from him did repeal it but instead of a repeale did put a new sanction upon it Christ indeed as soon as he publickly appeared in the work of redemption was charged that he came to destroy the Law But this he did utterly disavow and men of faith in Christ should believe him professing that he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it Yea that there is a greater stability in the Law in every tittle of it in regard of the permanency then is in heaven and earth then is in the whole frabrick of the world And whereas the Scribes and Pharisees were then thought to be the only strict observers of the rule of the Law and the alone men that kept up the honour of it Christ asserts a necessity of a higher degree of obedience then the Scribes and Pharisees ever taught or practised Except your righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees c. which must be understood of righteousnesse inherent in conformity to the Law as appeares in the precedent words where Christ holds discourse about the Law and is more fully confirmed in the words that follow Christ on this occasion openeth the commandments of the Law shewing how farre Scribes and Pharisees went in their righteousnesse how farre we must transcend them if ever we come to the Kingdome of heaven Neither did the Apostles by any Commission from Christ repeal it but they add the same sanction to it Paul foreseeing that this very thing would be charged upon him as it was upon Christ saith Do we make void the Law through faith yea we establish saith he the Law Rom 3. 31. Our doctrine is a confirmation and no abolition of it And both he and other Apostles frequently in their Epistles urge precepts of the Moral Law as in force and having power and command over men in covenant Paul laying a charge upon children to obey their parents Ephes 6. 1. urges it from the fifth Commandment which he there sets out with a mark of honour as the first Commandment with promise and paraphraseth upon the promise annexed to it against which children might enter their challenge if in Gospel-times the Law had lost its commanding power And requiring obedience from wives to husbands the Law is quoted for it 1 Cor. 14. 34. Having proved the equity of Ministers maintenance by an argument drawn from civil right and common rules of equity in three particulars he adds Say I these things or saith not the Law also the same And so quotes a Text of the Law the Law as delivered by Moses for it is written in the Law of Moses Thou shalt not muzzle the Oxe that treadeth out the corn 1 Cor. 9. 9. and then cleareth it from an exception that might be taken against it So James 2. 8. If ye fulfil the royal Law Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self ye do well The Law is of force in that grand duty so in other precepts there mentioned Do not commit adultery Do not kill verse 11. yea it is of force in the least duties ver 10. He that shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point is guilty of all 1 Thes 47 8. We have the seventh and eighth Commandment quoted as of force with Christians As also Rom. 12. 19. Avenge not your selves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord quoting the Law Deut. 32. 35. Neither is it capable of any repeal being the Law of nature written in the hearts of heathens Rom. 2. 15. more clearly therefore in the heart of Adam These are of those things that are prohibita quia mala The transgression of them was forbidden because evil of their own nature The Creation standing the Law could be no other If no Law had ever been promulged or given of God to man yet murder and adultery had been sinne Christ not changing the Law of Creation but taking to himself the nature of man the same as it was first created when he came to save man must of necessity keep on foot that law that was from the beginning stampt upon him So that we see it is not abolished but ratified neither is it in a capacity of abolition It is confest by a great party of those that in this appeare as adversaries that there is no liberty to sinne in the dayes of the Gospel There be not many that will avouch the contrary if they do they must know that they have the Gospel against them that hath in a readinesse to avenge all disobedience 2 Cor. 6. 10. The Apostle writes to beleevers that they sinne not 1 John 2. 1. And this is the definition of sinne 1 John 3. 4. Sinne is a transgression of the Law As for those that 〈◊〉 beleevers have no sinne cannot sinne it is to little purpose to speak to them or having any thing to deale with them If they believe not John they will not beleeve me telling them that that there is no truth in them 1 John 1. 