to them by Circumcision is now seal'd by Baptism Act. 2. 39. 292. Thes. 7. The change of the Token and Seal of the Covenant from Circumcision to Baptism will by no means infer the change of the Covenants especially when the latter comes into the place of and serves to the same use and end with the former Col. 2. 11. p. 295. A Postscript to Mr. Cary 297. Some absurdities chargeable upon him 300. The Contents of the Second Appendix Or The Rise and Growth of Antinomianism THe rise of Antinomianism Ap. 2. 308. The Abuse of Free-grace chargable upon good as well as wicked Men 311. By what means some good Men may be drawn to such dangerous Opinions 313 314 315 316. A Catalogue of Ten Antinomian errors 318. which are all contrary to the current of the Scriptures 323. and to the experience of Saints 325. Error 1. That Iustification is an eternal Act of God and so perfectly abolishes Sin in our Persons that we are as clear from Sin as Christ himself 328. Sense of the Orthodox about it 328 329. This proved to be irrational 332. Vnscriptural 335. Injurious to Iesus Christ 338. and injurious to the Souls of Men 340. Error 2. That Iustification by Faith is only the manifestation to us of what was really and actually done before Reasons against it 341 ad 350. Error 3. That Men ought not to doubt of their Faith or question whether they believe or no. Reasons against it 351 ad 354. Error 4. That Believers are not bound to confess their Sins or pray for the Pardon of them From whence will follow either 1. That there is no Sin in Believers 355. Or 2. That Sin in them is inconsiderable 357. Or 3. That it is not the Will of God they should confess and mourn over them which is refuted 358 Error 5. That God sees no Sin in Believers 360. This proved to be injurious to God's Omniscience 361. To be inconsistent with his providential Dispensations 362. To have no foundation in Scripture 363. To clash with their other Principles 365. Error 6. That God is not angry with the Elect for their Sins 365. How the Antinomians led into this Error 366. Three Concessions about God's Corrections of his People 368. God lays his Corrections on his People 369. And for their Sins 371. These Corrections consistent with his satisfi'd Iustice 373 Error 7. That by God's laying our Iniquities upon Christ he became as sinful as we and we as compleatly righteous as he That not only the Punishment of Sin but the Sin it self was laid upon Christ 375 376. Four Concessions 377 378. Sin simply considered did not become the Sin of Christ 379. We are not as compleatly Righteous as Christ 384. Error 8. Neither Believers own Sins nor the Sins of others can do them hurt Nor must they do any Duty for their own Good Salvation or eternal Reward 389. That Believers sins do them no hurt refuted ibid. Sin consider'd formally 392. Effectively 392. Reductively 393. That Believers ought to do no Duty for their own good or with an Eye to their reward refuted 395. Self-ends either Corrupt or Spiritual 397. This Error injurious to the Souls of Men ibid. Error 9. The new Covenant is not made with us but Christ for us The Covenant is wholly a promise without any Condition on our parts That Faith Repentance Obedience are Conditions on Christ's part and that he performs them for us 398. Refuted 399. The Covenant of Redemption and of Grace distinguished ibid. Christ did not believe and repent for us 401. Error 10. They deny Sanctification to be the evidence of Iustification 404. Refuted ibid. The Contents of the Sermon about
make one assault How many wavering Professors at this day lie in Temptation's way and how great a harvest have Errorists and Hereticks had among them There 's not a Mountebank comes upon the Stage but he shall find ten times more Customers for his Druggs than the most Learned and Experienced Physician The giddy-headed Multitude have more regard to Novelty than Truth The Remedies How necessary and desirable are some effectual Rules and Remedies in this Case O what a mercy would it be to the Professors of these days to have their Minds fixed and their Judgments setled in the Truths of Christ Happy is that man whose Judgment is so guarded that no dangerous Error or Heresie can commit a Rape upon it To this end I shall here commend the four following Rules to prevent this vertigenous malady in the heads of Christians Rule I. Look warily to it that you get a real inward implantation into Christ and lay the foundation deep and firm in a due and serious deliberation of Religion whenever you engage in the publick profession of it To this sense sound the Apostle's words Col. 2. 6 7. As you have therefore received Christ Iesus the Lord so walk ye in him rooted and built up in him and stablished in the faith as you have been taught Fertility and stability in Christ a pair of inestimable Blessings depend upon a good rooting of the Soul in him at first He that thrusts a dead stick into the ground may easily pull it up again but so he cannot do by a well-rooted Tree A colour raised by violent action or a great fire soon dies away but that which is natural or constitutional will hold Every thing is as its foundation is 'T was want of a good root and due depth of earth which soon turned the green Corn into dry stubble Matt. 13. 21. Rule II. Labour after an inward experimental taste of all those Truths which you profess This will preserve your minds from wavering and hesitation about the certainty and reality of them We will not easily part with those Truths which have sensibly shed down their sweet influences upon our hearts Heb. 10. 34. No Sophister can easily perswade a man that hath taâ—ted the sweetness of Honey that it is a bitter and unpleasant thing Non est disputandum de gustu you cannot easily perswade a man out of his Senses Rule III. Study hard and pray earnestly for satisfaction in the present Truths 2 Pet. 1. 12. That you may be established 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the truth that now is under opposition and controversie Be not ignorant of the Truths that lie in present hazard Antiquated Opinions that are more abstracted from our present Interest are no tryals of the soundness of our Judgments and integrity of our Hearts as the controversies and conflicts of the present Times are Every Truth hath its time to come upon the stage and enter the lists some in one Age and some in another but Providence seems to have cast the lot of your Nativity for the honour and defence of those Truths with which Error is struggling and conflicting in your time Rule IV. Lastly Be throughly sensible of the benefit and good of establishment and of the evil and danger of a wavering Mind and Judgment Be not carried about with divers and strange Doctrines saith the Apostle for it is a good thing that the heart be established c. Heb. 13. 9. Established Souls are the honour of Truth It was the honour of Religion in the primitive days that when the Heathens would proverbially express an Impossibility they used to say You may as soon turn a Christian from Christ as do it The Fickleness of Professors is a stumbling-block to the World They 'l say as Cato of the Civil Wars betwixt Caesar and Pompey quem fugiam video quem sequar non video they know whom to avoid but not whom to follow And as the honour of Truth so the flourishing of your own Souls depends on it A Tree often removed from one Soil to another can never be expected to be fruitful 't is well if it make a shift to live Fifth Cause Another inward Cause disposing men to receive Erroneous Impressions is an unreasonable EAGERNESS to snatch at any Doctrine or Opinion that promisesh ease to an anxious Conscience Men that are under the frights and terrours of Conscience are willing to listen to any thing that offers present relief Of all the Troubles in the World those of the Mind and Conscience are most intolerable And those that are in pain are glad of ease and readily catch at any thing that seems to offer it This seems to be the thing which led those poor distressed Wretches intimated Micah 6. 6. into their gross Mistakes and Errors about the method of the remission of their Sins Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and â—ow my self before the high God shall I come before him with Burnt-offerings with Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousand of Rams or with ten thousand of Rivers of Oyl Shall I give my First-born for my Transgression the Fruit of my Body for the Sin of my Soul They were ready to purchase inward peace and buy out their pardon at any rate Nothing but the twinges of Conscience could have extorted these things from them Great is the efficacy and torment of a guilty Conscience Satan who feels more of this in himself than any other Creature in the World and knows how ready poor ignorant but distressed Sinners are to catch at any thing that looks like ease or comfort and being jealous what these troubles of Conscience may issue into prepares for them such Erroneous Doctrines and Opinions under the names of Anodines and quieting Recipe's by swallowing of which they feel some present ease but their Disease is thereby made so much the more incurable 'T is upon this account he hath found such vent in the World for his Penanees Pilgrimages and Indulgences among the Papists But seeing this Ware will not go off among the Reformed and more enlightned Professors of Christianity he changeth his hand and fitteth other Doses under other names to quiet sick and distressed Souls before ever their frights of Conscience come to settle into true Repentance and Faith in the Blood of Christ by dressing up and presenting to them such Opinions as these viz. That they may boldly apply to themselves all the Promises of pardon and peace without any respect at all to Repentance or Faith in themselves that it is not at all needful nay that it is illegal and sinful to have any respect to these things forasmuch as their Sins were pardoned and they justified from Eternity and that the Covenant of Grace is in all respects absolute and is made to Sinners as Sinners without any regard to their Faith or Repentance and whatever Sins there be in them God sees them not To such a Charm of Troubles
as this how earnestly doth the Ear of a distressed Conscience listen how greedily doth it suck in such pleasing words Are all Sins that are pardoned pardoned before they are committed and does the Covenant of Grace require neither Repentance nor Faith antecedently to the application of the Promises how groundless then are all my Fears and Troubles This like a Dose of Opium quiets or rather stupifies the raging Conscience for even an Error in Judgment till it be detected and discovered to be so quiets and comforts the heart as well as principles of Truth but whenever the fallacy shall be detected whether here or hereafter the anguish of Conscience must be increased or which is worse left desperate The Remedies To prevent and cure this mistake and error in the Soul by which it is fitted and prepared to catch any Erroneous Principle which is but plausible for its present relief and ease I shall desire my Reader seriously to ponder and consider the following Queries upon this Case Query I. Whether by the vote of the whole Rational World a good Trouble be not better than a false Peace Present ease is desirable but eternal safety is much more so and if these two cannot consist under the present Circumstances of the Soul Whether it be not better to endure for a time these painful pangs than feel more acute and eternal ones by quieting Conscience with false Remedies before the time 'T is bad to lie tossing a few days under a laborious Fever but far worse to have that Fever turned into a Lethargy or fatal Apoplexy Erroneous Principles may rid the Soul of its present pain and eternal hopes and safety together Acute pains are better than a senseless stupidity Though the present rage of Conscience be not a right and kindly conviction yet it may lead to it and terminate in faith and union with Christ at last if Satan do not this way practice upon it and quench it before its time Query II. Bethink your selves seriously Whether Troubles so quieted and laid asleep will not revive and turn again upon thee with a double force as soon as the vertue of the Drug I mean the Erroneous Principle hath spent it self The efficacy of Truth is eternal and will maintain the peace it gives for ever but all delusions must vanish and the Troubles which they damm'd up for a time break out with a greater force Satan employs two sorts of Witches Some to torment the Bodies of Men with grievous pain and anguish but then he hath his White-Witches at hand to relieve and ease them And have these poor Wretches any great cause think you to boast of the cure who are eased of their pains at the price of their Souls Much like unto this are the cures of inward Troubles by Erroneous Principles I lament the Case of blinded Papists who by Pilgrimages and Offerings to the Shrines of Titular Saints attempt the cure of a lesser Sin by committing a greater Is it because there is not a God in Israel who is able in due season to pacify Conscience with proper and durable Gospel-Remedies that we suffer our Troubles thus to precipitate us into the Snares of Satan for the sake of present ease Query III. Read the Scriptures and inquire whether God's People who have lain long under sharp inward Terrors have not at last found settlement and inward peace by those very Methods which the Principles that quiet you do utterly exclude If you will fetch your Peace from a groundless Notion that your Sins were pardoned and your Persons justified from all eternity and therefore you may apply boldly and confidently to your selves the choicest Promises and Privileges in the Gospel without any regard to Faith or Repentance wrought by the Spirit in your Souls I am sure holy David took another Course for the settlement of his Conscience Psal. 51. 