8. He that pleaseth may see a large confirmation of this truth in Mr. Burg Vindiciae Legis and Master Boltons Treatise of the true bounds of Christian freedome page 77. to 88. Therefore one much forgets himselfe who in a Treatise of the two covenants bespeaks his Reader in these words Consider this seriously that if you be beleevers and married to Christ the Law hath no more power over you then a dead husband hath over his relict and living wife which he presently interprets of a commanding power and denies that the Law hath any commanding power over a beleever Which assertion of his that it may be the more observed he puts into his Index The Law hath no commanding power over a beleever The same Authour yet says that the Law is a discoverer of and convincer of sinne to beleevers It is a curb to the pride and presumption of beleevers as well as of unbeleevers But if a husband cannot by reason of death command his wife how can be convince her of her faults or be a curb or restraint to her Job was in right of command over his wife as long as he had power of reproof to tell her of her folly and to endavour to put a stop to it In his answer of an objection he yeelds that though the Law should be dead to a beleever and a beleever dead to the Law yet it doth not thence follow that they should sinne must sinne or will sinne Upon this supposition I say there is not in them a capacity of sinne or possibility of sinning He further sayes There would be no sinne were it not for a Law for the Law gives if I may so terme it a being to sinne and therefore is called the strength of sinne for if a man should swear covet or kill and there should be no Law prohibiting the same doubtlesse it would not be evil for the Law makes it evil And if the Law
hath lost its commanding power then it can give sinne no more being yea it hath lost its own being power of command being of the essence of it If the Law Thou shalt not kill have no power of command then I sin not if I kill If that Law Sweare not at all have no power of commanding then our RANTERS high oaths are no more sinnes then our eating of swines flesh or 〈◊〉 not observing the Feast of the Passeover Where there is 〈◊〉 there is no transgression and a Law antiquated and repealed that the power of command is gone as in the Laws before mentioned is no Law If he still prâ—sse that similitude of the Apostle that a dead husband hath now power of command But the Law to a beleever is a dead husband First I say if he will be pleased to informe me how a dead husband rips up his wives faults how he curbs and keeps her in which he confesses is the Laws office to a beleever then I shall speedily give an account how this dead husband retaines power of command The Argument is as well of force The dead husband hath no power to discover his wives faults to restraine curb or keep her in But the Law is a dead husband to beleevers Therefore the Law hath no such power It lies upon him to answer this argument to free himself from self-contradiction And I would faine see this answered and the other maintained Secondly for more full satisfaction I say that some learned Expositors make the husband in that similitude not to be the Law but sinne which hath its power from the Law So Diodati in his Notes upon the place Man signifieth sinne which hath power from the Law the woman is our humane nature and of these two are begotten the depraved errours of sinne So also Doctor Reynolds in his Treatise of Divorce page 37. setting out the scope of this similitude thus expresseth it As a wife her husband being dead doth lawfully take another and is not an adulteresse in having his company to bring forth fruit of her body to him so regenerate persons their natural corruption provoked by the Law to sin and flesh being mortified and joyned to Christ as to a second husband Master Burges Vindiciae Degis page 218. saith Sinne which by the Law doth irritate and provoke our corruption that is the former husband the soul had and lusts they are the children thereof and this the rather is to be received because the Apostle in his reddition doth not say the Law is dead but we are dead But if he will still contend that the Law is the husband in that place which by reason of corruption hath so much power for irritation and condemnation over an unregenerate man I shall onely give him that advice which Doctor Reynolds in the place quoted gives Bellarmine upon occasion of his interpretation of this similitude Let Bellarmine acknowledge that similitudes must 〈◊〉 be set on the rack nor the drift thereof be streched in such sort 〈◊〉 â—f they ought just in length breadth and depth to match and sit that whereunto they are â—â—â—â—mbled And when he confesseth power in the Law notwithstanding this death to performe diverse offices in the souls of beleever◠〈◊〉 cannot affirme that the law is wholly dead nor deny but that it may have this office of command likewise The power which the Law loseth is that which corruption gave it which is irritation and condemnation Corruption never gave command to the Law and the death of corruption through the Spirit can never exempt the soul from obedience or take the power of command from it Let it be granted that the Law is the husband here mentioned the similitude is this That as the Law through our corruption was fruitful in mans nature to the bringing forth of sinne and condemnation So Christ by the Spirit is to be fruitful in our nature to bring forth works of grace to salvation and so the death of the Law is meerly in respect of irritation or inflaming to sinne and binding over to condemnation not in respect of command That this is the full and clear scope of this similitude beyond which it must not be stretched plainly appeares verse 5. For when we were in the flesh the motions of sinnes which were by the Law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death So that here is nothing against the commanding power of the Law God still keeps up his Sovereignty and by this Law he rules the regenerate I wish our Authour would sadly reflect upon that reason of his The Law is not authorized by Christ to reigne and rule in the consciences of his people For his Fathers peace his own righteousnesse and his Spirits joy There is none that speaks of the reigne of the Law in the consciences of the people of God but God in Christ reigns and by his Moral Law rules for all these reasons So farre are these from excluding his rule by his Law in his peoples hearts If this rule of the Law be destructive to Christs righteousnesse then Christs coming for righteousnesse must needs be to destroy the Law which Christ disclaimes And the rule of the peace of God in our hearts is so farre from excluding his rule by his Law that without it it can never be attained Great peace have they that love thy Law and nothing shall offend them Psalme 119. 165. This is the confidence that we have in God that whatsoever we ask according to his will we shall receive because we keep his commandments 1 John 3. 22. A Commandment hath a commandâ—â—â— power and only they that keep them have this peace ruling in their hearts The Spirits joy and the power of the Law to command are so farre from opposing one the other that the Spirit gives testimony of Gods abode in no other but such as confesse and yeeld to this power He that keepeth his Commandments dwelleth in him and he in him and hereby we know that be abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 John 3. 24. And of like nature is that which he further hath Though the Law the former husband be dead to a beleever yet a beleever is no widow much lesse an harlot for he is married to Christ and is under the Law of Christ which is love If the moral Law respective to the power of command be dead then love is dead with it Jesus Christ reduces the ten Commandments into two Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self If then the Law be dead this love from the heart is dead and so a beleever is either a widow or an harlot Master Burges Vindiciae Legis page 12. shews at large that to do a thing out of obedience to the Law and yet by love and delight do not oppose one another which if the Reader consult with his enlargement of it he
Scripture which wonderfully extols the perfection of the divine Law Downham in the preface of his Tables of the Commandments saith that The Law of God is perfect requiring perfect obedience both inward and outward not only in respect of the parts but of the degrees The Leyden Professours say The Law is so perfect that nothing in Moral precepts either by Christ or his Apostles as any more exact rule of good works hath been added under the New Testament Disp 18. § 39. Vrsinus in his definition of the Moral Law inserts this Binding all reasonable creatures to perfect obedience both inward and outward page 681. Chemnitius entitles his third Chapter de Lege Of the perfect obedience which the Law requires and presently layes down these words This Doctrine of the perfect obedience which the Law requires in all ages past hath been and is now depraved Bucan in his common places page 188. thus defines the Moral Law A divine injunction containing a rule to live piously and justly before God requiring of all men perfect and perpetual obedience towards God I shall conclude with the Confession presented to both houses of Parliament by the Assembly of Divines chap. 19. 2. The Law after his i.e. Adams fall continued to be a perfect Rule of Righteousnesse and as such was delivered by God on mount Sinai in ten Commandments To these more might be added but these are sufficient to shew the great consent of Protestant Writers But I shall not rest barely upon the authority of these testimonies but also offer to consideration these following Reasons 1. If the Law be not a fully perfect and compleat Rule of our lives then there is some sinne against God which is not condemned in the Law This is clear Deviation from any rule given of God is a sin Deviation from that supposed additional rule is a sin But there is no sin which the Law doth not condemn Sin is a transgression of the Law 1 John 3 4. He that sins transgresseth the Law 2. If the Law alone discovers and makes sinne known then it is a perfect full and compleat Rule this is plain Omne rectum index est obliqui But the Law alone discovers sinne Rom. 3. 20. This office is ascribed there to the Law which is no other but the Moral Law Had not the light of that Rule guided the Apostle in this work he had never made any such discovery And it is the moral Law written in the decalogue that he means as appears in the quotation I had not known lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not covet 3. That which alone works wrath is the alone Rule and guide of our lives This is clear in what sense soever it is that we take working of wrath whether we understand it of working of wrath in man against God as some do Mans heart being apt to rise against him that will exercise Sovereignty over him Or of the wrath of God kindled against man upon transgression of the Law But it is the Law that works wrath it is ascribed to it and it alone Rom. 4. 