6 7 8 9 10. And it hath been the constant practise of the Saints in all Ages to clear their Title to the Righteousness of Christ wrought without them by the Works of his Spirit wrought within them Sixth Cause The next Evil Temper in the Subject preparing and disposing it for Error is an easie CREDVLITY or sequacious humour in men rendring them apt to receive things upon trust from others without due and thorough examination of the grounds and Reasons of them themselves This is a disposition fitted to receive any impression Seducers please to make upon them they are said to deceive the hearts of the simple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. credulous but well-meaning People that suspect no harm 'T is said Prov. 14. 15. the simple believeth every word Through this Sluce or Floodgate what a multitude of Errors in Popery have overflowed the People They are told they are not able to judge for themselves but must take the matters of their Salvation upon trust from their Spiritual Guides and so the silly People are easily seduced and made easily receptive of the grossest Absurdities their ignorant Leaders please to impose upon them And it were to be wished That those two Points viz. Ministrorum mut a officia populi caeca oâ—sequia the dumb Services of their Ministers and the blind Obedience of the People had stay'd within the Popish Confines But alas alas how many simple Protestants be there who may be said to carry their Brains in other mens Heads and like silly Sheep follow the next in the tract before them especially if their Leaders have but wit and art enough to hide their Errors under specious and plausible Pretences How many poisonous Drugs hath Satan put off under the gilded Titles of Antiquity Zeal for God higher attainments in godliness new Lights c. How natural is it for men to follow in the Tract and be tenacious of the Principles and Practises of their Progenitors Multitudes seem to hold their Opinions Iure Haereditario by an Hereditary Right as if their Faith descended to them the same way their Estates do The Emperour of Morocco told King Iohn's Ambassadour That he had lately read St. Paul's Epistles And truly said he were I now to chuse my Religion I would embrace Christianity before any Religion in the World but every man ought to dye in that Religion he received from his Ancestors Many honest well-meaning but weak Christians are also easily beguiled by specious pretences of new Light and higher attainments in Reformation This makes the weaker sorts of Christians pliable to many dangerous Errors cunningly insinuated under such taking Titles What are most of the Erroneous Opinions now vogued in the World but old Errors under new Names and Titles The Remedies The Remedies and Preventions in this Case are such as follow Remedy I. 'T is beneath a man to profess any Opinion to be his own whilst the grounds and reasons of it are in other mens keeping and wholly unknown to himself If a man may tell Gold after his Father then sure he may and ought to try and examine
without a Priest but the Second is a Covenant with a Priest 4. In the First Covenant there is matter of glorying but in the Second there is none Rom. 3. 27. So that these two can never consist except you can compound or reconcile these four Opposites in the justification of the same Person To the same purpose saith that Excellent Mr. Samuel Bolton If the Law were a Covenant of Works then were the Iews under a different Covenant from us and so none of them were saved which the Apostle gainsays Acts 15. 11. or else they were both under a Covenant of Works and a Covenant of Grace But that they could not be they are utterly inconsistent Ergo. And thus all sound Divines speak I may therefore say of Mr. Cary's Position as Ruveus before me did omnem absurditatem excedere videtur it seemeth to exceed all Absurdities A man may more rationally suppose two Natures and essential Forms in one Body and place the same thing under divers Species in the predicament of substance yea 't were more tolerable to affirm That ex duobus entibus per se fit unum ens per se than to place any as Mr. C. places all of God's People under two opposite Covenants If Mr. C. were absolutely under the condemnation of the Law would he not be purely justified think you Yet he places Abraham Moses and all Believers with them absolutely under the severest condemnation of the Law and the pure Gospelâ—Covenant at once But to cover the shame and nakedness of his Assertion which places Believers absolutely under Adams Covenant he is fain to make use of two Fig-leaves as Adam did 1. And the first attempt he now makes p. 4 5 6 7. of his Reply is by way of retortion by telling us That the same pretended Absurdities do fall as heavily and a great deal more on our Doctrine who affirm the Sinai Law complexly taken to be a Covenant of Faith or Grace than upon his who makes them two essentially different Covenants because we are forced to comprize perfect doing with the curse for non-performance under the same Covenant with believing and that it cannot be denied but that all the People of God were absolutely under the Sinai Covenant Gal. 3. 23. and Gal. 4. 4 5. and consequently under the curse Gal. 3. 10. This is the sum and substance of his first Answer I will not be tempted to expose my Neighbour to derision for this his strange Answer but rather propound two sober Queries to him and the Reader viz. 1. What Orthodox Divines he ever met with and what are their names who are forced to comprize perfect doing with the curse for non-performance under the same Covenant with believing and so make the two opposite Covenants to be specifically one and the same Name your Men with their Books and Pages or retract with shame and sorrow what you have here abusively affirmed of them Cameron indeed makes it a subservient Covenant the most a true though obscure Covenant of Grace but none comprize Adam's Covenant with its Curse in the New Covenant 2. Whether it be imaginable That the same Absurdity can follow from their Doctrine that make the whole complex body of the Sinai Law a Covenant of Grace though more obscure and so place all the People of God in those Ages under it as does necessarily follow his Doctrine who makes it a pure Adam's Covenant of Works and places the Church of God absolutely under the curse of it and also under the pure Covenant of Grace at the same time If Grace and Grace how diffeferent soever in degrees of manifestation be as opposite and repugnant as Grace and Works as Justification and Condemnation are 't is time for me to lay down my Pen for I have certainly lost my Understanding to guide it any further But Mr. Cary will say If you do not yet Mr. Roberts doth comprize both in one Covenant I say you abuse Mr. Roberts in so affirming for he saith in that very place you refer to That believing in Christ was ultimately and chiefly intended in the Sinai Covenant and perfect doing was only urged upon Israel in subordination and tendency to that believing And upon that ground it is he affirms that Covenant to be a Covenant of Faith and so denominates it from the chief scope and intent of it He sets not doing and believing in co-ordination or places the Church under two opposite Covenants as you do but places the Law where it ought to be placed in subordination to Faith and Christ. And therefore you have abused that good Man as well as me and your self most of all in this your first impertinent and silly Answer 2. But you have one Evasion more p. 7. where you say That how harsh and dreadful soever the Terms or Conditions of the Legal Covenant were to those that were under it as Moses and the whole body of the Israelites then were yet the grace of the Gospel-Covenant far superseded and was by far more victorious powerful and efficacious Rom. 5. 17 20. Worse and worse Your Discourse mends like sower Ale in Summer Here you fancy the two Covenants under which you place the whole Church of God to be in a conflict one with the other Condemnation and Justification strugling one with another as I told you before they would but however the Grace of the New Covenant prevails at last and gets the victory over the Covenant of Works Very good but then pray Sir if you please answer me a plain Question or two at your leisure First How far did the Covenant of Grace prevail against the Covenant of Works Was it so far prevalent and victorious as utterly to vanquish and disannul it as a Covenant of Works to them or was it not Was the Victory you speak of a compleat or a partial one If you say it was incompleat and partial then you leave them as I told you before you must partly under the Promise and partly under the Curse justified in part and condemned in part But if you say it was a compleat and perfect Victory then it utterly dissolved its obligation as a Covenant of Works then they did not remain under two opposite Covenants as you affirmed they did but on their believing changed their state with their Covenant as we affirm they did Secondly If you say it did not totally free them from the Curse of the Covenant of Works but however prevailed so far that they were not actually damned by vertue of the Curse then be pleased to answer me one Question more How it was possiâ—le for them to be absolutely under the Curse of the Law as you affirmed they were and yet that Curse to be so superseded by the Covenant of Grace as here you speak To supersede the Curse though it be a Phrase I never met with before if it signify any thing it must signify this That the Covenant of Grace caused the
by it but to convince them of Sin and of the necessity of a Saviour and yet the Law be a Covenant of Works intentionally as well as materially considered and that in respect of God's special designation and appointment If God designed and appointed it in his Sinai dispensation to be to them an Adam's Covenant of Works then certainly they were not out as you say they were when they sought Righteousness by the works of it nor could that mistake of theirs be the ground of the Controversy betwixt the Apostle and them For it seems it was no mistake being by God's intention as well as its own primitive nature promulged at Sinai as a true Adam's Covenant Secondly You deny the Law was added to the Promise and ask me why it might not be added to the first Covenant to re-inforce that I answer Because the scope of the place will not bear it nor any good Expositor countenance such a fancy You make the Sinai Law to be the same with that first Covenant and by so expounding the Apostle you make him say either that the same thing was added to it self which must in your own Phrase be by a Correspondency of Identity or else that there are two distinct Covenants of Works when indeed there is but one and that the latter was added to the former This is your way of Expounding Scripture when driven to a streight by dint of Argument Nothing beside such a pure necessity could drive you upon such an Absurdity It was added to the promise saith Dr. Reynolds by way of subserviency and attendance the better to advance and make effectual the Covenant it self Mr. Strong upon the two Covenants saith the Apostle's meaning is that the Law was added as an Appendix to the Promise But it may be you had rather hear Dr. Crisp's Exposition than his for you say had it been added to the Promise it would have given life The Doctor will at once give you the true sense of the Text and with it a full answer to your Objection Though Life saith he be not the end of the Law yet there are other sufficient uses of it requiring the promulgation thereof It was published to be an Appendix to the Gospel Gal. 3. 19. And this supposes 1. The priority of the Gospel to the Law 2. The principality of the Promise of Life by Christ above the Law 3. The Consistence of the Law and Gospel They may well stand one by another as an House and the addition to it may That it was with such an intention added to the Promise I have met with no Man that had front enough to deny or scruple it before you And that the Iews did mistake its chief scope and use from whence we denominate it a Covenant of Grace the generality of Godly and Learned Divines constantly affirm See Mr. Anth. Burgess de Lege p. 227. Bolton's Bounds p. 160 161. Mr. Samuel Mather on the Types p. 11. with multitudes more whose citations would even weary the Reader And what you urge from Mr. Poole's Annotations on 2 Cor. 3. 6 7. it makes nothing at all to your purpose For it is manifest the Annotator there takes the Moral Law in it self strictly taken and as set in opposition to the Gospel which it never was since the Fall but by the ignorance and infidelity of unregenerate Men. You also labour to shelter your erroneous fancy under the authority of Dr. Owen but you manifestly abuse him in your Citation for in that very place you refer to he speaks strictly of the Covenant of Works made with Adam in Paradise and plainly distinguishes it from the Sinai Covenant which sufficiently shews his judgment in this point For these are his own words which you suppressed in the Citation As to the Sinai Covenant and the New Testament with their privileges thence emerging they belong not to our present Argument This Paragraph you wilfully omit that you might include that which his words plainly exclude In the same place he tells you that David and Abraham's Covenant was for essence the Covenant of Grace notwithstanding the variations made in it But you take and leave as best suits your design Once more in p. 16 17 c. of my Vindiciae Legis you find your self pinched with another Dilemma from Lev. 26. 