15. 4. That which being removed will take away all possibility of sinning that is alone the Rule of our obedience This is plain were there any Rule the transgression of it would be still our sinne But the Law being removed all possibility of sin is taken away Where there is no Law there is no transgression Rom. 4. 15. 5. If the Law only addes strength to sinne viz. for condemnation then the Law is the alone rule of obedience This is plaine Any other Rule whatsoever addes like strength to sinne and upon transgression will condemne But the Law only addes strength to sinne 1 Cor. 15. 56. The strength of sin is the Law 6. Either the epithite moral is not justly given to the Law or else it is a perfect Rule of manners that is of obedience This is plaine for moral denotes as Amesius observes that use of it But this epithite given to the Law and appropriated to it was never as I think upon any such account challenged Ergo. 7. Either this new Rule doth transcend the old Rule of the Moral Law requiring a more exact degree of perfection as Papists speak of their evangelical counsels and Socinians of their additional Gospel precepts or else it falls short and admits of obedience in a degree more low If it require obedience more high then even the doers of the Law in the greatest height and possible supposed perfection though equal to the Angels are sinners The Law might be fulfilled and yet disobedience charged If it fall short of the old Rule which it seemes is the opinion of some who confesse an imperfection in our personal righteousnesse as it refers to the old Rule and assert a perfection as it relates to the new Rule then the new Rule allows that which the old Rule condemnes and so they bring in a discrepancy between them and finde an allowance for transgression So that I think I have sufficient authourity divine and humane with reasons that are cogent to conclude that which I have asserted That the old Rule the Rule of the Moral Law is a perfect Rule and the only Rule Six several exceptions are taken against the perfection of this Law or singularity of it as a rule by a learned hand 1. It is demanded What say you for matter of duty to the positive precepts for the Gospel of Baptism the Lords day the Officers and government of the Church c Is the Law of nature the only rule for those And foreseeing what would be answered as well he might he addes If you say they are reducible to the second commandment I demand 1. What is the second commandment for the affirmative part but a general precept to worship God according to his positive institution 2. Do ye take the precept de genere to be equivalent to the precepts de speciebus c. To this I think I may answer out of his own mouth where he sayes The neglect of Sacraments is a breach of the second commandment In case we break the commandments in the neglect of them then the commandment requires the observation of them For which Master Burges Vindiciae Legis page 149. Balls Catechisme Amesius his Sciographia Dod on the commandments Downhams Tables Zanchy each of them on this commandment and Cawdry and Palmer on the Sabbath Part. 2. Pag. 176. may be consulted For further clearing of this point we must consider of the preceptive part of the Moral Law which alone in this place is our businesse to enquire after 1. As it is epitomized in the Decalogue those ten words as Moses calls them Exod. 34. 28. Or else as commented upon and more amply delivered in the whole Book of the Law Prophets and Scriptures of the New Testament 2. We must distinguish of the manner how the Law prescribes or commands any thing as
the covenant requires not exact perfection in the same height as the Law calls for it then a Christian may fall short of the Law in his obedience and not sin perfection being not call'd for from him nor any more called for from him than through grace he doth performe he rises as high as his rule and so sins not through any imperfection therefore to make it out that a beleevers imperfections are his sins it must needs be that the covenant requires perfection as to make good that he may be saved in his imperfections it must be maintained that it accepts sincerity But this argument is not of weight Christ entering a Gospel-covenant with man findes him under the command of the Law which command the Law still holds the Gospel being a confirmation not a destruction of it All imperfection then is a sinne upon that account that it is a transgression of the Law though being done against heart and laboured against it is no breach of covenant We are under the Law as men we are taken into covenant as Christians Retaining the humane nature the Law still commands us though the covenant in Christ through the abundant grace of it upon the termes that it requires and accepts frees us from the sentence of it Here is objected What shall we think of those Texts in the New Testament which require us to be perfect 2 Cor. 13. 11. James 1. 4. Yea perfect as God is perfect Matth. 5. 