40 41 46. whence I plainly proved That there is a Promise of Pardon found in the Sinai dispensation to penitent sinners That this Promise was given at Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses is undeniable from vers 46. That it contained the Relief of a gracious remission to penitent sinners is as undeniable from vers 40 41. If you say this Promise belongs to Moses his dispensation as verse 46. tells you it did then there is remission of Sins found in the Sinai Laws If you say it only refers to Abraham's Covenant of Grace then that Covenant of Grace appears to be conditional which you utterly deny Now what is your Reply to this 1. You object my own words in the Method of Grace p. 326. as if you had never read the just and fair Vindication I had before given you of them p. 134 135. of my first Reply to you At this rate Men may continue Controversies to the Worlds end Sir there are many Witnesses that you are very well acquainted with my Method of Grace 2. You say p. 31. of your Reply That that Covenant could not be conditional because a Condition implies merit either of congruity or condignity This is a further discovery of your ignorance of the nature of Conditions as well as Covenants But that Point belonging to the last Head of Controversy between us I shall refer it thither It were easie for me to instance in many more Absurdities which Mr. C. cannot eluctate and to prove them upon him as easily as to name them But I will not press him too far what hath been named and proved already is more than enough to convince the Reader that my first Argument is left standing in its full force and strength against him viz. Argument I. That Proposition can never be true which necessarily draws many and horrid gross absurdities after it by just consequence But so doth this Ergo. Argument II. My next Argument Vindiciae c. p. 27. is as secure as the first It was this If Adam's Covenant had one end namely the Happiness and Justification of Men by their own Obedience and the Law at Sinai had quite another end namely to bring Sinners to Christ by Faith for their Righteousness the one to keep him within himself the other to take him quite out of himself then the Sinai Law cannot possibly be the same with Adam's Covenant of Works in Paradise But so stands the Case Rom. 10. 4. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth Therefore they cannot be the same but two different Covenants All that touches this Argument is but
three Lines in the 49th page of your Reply where you say you have sufficiently answered and cleared this in p. 169 172. of your former Discourse from the corrupt interpretation by me fastened thereon Now if the Reader will give himself the trouble to examine those Pages he shall find that Mr. C. there allows that very interpretation which he here calls corrupt and saith it comes all to one reckoning with his own If this will overthrow my second Argument it is gone Argument III. My third Argument was drawn from Acts 7. 38. in this Form If Christ himself were the Angel by whom the Laws were delivered to Moses which are there called the lively Oracles of God then the Law cannot be a pure Adam â—s Covenant of Works For it is never to be imagined that ever Jesus Christ himself should deliver to Moses such a Covenant directly opposite to all the ends of his future Incarnation But it is more than probable from that Text that it was Christ which delivered the Law to Moses on the Mount Ergo. To this Argument he saith not one word in p. 49. of his Reply where he cites a part of it nibling a little at that expression The lively Oracles of God thinking it unimaginable the Sinai Law should be such when as the Apostle Paul Rom. 7. 10. found the Commandment to be unto death and the Apostle 2 Cor. 3. 6 7. calls it a Ministration of death I must therefore leave Mr. C. to reconcile those two Scriptures And withal I must tell him that Spanhemius gives the same sense I do of Acts 7. 38. as the current judgment of Christians against the Iews That it was not a created Angel but Christ himself Argument IV. The last Argument I urged was from Rom. 9. 4. and thus it may run No such Covenant as by the Fall had utterly lost all its Promises Privileges and Blessings and could retain nothing but Curses and Punishments could possibly be numbred among the chief Privileges in which God's Israel gloried But the Law given at Sinai was numbred among their chief privileges Rom. 9. 4. Ergo. To this he only saith p. 57. of his Reply That the Law even as it was a Covenant of Works was a privilege inestimable beyond what all others enjoyed because the very Curses and Punishments annexed thereunto in case of the least faileur were of excellent use to convince them of their sin and misery without Christ and their necessity therefore of a Saviour which was the proper work of the Law as a Covenant of works which advantage all other Nations wanting it might well be numbred among the chief Privileges they were invested with But 1. If the Law were intended by God to be an Adam's Covenant to them as Mr. C. saith it was where then is the Privilege of God's Israel above other Nations 2. If their Privilege consisted in the subserviency of that Law to Christ as he here intimates it did then he yields the thing I contend for For this being its chief scope and end we do hence justly denominate it a Covenant of Grace though more obscure and legally administred And in this judgment most of our solid Divines concur Mr. Charnock on the Attributes p. 390. is clear and judicious in the point Mr. Samuel Bolton in that excellent Book called The Bounds of Christian Liberty gives nine solid Arguments to prove the Law was not set up at Sinai as a Covenant of Works Mr. Anth. Burgess gives us six Arguments to prove the same Conclusion Mr. Greenhill on Ezek. 16. gives us demonstration from that Context That since it was a Marriage-Covenant as it appears to be v. 8. it cannot possibly be a distinct Covenant from the Covenant of Grace The incomparable Turrettine Learnedly and Judiciously states this Controversy and both positively asserts and by many Arguments fully proves That the Sinai Law cannot be a pure Covenant of Works or a Covenant specifically distinct from the Covenant of Grace It were easie to fill Pages with Allegations of this kind but I hope what hath been said may suffice for this Point But still Mr. Cary complains that I have all this while but threatned his Arguments to prove them fallacious or to have four Terms in them and therefore he hath drawn out some select Arguments as he calls them p. 37. to try my skill upon I will neither tire my Reader in a foolish chase of such weak and impertinent Arguments as he there produceth nor yet wholly neglect them lest he glory in them as unanswerable And therefore to shew him the fate of the rest I will only touch his first Argument which being his Argumentum Palmarium deservedly leads the Van to all the rest And thus it runs upon all four That Covenant that is not of Faith must needs be a Covenant of Works yea the very same for substance with that made with Adam But the Scripture is express That the Law is not of Faith Gal. 3. 12. Ergo. The Law is considered two ways in Scripture 1. Largely for the whole Mosaical Oeconomy comprehensive of the Ceremonial as well as Moral Precepts and that Law is of Faith as the Learned Turrettine hath proved by four Scripture Arguments Pars secunda p. 292 293. Because it contained Christ the Object of Faith c. Because it impelled men to seek Christ by Faith Because it required that God be worshipped which he cannot rightly be without Faith And because Paul describes the Righteousness of Faith in those very words whereby Moses had declared the Precepts of the Law Deut. 30. 11 12 13. Again the Law in Scripture is taken strictly for the Moral Law only considered abstractly from the promises of Grace as the Legal Iusticiaries understood it These are two far different senses and acceptations of the Law Your Major Proposition takes the Law in its large complex body as appears by your 3d page Your Minor Proposition which you would confirm by Gal. 3. 12. takes the Law strictly and abstractly as it is set disjunctly from yea in opposition to Faith and the Promises and so there are two sorts of Law in your Argument and consequently your Argument is fallacious as all its fellows be and runs as I told you before upon all four I hope this may suffice with respect to the Sinai Covenant controverted betwixt me and my Neighbour to evince that it cannot be what he asserts it to be even an Adam's Covenant of Works and that I have discharged what I undertook to prove with respect to this Covenant namely That Mr. C. cannot free his Position from the gross Absurdities with which I loaded it but endeavouring to do that hath incurred many more that his Reply hath left my Arguments standing in their full strength against him and that the Position I have set up against him is well founded in Scripture and hath the general concurrence and consent of Learned Holy and Orthodox Divines To
conclude Let the grave and learned Dr. Edw. Reynolds in his excellent Treatise of the Vse of the Law determine this Controversy betwixt us p. 371 c. where designedly handling this Doctrine from Rom. 7. 13. That the Law was revived and promulgated anew on Mount Sinai by the Ministry of Moses with no other than Evangelical and merciful purposes he abundantly confirms my Sense and Arguments and saves me the labour of refuting the principal and most of yours where carrying before him the whole Context of Gal. 3. from the 15th to the 23d he clearly carries his Doctrine with it proving from v. 15. That God's Covenant with Abraham was perpetual and immutable and therefore all other subsequent Acts of God such as the giving of the Law was do some way or other refer unto it 2. From v. 16. he further proves That as God's Covenant with Abraham is most constant in regard of the wisdom and unvariableness of him that made it so it can never expire for want of a Seed to whom it is made 3. From v. 17. he proves that if another Law be made after the Promise which prima specie and in strict construction doth imply a contradiction to the terms and nature of the former Law then it is certain that this latter Law must be understood in some other sense and admit of some other subordinate use which may well consist with the being and force of the former Covenant 4. From v. 18. he proves that the coming of the Law hath not voided the Promise and that the Law is not of force as you vainly dream towards the Seed to whom the Promise is made and therefore if it be not to stand in a contradiction it follows that it must stand in subordination to the Gospel and so to tend to Evangelical Purposes 5. He further proves his Conclusion from v. 19. which shews for what end the Law was added 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was not saith he set up alone as a thing in gross by it self as an adequate compleat solid Rule of Righteousness as it was given to Adam in Paradise much less was it published to void and disannul any precedent Covenant but so far was it from abrogating that it was added to the Promise by way of subserviency and attendance the better to advance and make effectual the Covenant it self and that until the Seed should come which whether it respect Christ personal or mystical in either sense saith he it confirms the point we are upon viz. That the Law hath Evangelical purposes If the Seed be understood of the Person of Christ then this shews that the Law was put to the Promise the better to raise and stir up in men the expectations of Christ the promised Seed But if we understand by Seed the Faithful which I rather approve then the Apostle's meaning is this That as long as any are either to come into the unity of Christ's Body and have the Covenant of Grace applied to them c. so long there will be use of the Law both to the Unregenerate to make them â—ly to Christ and those that are already called that they may learn to cast all their faith hope and expectation of Righteousness upon him still This then manifestly shews that there was no other intention in publishing the Law but with reference to the Seed that is with Evangelical purposes to shew mercy not with reference to those that perish who would have had condemnation enough without the Law And further strengthens his Conclusion from the last words of vers 19. That it was ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator This saith he evidently declares That the Law was published in mercy and pacification not in fury or revenge for the work of a Mediator is to negotiate peace and treat of reconcilement between Parties offended whereas if the Lord had intended death in the publishing of the Law he would not have proclaimed it in the hand of a Mediator but of an Executioner 6. From vers 20. Those words saith he shew why the Law was published in the hand of a Mediator viz. that they should not despair and sink under the fear of his Wrath. For as he made a Covenant of Promise to Abraham and his Seed so he is the same God still one in his grace and mercy towards Sinners God is one i. e. in sending this Mediator he doth declare to Mankind that he is at peace and unity with them again Moses was the Representative and Christ the substantial and real Mediator God is one i. e. he carries the same purpose and intention both in the Law and in the Gospel namely benevolence and desire of reconcilement with men 7. To sum up all that hath been spoken touching the use of the Law in a plain similitude Suppose we a Prince should proclaim a Pardon to all Traitors if they would come in and plead it and after this should send forth his Officers to attach imprison examine convince arraign threaten and condemn them is he now contrary to himself hath he repented of his Mercy No but he is unwilling to lose his Mercy desirous to have the honour of his Mercy acknowledged unto him The same is the Case between God and us To Abraham he made a promise of Mercy and Blessedness to all that would plead interest in it for the remission of their Sins but men were secure and heedless of their Estate c. Hereupon the Lord published by Moses a severe and terrible Law yet in all this God doth but pursue his first purpose of mercy and take a course to make his Gospel accounted worthy of all acceptation which clears the general point That God in the publication of the Law by Moses on Mount Sinai had none but Merciful and Evangelical Intentions And once more The Law was not published by Moses on Mount Sinai as it was given to Adam in Paradise to justify or to save men And p. 385. it is not given ex primariâ— intentione to condemn men In consequence to all which he saith p. 388 389. that to preach the Law alone by it self is to pervert the use of it neither have we any power or commission so to do It was published as an Appendant to the Gospel and so must it be preached It was published in the hand of a Mediator and must be preached in the hand of a Mediator It was published Evangelically and it must be so preached See how this agrees now with p. 173. of your Call and how the several parts of the discourse of this sound and eminent Doctor which I have been forced to sum up and contract do abundantly confute your vain Notions of the Law and cut the very nerves of your best Arguments if they had any nerves in them for indeed it is moles absque nervis It were easy for me to represent the Sense of many other eminent Divines in perfect