48. reproving weaknesse and infirmity and commanding a going on to perfection Answ We are to think of them as Protestant Dâ—vines ordinarily do in their commenting upon them We deny saith Rivet that the perfection of which Scripture speaks either when it commands us to be perfect or gives testimony of perfection or integrity to some consists in a freedome from sinne Exercit. 52. in Genes pag. 267. The Text quoted out of James serves well to explaine the rest Let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire wanting nothing whence we may argue 1. That perfection which Christians may attaine is the perfection that the Apostle calls unto This is plaine in the text He calls for perfection that we may be perfect But Christians can reach no further a degree in perfection than sincerity Therefore the Apostle calls onely to sincerity 2. That is the Apostles meaning where he speaks of perfection that himself gives in as his meaning This is cleare he is the best interpreter of himself But he expresses himselfe by perfect there to mean entire or lacking nothing A perfection of entirenesse or integrality then he meanes a perfection of parts and not of degrees For that text of Paul 2 Cor. 13. 11. Finally brethren farewell be perfect c. let us compare with it that which he testifies of some in Corinth 1 Cor. 2. 6. Howbeit we speak wisdome among them that are perfect that is those that have a right and more full understanding of Gospel mysteries put in opposition to the weaknesse of novices which perfection is according to the Apostle the way to unity of judgement As for the Text Mat. 5. 48. Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect If it be streined to the highest it calls for a divine increated perfection our adversaries then must yeeld that there is a sicut similitudinis non aequalitatis in that place And if the context be consulted we shall finde that it is opposed to that half hypocritical-righteousnesse which was found in Scribes and Pharisees which all must exceed that enter into the Kingdome of heaven In Heb. 6. 1. a novice-like imperfection in knowledge is reproved and a further growth towards perfection is called for It is further objected If perfection were not the duty of a Christian and unperfectnesse and infirmity his sinne why doth the Apostle groane and grieve under the remainder of his natural infirmities and presse on to perfection Rom. 7. 14. to the 24. Phil. 3. 12 14 The conclusion here is granted The one is a duty the other is a sinne and because of failing in the one and the burden of the other the Apostle groanes Foreseeing that this would be yeelded him there is added by way of objection Or is such unperfectnesse a sinne onely in reference to the rule of the Law and not the rule of the Gospel or that the Law doth but the Gospel doth not call for perfection Answ There is not one rule of the Law as I have demonstrated at large and another of the Gospel seeing the Gospel establishes the Law Onely the Gospel-covenant calls for those sincere desires which grace works to conform us in our measure of the rule of the Law There is yet a third opinion which I may well doubt whether I understand but so farre as I do understand I am as farre from assent to it as either of the former and that is of those who do not only assert a personal inherent righteousnesse as well as imputed against the Antinomians But also affirm that this righteousnesse is compleat and perfect which if it were meant onely of the perfection of the subject as opposed to hypocrisie dissimulation or doublenesse implying that they do not only pretend for God but are really for him that they do not turne to him feignedly as Israel was sometimes charged Jerem. 3. 10. but with an upright heart or of the perfection or entirenesse of the object respecting not one or only some but all commandments which is called a perfection of parts we might readily assent to it The covenant calls for such perfection Gen. 17. 1. Walk before me and be thou perfect and many have their witnesse in Scripture that they have attained to it as Noah Gen. 7. 9. Job Job 1. 1. Hezekiah Esay 38. 3. But a perfection above these is maintained a perfection compleat and full Righteousnesse signifies as is said a conformity to the Rule and a conformity with a quatenus or an imperfect rectitude is not a true conformity or rectitude at all imperfect righteousnesse is not righteousnesse but unrighteousnesse It is a contradiction in adjecto though holinesse be acknowledged to be imperfect in all respects where perfection is expected in reference to the degree that it should obtaine or the degree which it shall obtaine or in reference to the excellent object about which it is exercised or in reference to the old covenant or the directive and in some sense the preceptive part of the new Covenant in all these respects it is imperfect and righteousnesse materially considered is holinesse and therefore thus imperfect but formally considered it is perfect righteousnesse or none this not in relation to the old rule but the new Covenant Upon this account they are charged to discover grosse ignorance that use and understand the word righteous and righteousnesse as they relate to the old rule as if the godly were called righteous besides their imputed righteousnesse only
and Law-ceremonies did not reach beyond John who was the last of the Prophets who did bear witnesse of Christ Some say that in case the Law bind as it was delivered by Moses then all that Moses did deliver is obligatory to Christians Quâtale is omne and so the ceremonial Law bindes as doth the Moral and we shall bring our necks under that yoke To this answer all that Moses did deliver doth binde unlesse we have a release or discharge from the same authority by which he spake and hence an argument is drawn for proof of that which we have in hand If the ceremonial Law had bound Christians to this day had it not been revoked and abolished then the moral Law which is no where revoked or abolished as hath been shewn doth still bind Christians This is plaine there is no reason that the ceremonial Law should be obligatory above the Moral But the ceremonial Law had bound Christians to this day had it not been revoked and abolished This is as plain when the great question was in the primitive times whether the ceremonial Law did binde Christians whether they were to circumcise their children after the manner of Moses and consequently to observe other Rites This is decided in making it appear that these were abolished as being shadows of good things to come and an end put to their obligation It may be further objected that if all be of force that Moses wrote as from him then that of divorce of the wife on any cause is of force likewise That was commanded by Moses as the Pharisees Mat. 19. 7. tell the Lord Christ from Deut. 24. 1. To this Chemnitius hath answered that Moses delivered this Tanquam legislator as one that gave orders to that people as to their political estate not Tanquam Theologus as a Prophet raised up to deliver the minde and will of God unto them Moses his writings therefore are in force not onely ratione materiae as containing such precepts upon which Christ in the New Testament hath put a divine sanction but by vertue of a sanction from heaven put upon them as delivered by him and the obligation still remaining If Moses once be neglected I shall fear that Peter and Paul will not long be honoured Moses being a servant in the same house with them and the rest of the Apostles and pen-men of New Testament-Scriptures CHAP. XIII God entring a Covenant of Grace with his people keeps up his Sovereignty in exercise of discipline in the correction and chastisement of his people for sinne AS God holds up his Sovereignty under the covenant of grace in keeping on foot his commandments so also in his exercise of discipline upon those with whom he is in covenant He neither suffers them to be without Law nor to go on in transgression of his Law with impunity and freedome As they have his precept to keep from sinne so they are in danger of his hand in case of sinne Those that are against us in the former are our adversaries in this likewise As they plead a manumission of Christians from the mandatory power of the Law so they will also have them exempted from all chastisement or correction Against these we maintaine that the people of God in covenant even those whose hearts are stedfast in covenant do suffer under the covenant of grace in case of sinne and that for sinne For proofe of this I shall bring Scripture of three sorts 1. Giving instances of the Church and people of God under sore and great afflictions for sinne and these places are even without number Esay 42. 24. Lam. 1. 8. 3. 39. 5. 16. Micah 1. 5. Yea they lie under sufferings till they acknowledge sin till their stomacks are brought down and they humble themselves for sin Lev. 26. 41. Against this is objected that among these afflicted ones there were reprobates as well as elected ones and Elect ones in the state of unconversion and they might suffer for sinne which the childe of God does not nor can not To this I answer 1. There were true converts among these or else the whole world had no converts in it 2. These in their confessions and humiliations involved themselves among the rest and make themselves of the number of those that by sinne draw down sufferings as we have Ezra Daniel and others for examples 2. Instances of the most precious Saints sinning and suffering for sinne 1. Moses and Aaron Numb 20. 12. The Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron because ye beleeved me not to sanctifie me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this Congregation into the land which I have given them Both their sinne and their sufferings are noted there which Moses seems never to have done with Deut. 1. 37. Deut. 3 26. Deut. 4. 21. Deut. 34. 4. 2. David his sinne we finde 1 Sam. 11. at large related his sufferings in the next chapter he suffers in all his relations 1. As a father his childe dies 2. As an husband his bed is defiled 3. As a Prince the sword is brought upon his land 3. Solomon 1 Kings 11. 11. For as much as this is done of thee and thou hast not kept my Covenant and my statutes which I have commanded thee I will surely rend the Kingdom from thee and I will give it to thy servant 4. Hezekiah 2 Chron. 32. 25. 26. But Hezekiah rendred not again according to the benefit done unto him for his heart was lifted up therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the dayes of Hezekiah In which words we see his sinne his suffering for sinne and his humiliation upon account of his sinne Here also exception is taken These here mentioned say some lived under Old Testament dispentations To this I answer 1. We may take up Pauls words in behalf of these 2. Cor. 10. 