Covenant of Grace though more obscurely administred But because Latin Authors are of little use to you and among English ones the Judgment of Dr. Crisp I suppose will be instar omnium with you I will recite it faithfully out of his Sermon upon the two Covenants where he makes the Old and New Covenants to be indeed two distinct Covenants of Grace for which I see no reason at all but proves the former to be so in these words It is granted of all men That in the Covenant of Works there is no remission of Sin there is no notice of Christ but the whole business or imployment of the Priests of the old Law was altogether about remission of Sins and the exhibiting and holding forth of Christ in their fashion unto the People In the 15th of Numbers vers 28. I will give you but one Instance there you shall plainly see That the administration of that Priestly Office had remission of Sins as the main end of that Administration If a Soul sin through ignorance he shall bring a She-goat unto the Priest and he shall make an atonement for the Soul that sinneth ignorantly and it shall be forgiven him See the main end is administring forgiveness of Sins And that Christ was the main Subject of that their Ministry is plain because the Apostle saith in the Verse before my Text That all that Administration was but a Shadow of Christ and a Figure for the present to represent him as he doth express in the 9th Chapter of this Epistle And the truth is the usual general Gospel that all the Iews had was in their Sacrifices and Priestly Observations So that it 's plain the administration of their Covenant was an administration of Grace and absolutely distinct from the administration of the Covenant of Works And what can be said more absolutely and directly contradictory to your Position than this is And yet again p. 250. speaking to that Scripture Heb. 8. 8. where the Apostle distinguishes of a better and a faulty of First and Second he saith Finding fault with them The days come when I will make a new Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah not according to the Covenant I made with their Fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the Land of Egypt and as Ieremiah adds it for the Apostle takes all this out of Ier. 31. 31. although I was an Husband to them and in the close of all Your Sins and Iniquities will I remember no more Here are two Covenants a new Covenant and the Covenant he made with their Fathers Some may think it was the Covenant of works at the promulgation of the Moral Law but mark well that Expression of Ieremiah and you shall see it was the Covenant of Grace For saith he not according to the Covenant I made with their Fathers although I was an Husband unto them How can God be considered as Husband to a People under the Covenant of Works which was broken by man in innocency and so became disannulled or impossible by the breach of it The Covenant of Works runs thus Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law and In the day thou sinnest thou shalt die the death Man had sinned before God took him by the hand to lead him out of the Land of Egypt and Sin had separated Man from God how then can God be called an Husband in the Covenant of Works The Covenant therefore was not a Covenant of Works but such a Covenant as the Lord became an Husband in and that must be a Covenant of Grace c. How the Doctor makes good his two distinct Covenants of Grace I see not nor expect ever to see proved and is not my present concernment to enquire but once it is evident by what he hath here said That the Ceremonial Law whereof Circumcision is a branch can be no other than the Covenant of Grace And nothing is more common among our Divines than to prove not only the Sinai Law but God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. to be the Covenant of Grace by this Medium That God having entred into a Covenant of Grace with Abraham before would never bring him under a Covenant of Works afterwards which must nullify and void the former And beside such a Covenant of Works as you make this was never heard of in the World wherein God promises to be a God to Abraham and his Seed in their Generations upon the rigorous and impossible Terms of Adam's Covenant By this time I presume you must feel the force of those Arguments produced against your vain and groundless notion and how little you are able to do to deliver your Thesis from them but the more you struggle the more still you are intangled Go which way you will your Absurdities follow you as your Shadow haeret lateri lethalis arundo Leaving therefore all your Absurdities upon you till God shall give you more illumination and ingenuity to discern and acknowledge them I shall pass on to the examination of your third Position which led you into these other gross Mistakes and if God shall convince you of your Error in this point I hope it may prove a means of recovering you out of the rest which in love to your Soul I heartily desire III. Your third Position is That God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. can be no other than the Covenant of Works because Circumcision was the Condition of it For say you the new Covenant is altogether absolute and unconditional Of the Conditionality of the New Covenant This Question Whether the Covenant of Grace be conditionate or absolute was moved as a learned Man observes in the former Age by occasion of the Controversy about Justification betwixt the Protestants and Papists Among the Protestants some denied and others affirmed the Conditionality of the gospel-Gospel-covenant Those that denied it did so for fear of mingling Law and Gospel Christ's Righteousness and Man's as the Papists had wickedly done before Those that affirmed it did so out of fear also lest the necessity of Faith and Holiness being relaxed Libertinism should be that way introduced But if the Question were duly stated and the sense of its Terms agreed upon the Gospel-Covenant may be affirmed to be conditional to secure the People of God from Libertinism without the least diminution of the Righteousness of Christ or clouding the Free-grace of God I did in my first Answer to your Call endeavour to prevent the needless trouble you have here given your self by a succinct state of the Question telling you the Controversy betwixt us is not 1. Whether the Gospel-covenant requires no duties at all of them that are under it nor 2. Whether it requires any such Conditions as were in Adam's Covenant namely perfect personal and perpetual Obedience under the penalty of the Curse and admitting no place of Repentance nor 3.
Whether any Condition required by it on our part have any thing in its own nature meritorious of the Benefits promised nor 4. Whether we be able in our own strength and by the power of our Free-will without the preventing as well as the assisting Grace of God to perform any such work or duty as we call a Condition These things I told you were to be excluded out of this Controversy But the only Question betwixt us is Whether in the New Covenant some act of ours though it have no merit in it nor can be done in our own single strength be not required to be performed by us antecedently to a blessing or privilege consequent by vertue of a promise And whether such an act or duty being of a suspending nature to the blessing promised it have not the true and proper nature of a Gospel-condition In your Reply contrary to all rule and reason you include and chiefly argue against the very Particulars by me there excluded and scarcely if at all touch the true Question as it was stated and by you ought accordingly to have been considered I might therefore justly think my self discharged from any further concernment with you about it for if you will include what I plainly excluded you argue not against mine but another man's Position which I am not concerned to defend You here dispute against meritorious Conditions which I explode and abhor as much as your self You say p. 34. of your Reply that a Condition plainly implies something of merit by way of condignity or congruity which is false and turns the Question from me to the Papists And were it not more for the clearing up of so great a Point for the instruction and satisfaction of others than any hope you give me of convincing you I should not have touched this Question again unless I had found your Replies more distinct and pertinent But finding the Point in controversy of great weight I will once more tell you 1. What the word Condition signifies 2. In what sense it is by us used in this Controversy 3. Establish my Arguments for the conditionality of the New Covenant 1. And first we grant That neither our word Condition nor your term Absolute are either of them found in Scripture with respect to God's covenanting with Man so that we contend not about the signification of a Scripture term But though the word Conditional be not there yet the thing being found there That brings the word Conditional into use in this Controversy For we know not how to express those â— sacred Particles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If If not Vnless But if Except Only and the like which are frequently used to limit and restrain the Grants and Privileges of the New Covenant Rom. 10. 9. Matt. 18. 3. Mark 5. 36. Mark 11. 26. Rom. 4. 24. I say we know not how to express the true sense and force of these Particles in this Controversy by any other word so fit and full as the word Conditional is Now this word Condition being a Law-term is variously used among Iurists and the various use of the word occasions that confusion which is found in this Controversy He therefore that shall clearly distinguish the various senses and uses of the word is most likely to labour with success in this Controversy I shall therefore briefly note the principal senses and uses of the term and shew in what sense we here take it Of Conditions there be two sorts Conditions 1. Antecedent 2. Consequent As to the latter namely consequent Conditions you your self acknowledge p. 100. That in the outward dispensation of the Covenant many things are required of us in order unto the participation or enjoyment of the full end of the Covenant in glory So then the Covenant is acknowledged to be consequently conditional which is no more than to say with the Apostle Without holiness no man shall see God or that if any man drawâ— back his soul shall have no pleasure in him c. Our Controversy therefore is not about consequent Conditions laid by God upon Believers after they are in Christ and the Covenant the Covenant so considered à posteriori will not be denied to be Condiâ—tional The only Question is about Antecedent Conditions and of these we are here to consider 1. Such as respect the first Sanction of the Covenant in Christ. 2. Such as respect the application of the benefits of the Covenant unto Men As to the first Sanction of the Covenant in Christ we freely acknowledg â—t hath no previous Condition on Manâ—s part but depends purely and only upon the Grace of God and Merit of Christ. So that our Question proceeds about such antecedent Conditions only as respect the Application of the Benefits of the Covenant unto Men. And of these Antecedent Conditions there are likewise two sorts which must be carefully distinguished 1. Such Antecedent Conditions which have the force of a meritorious and impulsive Cause which being performed by the proper strength of Nature or at most by the help of common assisting Grace do give a Man a right to the reward or blessings of the Covenant And in this sense we utterly disclaim antecedent Conditions as I plainly told you p. 61. of my Vindiciae c. Or 2. An Antecedent Condition signifying no more than an Act of ours which though it be neither perfect in every degree nor in the least meritorious of the benefit conferred nor performed in our own natural strength yet according to the constitution of the Covenant is required of us in order to the blessings consequent thereupon by vertue of the Promise and consequently the benefits and mercies granted in the Promise in this order are and must be suspended by the Donor or Disposer of them until it be performed Such a Condition we affirm Faith to be But here again Faith 〈…〉 the Condition of the New Covenant is considered 1. Essentially Or 2. Organically and Instrumentally In the first consideration of Faith according to its Essence it is contained under Obedience and in that respect we exclude it from justifying our persons or entitling us to the saving-mercies of the New Covenant as it is a work of ours and so I excluded it p. 133. of my Method of Grace which you ignorantly or wilfully mistake when in your Reply p. 88 89. you object it against me Faith considered in this sense is not the Condition of the Covenant nor can pretend to be so more than any other Grace But We consider it Organically Relatively and as most speak Instrumentally as it receives Christ Ioh. 1. 12. and so gives us power to become the Sons of God it being impossible for any Man to partake of the saving benefits of the Covenant but as he is united to Christ. For all the Promises of God in him are yea and in him Amen 2 Cor. 1. 20. And united to Christ no Man can be before he be a believer for Christ