7. If any man trust to himself that he is Christs let him of himself think this again that as he is Christs so they were Christs Moses that suffered as we have heard upon the account of sinne esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches then the treasures of Egypt Heb. 11. 26. And David that suffered in like sort in spirit called him Lord Matth. 22. 43. 2. That we may not lose Old Testament-Scriptures for if we lose them here we shall hold them no where let us look upon Prov. 3. 11 12. My sonne despise not the chastening of the Lord neither be weary of his correction for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as the father the sonne in whom he delighteth In which words we see 1. The sufferings of the people of God thrice repeated 2. The impulsive cause implyed in the word chastisement which ever is for some fault Psalme 39. 11. 3. The hand that
other differences which I shall observe or which as I suppose are observable have their rise which are these following The covenant of Works or as learned Camero calls it the covenant of Nature was for preservation of man in life that is in present blisse and happinesse to hold him in the condition in which it found him which is implyed in the penalty threatned as was before noted man must not die till sinne enter and exprest in that promise of God Do this and live His life must be continued as long as his obedience lasted his happinesse must have been perpetuated though not necessarily in the same degree God might have translated him from a life on earth to a life in heaven had he kept to the terms of the covenant The covenant of grace is for mans restitution reconciliation and recovery He was before in blisse and if he had so abode he might with good reason have taken up Peters words It is good for us to be here Now he is in misery and must be restored if ever he be blessed and so a farther difference doth arise The covenant of works had its precedency was first in time The covenant of grace in order of time follows after This must needs follow Mans estate in integrity being before his fall the covenant made in his integrity must needs precede the covenant entred into in his fallen condition unlesse we will place the third of Genesis before the first the fall of man before his creation And therefore that is utterly a mistake in one who in the very entrance upon his Treatise of the two covenants gives the covenant of grace the precedency in time giving this as his reason why he places the covenant of Grace before the covenant of Works because the covenant of Grace was in being before the covenant of Works quoting for proof Gal. 3. 17. The covenant which was made before of God in Christ the Law which was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disanul But this can by no means serve his purpose unlesse we should conclude that the covenant of Works had its beginning in Mount Sinai at the giving of the Law by Moses and the covenant of Grace of only four hundred and thirty yeares more ancient standing And that will as little serve his purpose which he after brings in that there was an agreement and covenant between God the Father and his Sonne Jesus Christ about the salvation of man before Adam sinned yea before the world began Seeing that covenant between the first and second person of the Trinity was not the covenant which he hath in hand to treat upon namely the covenant which God entred with man as he himself confesses No covenant can be made with man before man be in being A noâ—ens can be no party in a covenant And whereas we are told that the same covenant which was made with Jesus Christ before time was afterwards made with man I desire that all would observe what is laid down in that Treatise concerning that covenant Christ for his part was by covenant to become a Mediatour Surety and Saviour for all those that his Father should give him And must we become such Mediatours Sureties and Saviours also God the Father did promise to Christ as is further said all the things that did belong to his Mediatourship and things to gratifie and satisfie him for his Mediatourship May we by covenant expect such things from the Father likewise If we are neither tied to the same work to which Christ by covenant was tied nor are to receive the like gifts as he by covenant was to expect we are not in the same covenant that past between the Father and Christ And though these two were one which must not be yeelded the covenants ad intra which the persons of the Trinity make with themseâ—es and those ad extra with the creature may not be confounded yet that would evince no such precedence in time seeing there was alike agreement in the whole Trinity for the creation of man and Gods covenant with him in his integrity as is fully assented to in the same Treatise to the utter overthrow of all that which upon the former supposition he had built To that question To what end should the covenant of Grace be made before man stood in need of Grace he