dwelleth in our hearts by Faith Eph. 3. 17. Upon which Scriptural Grounds and Reasons it is that we affirm Faith to be an Antecedent Condition or Causa sine quâ non to the saving benefits of the new Covenant and that it must go before them at least in order of nature which is that we mean when we say Faith is the antecedent Condition of the New Covenant And those that deny it to be so as the Antinomians do who talk of actual and personal Justification from Eternity or at least from the death of Christ must consequently assert the actual Justification of Infidels and not only disturb but destroy the whole order of the Gospel and open the Sluces and Flood-gates to all manner of licentiousness And thus our Pious and Learned Divines generally affirm Faith to be the condition of the Covenant So Mr. Ieremiah Burroughs Faith saith he hath the great honour above all other Graces to be the Condition of the second Covenant therefore certainly it is some great matter that Faith enables us to do Whatsoever keeps Covenant with God brings strength though it self be never so weak as Sampson â—s Hair What is weaker than a little Hair Yet because the keeping that was keeping Covenant with God therefore even a little Hair was so great strength to Sampson Faith then that is the Condition of the Covenant in which all Grace and Mercy is contained if it be kept it will cause strength indeed to do great things And as this excellent Man Mr. Burroughs is in this sense for the Conditionality of the New Covenant so are the most Learned and Eminent of our own Divines Dr. Edward Reynold's assigning the differences betwixt the two Covenants gives this for one They differ in the Condition saith he there Legal Obedience here only Faith and the certain consequent thereof Repentance There is difference likewise in he manner of performing these Conditions For now God himself begins first to work upon us and in us before we move or stir towards him He doth not only command us and leave us to our created strength to obey the Command but he furnisheth us with his own Grace and Spirit to obey the Command Of the same judgment is Dr. Owen Are we able saith he of our selves to fulfil the Condition of the New Covenant Is it not as easie for a Man by his own strength to fulfil the whole Law as to repent and believe the Promise of the Gospel This then is one main difference of these two Covenants That the Lord did in the Old only require the Condition now in the New he also effects it in all the foederates to whom the Covenant is extended This is the Man you pretend to be against Conditions Mr. William Pemble opening the nature of the two Covenants saith The Law offers Life unto Man upon condition of perfect Obedience the Gospel offers Life unto Man upon another condition to wit of Repentance and Faith in Christ. And after his proofs for it saith From whence we conclude firmly That the difference between the Law and the Gospel assigned by our Divines is most certain and agreeable to the Scriptures viz. That the Law gives Life unto the just upon condition of perfect obedience in all things the Gospel gives Life unto sinners upon condition they repent and believe in Christ Jesus Learned and judicious Mr. William Perkins thus The Covenant of Grace is that whereby God freely promising Christ and his Benefits exacts again of Man that he would by Faith receive Christ. And again in the Covenant of Grace two things must be considered the Substance thereof and the Condition The Substance of the Covenant is That Righteousness and Life Everlasting is given to God's Church and People by Christ. The Condition is That we for our parts are by Faith to receive the foresaid Benefits and this Condition is by Grace as well as the Substance That Learned Humble and Painful Minister of Christ Mr. Iohn Ball stating the difference betwixt the two Covenants shews that in the Covenant at Sinai in the Covenant with Abraham and that with David that in all these Covenant expressures there are for substance the same Evangelical conditions of Faith and Sincerity Dr. Davenant thus In the Covenant of the Gospel it is otherwise for in this Covenant to the obtainment of Reconciliation Justification and Liâ—e Eternal there is no other condition required than of true and lively Faith Iohn 3. 16. Therefore Justification and the right to Eternal Life doth depend on the Condition of Faith alone Dr. Downame harmonizeth with the rest in these words That which is the only Condition of the Covenant of Grace by that alone we are justified But Faith is the Condition of the Covenant of Grace which is therefore called Lex Fidei Our Writers saith he distinguishing the two Covenants of God that is the Law and the Gospel whereof one is the Covenant of Works the other the Covenant of Grace do teach That the Law of Works is that which to Justification requireth works as the Condition thereof The Law of Faith that which to Justification requireth Faith as the Condition thereof The former saith Do this and thou shalt live the latter Believe in Christ and thou shalt be saved But what stand I upon particular though renowned names You may see a whole Constellation of our sound and famous Divines in the Assembly thus expressing themselves about this Point The Grace of God say they is manifested in the second Covenant in that he freely provideth and offereth to sinners a Mediator and Life and Salvation by him and requiring Faith as the Condition to interest them in him promiseth and giveth his Holy Spirit to all his Elect to work in them that Faith with all other saving Graces and to enable them to all holy Obedience as the evidence of the truth of their Faith c. I could even tire the Reader with the Testimonies of eminent foreign Divines as Cameron de triplici foedere Thes. 82. Vrsinus Paraeus explicatio Catech. Quest 18. de foedere Wendeline Christian Theology Lib. 1. cap. 19. Thes. 9. Poliander Rivet Wallaeus and Thysius the four learned Professors at Leyden Synops Disp. 23. Sect. 27 c. And as for those Ancient and Modern Divines whom the Antinomians have corrupted and misrepresented the Reader may see them all vindicated and their concurrence with those I have named evidenced by that Learned and Pious Mr. Iohn Graile in his Modest Vindication of the Doctrine of Conditions in the Covenant of Grace from p. 58. onward a Man whose name and memory is precious with me not only upon the account of that excellent Sermon he Preached and those fervent Prayers he poured out many years since at my Ordination but for that Learned and Judicious Treatise of his against Mr. Eyre wherein he hath cast great light upon this Controversy as excellent Mr. Baxter and
Mr. Woodbridge have also done But alas what evidence is sufficient to satisfy ignorant and obstinate Men Sir it pities me to see the lamentable confusion you are in You are forced by the evidence of truth to yield and own the substance of what I contend for You have yielded the Covenant to be consequently Conditional in p. 84. of your Reply You have also as plainly yielded that the Application of Pardoning Mercy unto our Souls is in order of nature consequent unto believing p. 31. of your Reply From both which concessions in your own words recited this Conclusion is evident and unavoidable viz. That no adult person notwithstanding God's Eternal Election and Christ's meritorious death and satisfaction according to the Constitution and Order of the New Covenant can either be justified in this World or saved in the World to come unless he first believe For if the Application of Pardoning Mercy unto our Souls is in order of Nature consequent unto believing as you truly affirm it to be then according to the Constitution and Order of the New Covenant no application of pardoning Mercy can be made to our Souls before we believe And if it be evident as you say it is p. 84. that unto a full and compleat enjoyment of all the Promises of the Covenant Faith on our part is required then as no Man can be actually justified in this World so neither can he be saved before or without Faith in the World to come And if you did but see the true suspending nature of Faith which you plainly yield in these two concessions you would quickly grant the conditional nature of it For what is the proper nature and true notion of a Condition but to suspend the benefits and grants of that Covenant in which it is so inserted And thus the Controversy betwixt us is fairly issued But I doubt you understand not what you have here written or are troubled with a very bad memory Because I find you in a far different note from this in p. 103. of your Reply where you say That if Iesus Christ fulfilled the Law and purchased Heaven and Happiness for Men as all true Protestants hitherto have taught then nothing can remain but to declare this to them to incline them to believe and accept it and to prescribe in what way and by what means they shall finally come to inherit Eternal Life To affirm therefore that Faith and Repentance are the Conditions of the New Covenant required of us in point of Duty antecedent to the benefit of the Promise doth necessarily suppose that Christ hath not done all for us nor purchased a right to Life for any but only made way that they may have it upon certain terms or as some say he hath merited that we might merit But the Conditions of the Covenant are not to be performed by the Head and Members both Gal. 4. 4. Christ therefore having in our stead performed the Conditions of Life there remains nothing but a Promise and the Obedience of Children as the fruit and effect thereof to them that believe in him together with means of obtaining the full possession which here we want Either these passages I have here cited and compared were fetched at a great distance of time out of Authors differing as much in judgment as you and I do and so the dissonancy of them is the meer effect of oblivion and incogitancy Or else your Intellectuals are more confused and weak than I am willing to suspect them to be For if the application of Pardoning Mercy to our Souls is in order of Nature consequent to Believing as you truly say it was then certainly notwithstanding Christ's fulfilling the Law and purchasing Heaven and Happiness for Men something else must remain to be done besides declaring this to them to incline them to believe and accept it or prescribing to them in what way they shall finally come to inherit Eternal Life For besides those declarations and prescriptions you talk of Faith it self must be wrought in the Souls of Men or else Pardoning Mercy is not in order of Nature consequent unto believing as you said it was For all the external Declarations and Prescriptions in the World are not Faith it self but only the means to beget it which may or may not become effectual to that end Secondly Whereas you say that this senseless notion is consequent upon the Doctrine of all true Protestants you therein grosly abuse them and make all the true Protestants in the World guilty of worse than Arminian or Antinomian dotage The Antinomian indeed makes our actual justification to be nothing else but the manifestation or declaration of our Justification from Eternity or the time of Christ's death And the Arminian tells us That the Declaration of the Gospel to Men is sufficient to bring them to Faith by the assisting Grace of the Spirit But your notion is worse than the very dregs of both and yet you tack it as a just consequent to the Doctrine of all true Protestants Thirdly You say That to affirm Faith and Repentance to be the Conditions of the New Covenant required of us in point of Duty antecedent to the benefit of the Promise doth necessarily suppose that Christ hath not done all for us nor purchased a right to Life for any but only made way that they may have it upon certain terms or merited that we might merit Here Sir you vilely abuse all those worthy Divines before mentioned who have made Faith the Condition of the New Covenant pinning upon them both Popery and Iudaism Popery yea the dregs of Popery in supposing their Doctrine necessarily implies that Christ hath merited that we might merit And Iudaism to the height in saying their Doctrine necessarily supposes that Christ hath not purchased a right of Life to any What can a Iew say more Ah Mr. C. can you read the words I have recited out of blessed Burroughs Owen Pemble Perkins Davenant Downame yea the whole Assembly of Reverend and Holy Divines with multitudes more who have all with one mouth asserted Faith to be the Condition of the New Covenant required on Man's part in point of Duty and that Men must believe before they can be justified which is the very same thing with what I say That it is antecedent to the benefit of the Promise and not tremble to think of the direful charges you here draw against them The Lord forgive your rash presumption Fourthly Whereas you say Christ hath in our stead performed the Conditions of life and that there remains nothing but a Promise c. you therein speak at the highest dialect of Antinomianism Hath not Christ by his Life and Death performed the Conditions of Life in our stead yet you your self confess that pardoning Mercy is in order of nature consequent to our believing certainly then there is something more to be done beside the mere making or being of a Promise there must be the effect
of the Promise in our hearts yea the effects of those absolute Promises of the first Grace Ezek. 36. Ier. 32. Or else notwithstanding Christ's performance of Redemption on his part we can neither be justified nor saved For I don't think you intend to lay the Conditions of Repentance or believing upon Christ who in the New Covenant hath laid them upon us tho in the same Covenant he graciously undertakes to work them in us and yet your words sound in that wild Antinomian Note But I suppose you take my Notion to be as self-repugnant as your own when I say Faith is an antecedent Condition to Justification because I also say this Grace is also supernaturally wrought in us and is not of our selves This staggers you and is the very stone you stumble at all along this Controversie for in your sense p. 34. every Condition is meritorious by condignity or congruity First What do I say more in all this than what those Worthies before-mentioned do expresly affirm Doth not Dr. Owen the man whom you deservedly value make Conditions both in Adam's Covenant and the New with this difference that Adam's Covenant required them but the New Covenant effects them in all the Foederates Sir We take it for no contradiction to assert That the planting of the Principle and the assisting and exciting of the Acts of Faith are the proper Works of the Spirit of God and are also contained in the absolute Promises of the New Covenant Ezek. 36. 26 27. Ier. 32. 39 40. And yet Faith notwithstanding this is truly and properly our work and duty and that upon our believing or not believing we have or have not an actual interest in Christ Righteousness and Life For though the Author of Faith be the Spirit of God yet believing is properly our Act and an Act required of us by a plain Command 1 Iohn 3. 23. This is the Command of God That ye believe And if its being wrought in God's strength makes it cease to be our Work I would fain know what Exposition you would give of that place Phil. 2. 12 13. Work out your own Salvation c. for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do And as this Faith is truly and properly our work though wrought in God's strength for it is not God but we that do believe so it is wrought in us by him by your own confession before the application of pardoning Mercy which is consequent in order of nature thereunto and therefore hath the true nature of an antecedent Condition which is that I contend for and did you but understand your own words you would not contend against Oh but say you p. 34. every Condition is meritorious either by way of congruity or condignity This is your ignorance of the nature of a Condition with which I find you as unacquainted as with the nature of a Covenant A Condition whilst unperformed only suspends the act of the Law or Testament it being the will of the Testator Legislator or Donor that his Law or Testament should act or effect when the Condition is performed and not before but it is not essential to a Condition to be a meritorious or impulsive cause moving him to bestow the benefit for the sake thereof A man freely gives another out of his love and bounty such an Estate or Sum of Money which he shall enjoy if he live to such a year or day and not before is this quando dies veniet this appointed time the meritorious or impulsive cause of the gift surely no man will say it but that it is a causa sine quâ non or a Condition suspending the enjoyment of the gift no man will deny that knows what the nature of a Condition is An act meritorious by way of Congruity is that to which a reward is not due out of strict justice but out of decency or some kind of meetness Merit of condignity is a voluntary action for which a reward is due to a man out of justice and cannot be denied him without injustice Our Faith is truly the Condition of the New Covenant and yet we detest the meritoriousness of it in either sense But you object my words to me in my Method of Grace where I assert the impossibility of believing without the efficacy of supernatural Grace p. 102 103. Sir I own the words you quote and am bold to challenge the most envious Eye that shall read those lines to shew me the least repugnancy betwixt what I said there and what I have said in my Vindiciae Legis c. p. 9. of the Prolegomena and p. 61. of that Book You shew your good-will to make an advantagious thrust but your Weapon is too short and can draw no blood But leaving these weak and impertinent Cavils let us come to your Solution of my Arguments p. 98. by which I proved the Conditionality of the New Covenant My first Argument was this If we cannot be justified or saved till we believe and are justified when we believe Then Faith is the Condition on which those consequent Benefits are suspended c. The sum of your Answer without denying distinguishing or limiting one Proposition is this That here Faith is properly put into the room of perfect Obedience and is to do what perfect Obedience was to do under the Law whereas say you Faith is only appointed as an Instrument to receive and apply the Righteousness of Christ which is the alone matter of our Justification before God and Faith it self is not our Righteousness as it would be if it were a Condition p. 105 106. Not to note the weakness and impertinence of this Answer I shall only take notice of what you here allow and grant That Faith is appointed as an Instrument to receive and apply the Righteousness of Christ which is the alone matter of our Iustification before God Whence I infer three Conclusions First That we cannot be justified before God till we believe except you can prove that the unaccepted and unapplied Righteousness of Christ doth actually justify our persons before God Secondly That the justification of our persons before God is and must be suspended as by a non-performed Condition untill we actually believe Which two Conclusions yield up your Cause to my Argument which you here seem to oppose Thirdly That hereby you perfectly renounce and destroy your Antinomian Fancy before-mentioned That if Christ have fulfilled the Law and purchased Heaven for men nothing can remain but to declare this to them c. for it seems by this they must receive and apply Christ's Righteousness by Faith or they cannot be justified you say not declaratively in their own Consciences but before God And thus instead of answering you have confirmed and yielded my first Argument and only oppose your own Mistakes not the sense or force of my Arguments in all that you say to it or the Scriptures
produced to prove it To my second Argument recited p. 94. where I argued from God's Covenant with Abraham and proved it to be conditional and yet by you acknowledged to be a pure Gospel-covenant all that you say is That you have dispatched that before in your Discourse about the Covenant of Circumcision and therefore will say nothing to it here In saying nothing to it here you have said as much as you did before in the place you refer to and therefore finding nothing said here or there I conclude you can say nothing to it at all My third Argument was this If all the Promises of the Gospel be absolute and unconditional then they do not properly belong to the New Covenant That cannot properly and strictly be a Covenant which is not a mutual Compact and in which there is no restipulation nor reobligation 't is a naked Promise not a Covenant To this you answer three things In the first branch of your Answer you impudently beg the Question by saying That you have proved already in your Replies to my former Arguments that the New Covenant is wholly free and absolute Upon this absurd Petitio Principii you make bold to invert my Argument thus in your second Reply If all the Promises of the Gospel be wholly absolute and unconditional they do properly and truly belong to the New Covenant But so they are Therefore c. Oh rare Disputant In the last place in opposition to the Sequel of my Major Proposition you tell me you will oppose the Judgment of Dr. Owen on Heb. 8. 10. where he saith That a Covenant properly is a Compact or Agreement on certain terms stipulated by two or more Parties c. and that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there used it signifies a Covenant improperly c. If you call this an opposition to the Sequel of my Major either your Brains or mine do want Hellebore Doth he not say the very same thing I do that there must be a restipulation in â— proper Covenant And as for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he saith signifieth a Covenant improperly but propâ—rly is a Testamentary Disposition I fully concur with him therein But I hope a Testamentary Disposition may have a Condition in it to be sure such a one as I assert Faith here to be which is the free gift of God and in this sense I shewed you before where the Doctor yields Faith to be the Condition of the New Covenant My fourth Argument was this If all the Promises of the New Covenant be absolute and unconditional and have no respect nor relation to any grace wrought in us or duty done by us then the trial of our Interest in Christ by marks and signs of Grace is not our duty nor can we take comfort in Sanctification as it is an evidence of our Justification c. Your Answer is That at this rate I may prove quidlibet à quolibet for it doth not follow that because the New Covenant is absolute therefore it hath no respect nor relation to any Grace wrought in us nor Duty done by us or that we may not justly take comfort in Sanctification as an evidence of our Justification If I had a mind to learn the art of proving quidlibet à quolibet and make my self ridiculous to others by such foolish attempts I know no Book in the World fitter to instruct me therein than yours Certainly you have the knack of it and gave us an instance of it but now in confuting the Sequel of my Major by an Aldegation out of Dr. Owen which expresly confirms and establishes it But to the Point I would willingly know how it is possible for Sanctification to be a true and certain mark and sign of Justification when according to the Antinomian Principle which you here too much comprobate and espouse a man may be justified before he believe yea before he is a man even from the time of Christ's death and as others of them speak from eternity A true mark and sign must be proper to and inseparable from that which it signifies Now if that be true which you said before That after Christ's fulfilling of the Law in his own person c. nothing can remain but to declare this to men to incline them to believe and accept it and to prescribe in what way they shall come to inherit eternal life If this be all that can remain to us then nothing but the Declarations and Prescriptions of the Gospel which are things without us can remain to be marks and signs of Justification to us and consequently all those to whom those Declarations and Prescriptions are made and given have therein the marks and evidences of their Justification But I am truly weary of such stuff I am sure the Apostle places Vocation before Iustification Rom. 8. 30. Whom he called them he justified And without an immediate Testimony from Heaven I know not how to evidence and prove my Justification but from and by my faith and other parts of Sanctification whereby I apprehended and applied the Righteousness of Christ if you can prove it from the Declarations and Prescriptions of the Gospel I cannot My Fifth and last Argument ran thus If the Covenant of Grace be altogether absolute and unconditional requiring nothing to be done on our part to entitle us to its benefits then it cannot be man's duty in entring Covenant with God to deliberate the terms count the cost or give his consent by word or writing to the terms of this Covenant for where there are no terms at all as in absolute Promises there are none there can be none to deliberate But I shewed you this is man's duty from clear and undeniable Scriptures c. You say by way of answer hereunto that you must tell me that the Scriptures do make a plain distinction betwixt the New and Everlasting Covenant which God hath been pleased to make with Sinners in Jesus Christ and the return of that sincere and dutiful obedience which he requires of us by way of answer thereunto 2. You say there are many things which tho promised in the Covenant and wrought in us by the Grace of God are yet duties indispensably required of us in order to the participation of the full end of the Covenant in glory and in respect hereof we are indeed to deliberate the terms count the cost and give up our selves solemnly to him with sincere resolutions c. But then you thought I had understood there had been a vast difference betwixt God's Covenant with us and our Covenant with God citing Ezek. 16. 59 60 61. where God promiseth to give them their Sisters for Daughters but not by their Covenant And with this you compare Psal. 89. My Covenant will I not break where you say we find a plain distinction betwixt God's Covenant with them and their duty to God And lastly you say p. 105.
that the want of a due observation of this plain Scripture-distinction betwixt God's free and absolute Covenant made with Sinners in Christ and our Covenants with God by way of return thereunto is the true reason of all our mistakes about the true nature of the Gospel-Covenant whilst we jumble and coâ—found together that which the Scriptures do so plainly distinguish To your first Answer I say It is true the Scriptures do distinguish betwixt Covenant and Covenant that of Works and that of Grace It also distinguishes the same Covenant of Grace for substance according to its various administrations into the Old and New Covenant It also distinguishes betwixt the promissory part of the same Covenant of Grace and the restipulatory part not as of two opposite Covenants as you distinguish them Gen. 17. but as the just and necessary parts of one and the same Covenant It also distinguishes betwixt Vows made by Men to God in some particular Cases and the Covenant of Grace betwixt God and them But what 's all this to your purpose Or in what point doth it touch my Argument You desire me to cast mine eye upon Ezek. 16. and Psal. 89. I have done so and that impartially and do assure you I admire why you produce them against my Argument That in Ezek. speaks of the enlargement of the Church by the accession of the Gentiles to it and the sense of those words seems to me to be this That this enlargement of the Church is a gracious addition or something beyond what God had ever done in his former dispensations of the Covenant to that People And for Psal. 89. I know not what you meant to produce it for unless it be to prove what I never denied That notwithstanding our failures in duty towards God God will still keep his Covenant with us though he will visit the Iniquities of his Covenant-pâ—ople with a Rod. To your second Answer That we are to deliberate the terms and count the cost with respect to those duties which are in order to the participation of the full end of the Covenant in glory by which I suppose you mean Self-denial Perseverance c. I have no Controversy with you about that Our Question is Whether there be no deliberations required of or to be performed by men who are not yet in Christ by justifying Faith but under some preparatory works towards Faith And whether at the very time of their closing with Christ there be not a consent of the Will unto those terms required of them If you say there be as by the places I alledged it evidently appears there are then you yield the point I contend for If you say they are not before or at the time of believing to consider any terms or give their consent to them by word or writing such an Answer would fly in the very face of those Scriptures I produced for then a man may be in covenant without his own consent he that deliberates not consents not non consentit qui non sentit And therefore you durst not speak it out for which modesty I commend you and so leave me with half an answer not touching that part viz. Antecedent deliberations which were concerned in this Argument And now let your most partial Friends judge Whether from this performance of yours you have any just ground for that vain boast which concludes your Answer viz. That the Covenants themselves which those Privileges are bottomed on are now repealed and that there is no room left for any other Argument to infer the Baptism of Infants at least I shall willingly commit it to the judgment of all intelligent and impartial Readers Whether Mr. Cary hath any real ground in this performance of his for such a Thrasonical Conclusion such a vain and fulsome Boast I find that with like confidence he hath also attempted a Reply to Mr. Ioseph Whiston a Reverend Learned and Aged Divine who hath accurately and successfully defended God's Covenant with Abraham against Mr. Cox and doubt not if Mr. Cary and his Party have but confidence enough to expose it to the publick view and to adventure the Cause of Infant-baptism upon it the World will quickly see an end of this long-continued and unhappy Controversy which hath vexed the Church of God and alienated the Affections of good Men and that the Wisdom of Providence hath permitted and over-ruled this last Attempt to the singular advantage of the Truths of God and tranquillity of good Men whose concernment at this time especially is rather to strengthen their Faith and heighten their Encouragements from God's gracious Covenant than to undermine it when all things beside it are shaking and tottering round about them And now Sir for a Coronis to all those things that have been controverted betwixt us about the Covenants of God and the right of Believers Infants to Baptism resulting from one of them which I have asserted and argued against you in my first Answer and you have silently and wholly pass'd over in your Reply hoping to destroy them all at once by proving God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. to be a pure Adam's Covenant of Works I judge it necessary as matters now lie between us to give the Reader the grounds and reasons of my Faith and Practice with respect unto the Ordinance of Infant Baptism and that as succinctly and clearly as I can in the following Theses which being laid together by an unprejudiced and considerative Reader will I think amount to more than a strong probability That it is the will of God that the Infant-seed of Believers ought now to be baptized But here I must remind the Reader and beg him to review what I have said before in thâ— third Cause of Errors That to arrive to satisfaction in this point requires a due and serious search of the whole Word of God with a sedate rational and impartial mind comparing one thing with another though they lie scattered at a distance in the Scriptures some in the Old Testament and some in the New Bring but these things to an interview as we do in discovering the change of the Sabbath and we may arrive unto a due satisfaction of the Will of God herein This I confess calls for strength of mind great sedulity attention and impartiality and yet what man would think all this too much if it were but to clear his Childrens Title unto a small Earthly Inheritance I intend not to give the Reader here an account of all the Arguments drawn from several Scripture Topics by the strenuous Defenders of Infants Baptism but to keep only to the Arguments drawn from God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. which is the Scripture mainly controverted betwixt us You affirming boldly and dangerously that Covenant to be no other than an Adam's Covenant of Works and I justly denying and abhorring your Position upon the grounds and reasons before given which you neither have nor ever will be able to destroy Now
4. and more absurd if it be possible any thing can be more absurd to attribute the most glorious privilege of the Covenant of Grace viz. I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee Gen. 17. 7. to the impotent and abolished Covenant of Works both which absurdities are asserted in defence of Antipoedobaptism And though it be true that after the first Edition of the Covenant of Grace the matter of the first Covenant was represented to the Israelites in the Moral Law yet that representation was intended and designed to be subservient and added to the Promise Gal. 3. 19. and so as an Acute and Learned Divine speaks the very Decalogue or Moral Law it self pertained to the Covenant of Grace yea in some sort flowed out of this Covenant as it was promulged by the Counsel of God to be serviceable to it both anteccdently to lead Men by the conviction of sin fear of wrath and self-despair to the Covenant of Grace and also consequently as it is a pattern of Obedience and Rule of Holiness For had it been published as a Covenant designed intentionally to its primitive use and end it had totally frustrated the Covenant of Grace Thesis III. Though the primordial Light or first glimmerings of this Covenant of Grace were comparatively weak and obscure yet from the first publication of it to Adam God in all Ages hath been amplifying the privileges and heightning the glory of this second Covenant in all the after expressures and editions of it unto this day and will more and more amplify and illustrate it to the end of the World That first Promise Gen. 3. 15. is like the first small Spring or Head of a great River which the farther it runs the bigger it grows by the accession of more Waters to it Or like the Sun in the Heavens which the higher it mounts the more bright and glorious the day still grows In that period of time betwixt Adam and Abraham we find no token of God's Covenant ordered therein to be applied to the Infant-Seed of Believers But in that second Edition of the Covenant to Abraham the privileges of the Covenant were amplified and his Infant-Seed not only taken into the Covenant as they were before but also added to the visible Church by receiving the token of the Covenant which then was Circumcision and so here is a great addition made to the visible Church even the whole Infant Off-spring of adult Believers From that period until the coming of the Messiah in the flesh the Iewish Church and their Infant-Seed except only some few Proselytes out of the Gentile Nations made up the visible Church of God and the poor Gentiles were without Christ being aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenants of Promise having no hope and without God in the World Ephes. 2. 12. but in this glorious third period the Covenant again enlarges it self more than before and the Privileges of it are no longer limited and restrained to the Iewish Believers and their Infant-Seed but the Gentiles also are taken into the Covenant and the door of Faith was opened unto them Acts 14. 27. the partition-wall was now broken down which separated the Church from the Gentile World Eph. 2. 14. This was a glorious enlargement of the Covenant and many glorious Prophecies and Promises were fulfilled in it such as those Isa. 11. 10. and 42. 1 6. 49. 22. 54. 3. 60. 3 5 11 16. 62. 2 c. And though the Covenant as to its external part seems to have lost ground in the breaking off of the Iewish Nation from the Church yet like the Sea what it loses in one place it gains with advantage upon another the addition of many Gentile-Nations to the Church more than recompences for the present breaking off of that one Nation of the Iews And indeed they are broken off but for a time for God shall Graff them in again Rom. 11. 23. This therefore being the design of God and steddy Course of his Covenant of Grace more and more to enlarge it self in all Ages nothing can be more opposite to the nature of this Covenant than to narrow and contract its privileges in its farther progress and cut off a whole Species from it which it formerly took in Thesis IV. It is past all doubt and contradiction that the Infant-Seed of Abraham under the second edition of the Covenant of Grace were taken with their believing Parents into God's gracious Covenant had the Seal of that Covenant applied to them and were thereby added to the visible Church Gen. 17. 7 8 9 10 11. which was a gracious Privilege of the Covenant superadded to all the former and such as sweeps away all the frivolous and groundless cavils and exceptions of those that object the incapacity of Infants to enter into Covenant with God or receive benefit from the external privileges of the visible Church Nor can the subtilest enemy to Infants Baptism give us a convincing reason why the Infants of Gentile Believers are not equally capable of the same benefits that the Infants of Iewish Believers were if they still stand under the same Covenant that the former stood under and God hath no where repealed the gracious Grant formerly made to the Infant-Seed of his Covenant-people Thesis V. It is to me clear beyond all contradiction from Rom. 11. 17. If some of the branches be broken off and thou being a wild Olive-tree wert grafted in amongst them and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the Olive-tree I say I can scarce desire a clearer Scripture-light than this Text gives to satisfy my understanding in this case That when God brake off the unbelieving Iews from the Church both Parents and Children together the Believing Gentiles which are as truly Abraham's Seed as they were Gal. 3. 29. yea the more excellent Seed of Abraham were implanted or ingrafted in their room and do as amply enjoy the Privileges of that Covenant both internal and external for themselves and for their Infant-Seed as ever any Members of the Iewish Church did or could do Our Adversaries in this Controversy do pitifully and apparently shuffle here and invent many strange and unintelligible distinctions to be-cloud the light of this famous Text. What they are and how they are baâ—fled the Reader will easily discern from what hath already pass'd betwixt my Antagonist and me in p. 108 c. of my Vindiciae Legis foederis It is plain that Abraham is the root the Olive-tree the Visible Church the Sap and Fatness of the Olive are Church Ordinances and Covenant-Privileges the Gentile Believers who are Abraham's Seed according to Promise are the ingrafted Branches standing in the place of the natural Branches and with them or in like manner as they did partaking of the Root and Fatness of the Olive-Tree that is as really and amply enjoying all the immunities benefits and privileges of the Church and Covenant amongst
among them do hold those Errors but speculatively whilst the Truth lies nearer their hearts and will not suffer them to reduce their own Opinions into practice Now as to their Errors about Justification the most that I have read do make Iustification to be an immanent and eternal act of God and do affirm the Elect were justified before themselves or the World had a being Others come lower and affirm the Elect were justified at the time of Christ's death With these Dr. Crisp harmonizes Error II. That Justification by Faith is no more but a manifestation to us of what was really done before we had a being Hence Mr. Saltmarsh thus defines Faith It is saith he a being perswaded more or less of Christ's love to us so that when we believe that which was hid before doth then appear God saith another cannot charge one sin upon that man who believes this truth That God laid his Iniquities upon Christ. Error III. That men ought not to doubt of their Faith or question Whether they believe or no. Nay That we ought no more to question our Faith than to question Christ. Saltm Of Free-grace p. 92 95. Error IV. That Believers are not bound to confess Sin mourn for it or pray for the forgiveness of it because it was pardoned before it was committed and pardoned Sin is no Sin See Eaton 's Honey-comb p. 446 447. Error V. They say that God sees no Sin in Believers whatsoever Sins they commit Some of them as Mr. Town and Mr. Eaton speak out and tell us That God can see no Adultery no Lying no Blasphemy no Cozening in Believers For though Believers do fall into such Enormities yet all their Sins being pardoned from Eternity they are no Sins in them Town 's Assertions 96 97 98. Eaton's Honey-comb chap. 7. p. 136 137. with others of a more pious Character than they Error VI. That God is not angry with the Elect nor doth he smite them for their Sins and to say that he doth so is an injurious Reflection upon the Justice of God This is avouched generally in all their Writings Error VII They tell us That by God's laying our Iniquities upon Christ he became as compleatly sinful as we and we as compleatly righteous as Christ. Vide Dr. Crisp p. 270. Error VIII Upon the same ground it is that they affirm That Believers need not fear either their own Sins or the Sins of others for that neither their own nor any other mens Sins can do them any hurt nor must they do any duty for their own Salvation Error IX They will not allow the New Covenant to be made properly with us but with Christ for us and that this Covenant is all of it a Promise having no Condition on our part They do not absolutely deny that Faith Repentance and Obedience are Conditions in the New Covenant but say They are not Conditions on our part but Christ's and that he repented believed and obeyed for us Saltmarsh of Free-grace p. 126 127. Error X. They speak very slightingly of trying our selves by marks and signs of Grace Saltmarsh often calls it a weak low carnal way but the New-England Antinomians or Libertines call it a fundamental Error to make Sanctification an evidence of Justification that it is to light a Candle to the Sun that it darkens our Justification and that the darker our Sanctification is the brighter our Justification is See their Book entitled Rise Reign Error 72. In this Breviate or summary Account of Antinomian Doctrines I have only singled out and touched some of their principal Mistakes and Error into which some of them run much farther than others But I look upon such Doctrines to be in themselves of a very dangerous nature and the malignity and contagion would certainly spread much farther into the World than it doth had not God provided two powerful Antidotes to resist the malignity Viz. 1. The scope and current of Scripture 2. The experience and practice of the Saints 1. These Doctrines run cross to the scope and current of the Scriptures which constantly speak of all unregenerate Persons without exception of the very Elect themselves during that state as Children of wrath even as others without Christ and under condemnation They frequently discover God's Anger and tell us his castigatory Rods of affliction are laid upon them for their Sins They represent Sin as the greatest Evil most opposite to the Glory of God and good of the Saints and are therefore filled with Cautions and Threatnings to prevent their sinning They call the Saint frequently and earnestly not only to mourn for their Sins before the Lord but to pray for the pardon or remission of them in the blood of Christ. They give us a far different account of saving Faith and do not place it in a persuasion more or less of Christ's love to us or a manifestation in our Consciences of the actual remission of our Sins before we had a being but in our receiving Christ as the Gospel offers him for righteousness and life They frequently call the People of God to the examination and trial of their Interest in Christ by marks and signs and accordingly furnish them with variety of such marks from the divers parts or branches of Sanctification in themselves They earnestly and every-where press Believers to strictness and constancy in the duties of Religion as the way wherein God would have them to walk They infer Duties from Privileges and therefore the Antinomian Dialect is a wild note which the generality of serious Christians do easily distinguish from the Scripture-stile and Language 2. The Experience and Practice of the Saints recorded in Scripture as well as our Contemporaries or those whose Lives are recorded for our imitation do greatly secure us from the spreading malignity of Antinomianism Converse with the living or read the Histories of dead Saints and you shall find That in their Addresses to God they still bless and praise him for that great and wonderful change of state which was made upon them when they first believed in Christ and on their believing passed from death to life freely acknowledging before God they were before their conversion equal in sin and misery with the vilest Wretches in the World They heartily mourn for their daily Sins fear nothing more than Sin no Afflictions in the World go so near their heart as Sin doth They mourn for the hardness of their hearts that they can mourn no more for Sin They acknowledge the Rods of God that are upon them are not only the evidences of his displeasure against them for their Sins but the fruits of their uneven walking with him And that the greatest of their Afflictions is less than the least of their Iniquities deserve They fall at their Father's feet as oft as they fall into sin humbly and earnestly suing for pardon through the Blood of Christ. They are not only sensible that God sees Sin in them but that he seeth such
as it is over-ruled reduced and finally issued by the Covenant of Grace Under this consideration of sin which rather respects the future than present state the Antinomians only respect the hurt or evil of it over-looking both the former considerations of sin which concern the present state of Believers and so rashly pronounce sin can do Believers no hurt An Assertion tending to a great deal of looseness and licentiousness A Man drinks deadly Poison and is after many months recover'd by the skill of an excellent Physician shall we say there was no hurt in it because the man died not of it sure those fearful twinges he felt his loss of strength and stomach were hurtful to him tho he escaped with life and got this advantage by it to be more wary for ever after Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum And then for other mens sins which they say we need not fear 't is an Assertion against all the Laws of Charity For the sins of wicked men eternally damn them Disturb the Peace and Order of the World Draw down National Judgments upon the whole Community Cause Wars Plagues Persecutions c. Which Considerations of the sins of others opened fountains of tears in David's Eyes Psal. 119 136. caused horror to take hold upon him vers 53. And yet if you will believe the Antinomian Doctrine Believers have no need to fear much less be in horror which is the extremity of fear for other mens sins How is Satan gratified and temptations to sin strengthned upon the Souls of men by such indistinct unwary and dangerous Expressions as these are A good Intention can be no sufficient salvo for such Assertions as these Secondly They tell us That as the Saints need fear no sin for any hurt it can do them so they must do no duty for their own good or with an eye to their own Salvation or Eternal Rewards in Heaven Refutation This as the former is too generally and indistinctly deliver'd He that distinguisheth well teacheth well The confounding of things which ought to be distinguish'd easily runs men into the bogs of Errors Two things ought to have been distinguish'd here in Duties 1. Ends 2. Self-ends First Ends in Duty There are two ends in Duties one supream and ultimate viz. the glorifying of God which must and ought to take the first place of all other ends Another secondary and subordinate viz. the good and benefit of our selves To invert these and place our own good in the room of God's Glory is sinful and unjustifiable and he that aims only at himself in Religion is justly censured as a mercenary Servant especially if it be any external good he aims at but spiritual good especially the enjoyment of God is so involv'd in the other viz. the glory of God that no man can rightly take the Lord for his God but he must take him for his Supream Good and consequently therein may and must have a due respect to his own happiness Secondly Self-ends must also be distinguished into 1. Corrupt or carnal Self-ends 2. Pure and spiritual Self-ends As to carnal and corrupt Self-ends inviting and moving men to the performance of Religious Duties when these are the only Ends men aim at they bewray the Hypocrisy of the Heart and accordingly God charges Hypocrisy upon such Persons Hosea 7. 14. They have not cried unto me with their heart when they howled upon their Beds they assemble themselves for Corn and Wine c. God reckons not the most solemn Duties animated by such Ends to be done unto him Zech. 7. 5. Did ye at all fast to me But beside these Man hath a best self a spiritual self to regard in duty viz. The conformity of his Soul to God in holiness and the perfect fruition of God in glory Such holy Self-ends as these are often commended but nowhere condemned in Scripture 'T was the Encomium of Moses That he had respect unto the recompence of reward Heb. 11. 26. These ordinate respects to our spiritual best self are so far from being our sin that God both appoints and allows them for great uses and advantages to his People in their way to glory They are 1. Singular Encouragements to the Saints under Persecution Streights and Distresses Heb. 10. 34. And to that end Christ proposes them Luke 12. 32. And so the best of Saints have made use of them 2 Cor. 4. 17 18. 2. They are Motives and Incentives to Praise and Thankfulness 1 Pet. 1. 3 4. 1 Coloss. 12. 3. They stir up the Saints to chearful and vigorous industry for God Col. 3. 23 24. 1 Cor. 15. 58. Now to cut off from Religion all these spiritual and excellent Self-respects and to make them our sins and marks of our Hypocrisy is an Error very injurious to the Gospel and to the Souls of Men. For 1. it crosses the strain of the Gospel which commands us to strive for our Salvation Luk. 13. 24 25. Phil. 2. 12. 1 Tim. 4. 16. 2. It blames that in the Saints as sinful which the Scripture notes as their excellency and records to their praise Heb. 11. 26. 3. It makes the Laws of Christianity to thwart and cross the very fundamental Law of our Creation which inclines and obliges all men to intend their own Felicity And on this account not only our Antinomians are blame-worthy but others also who are far enough from their Opinion who urge humiliation for sin beyond the Staple teaching men they are not humbled enough till they be content to be damned 4. It unreasonably supposes a Christian may not do that for his own Soul which he daily doth and is bound to do for other mens Souls viz. to pray preach exhort and reprove for their Salvation Error IX They will not allow the New Covenant to be properly made with us but with Christ for us And some of them affirm That this Covenant is all of it a Promise having no Condition upon our part They acknowledge indeed Faith Repentance and Obedience to be Conditions but say they are not Conditions on our part but on Christ's and consequently affirm That he repented believed and obeyed for us Refutation 1. The confounding of distinct Covenants leads them into this Error we acknowledge there was a Covenant properly made with Christ alone which we call the Covenant of Redemption This Covenant indeed though it were made for us yet it was not made with us It had its Condition and that Condition was laid only upon Christ viz. That he should assume our Nature and pour out his Soul unto death which Condition he was solely concerned to perform but beside this there is a Covenant of Grace made with him and with all Believers in him with him primarily as the Head with them as the Members who personally come into this Covenant when they come into union with him by Faith This Covenant of Grace is not made with Christ alone personally considered but with Christ and all