answers Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world And he had all things then as present and real before the eyes of his glory as now he hath viz. Mans Creation Fall Recovery and in this sense there was no precedency of time in regard of any of Gods Counsels or secret actions And then there can be no precedency of one of his covenants before another we must finde then a sense according to which there is a precedency which is not found in any covenants of the Trinity among themselves which in exact propriety of speech are purposes rather then covenants and were before all time but in the actual entrance and assent by the creature given which is in time and admits precedency In which consideration the covenant of works hath its precedency before that of Grace as the state of integrity was before the fall Whence farther yet follows that the covenant of works was but a small time in force at least but a small time of use only during the space of mans integrity which some say was only one day in all probability not long in that man enjoyed no fruit of that blessing in Paradise Increase and multiply But this second is of everlasting continuance when the first Covenant was violated by our first parents and so made uselesse that of grace succeeded which is our only planck after shipwrack but none shall ever succeed this second Adam failing of salvation by the covenant of Works which he entred in the first place is saved by the covenant of grace into which after his fall he entred and into which he was of grace admitted but he that is not saved by the second must everlastingly perish and so I understand that text Heb. 10. 26. If we sinne wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth then there remaineth no more sacrifice for sinnes but a fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation where by sinning wilfully I understand an utter rejection of Gods tender of this sacrifice of Christs blood which I gather from the Apostle in the words that follow the proof that he brings of that sad assertion He that despised Moses Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy that hath trodden under foot the blood of the Sonne of God and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing This is that wilful sinne of which there is no expiation When man had cast off the yoke a sacrifice was found Christ made his soul an
offering for sinne but when Christ is rejected there is no other sacrifice to be looked for In the covenant of grace God hath made known his whole minde concerning mans salvation by what means and upon what termes man shall be saved CHAP. XVI A further difference between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace ANother difference of great importance between these covenants and which necessarily as the two former flows from the first is That the first covenant between God and man was immediate no Mediatour intervening no dayes-man standing between them to make them one But for the second man being fallen by sinne a Mediatour was necessary that God and man now in that distance should be reconciled I know some have contended that not only man in integrity but the Angels themselves stood in need of Christs mediation producing their grounds for their assertion and then this difference between these covenants falls neither of both are immediate both standing in need of a Mediatour The grounds are First Obj. That the obedience of man and Angels was imperfect and stood in need of pardon and for the righteousnesse of Christ which he performed to the Father was accounted perfect quoting that place of Eliphaz in his speech to Job Job 4. 18. Even his Angels he charged with folly If Angels stood thus in Gods eye under such a charge then much more man as Eliphas there argues But I would demand of these concerning this supposed imperfection in man and Angels thus supplied by Christs perfection whether it were properly and of its own nature a sinne If not then there is no place for pardon If it were then it must be divolved on Christ and laid upon him to expiate and so man fell or at least lay down groveling before his fall and the good Angels by reason of sin are evil as well as those that are fallen but these are absurd In that of Eliphaz therefore if it must be understood of Angels of glory sin is not charged or implied but only defect standing in comparison or competition with God an imperfection negative is yeelded they match not God in perfection but in his presence cover their faces with their wings Isa 6. 2. but no imperfection privative they want no perfection of which they are in any capacity and whereof they have any necessity God made no creature in such a necessity of sinning or in such a being that needed pardon A second ground is Obj. That though a Mediator was not necessary by way of reconciliation yet he was necessary by way of preservation in righteousnesse The second fully overthrows the first in that which it grants and I know not how that can be proved that it affirms Man was not preserved and therefore it appears that he had no such Mediatour appointed for his preservation And it seems according to this opinion man could not have stood unlesse Christ had been incarnate and so his fall was not from the freedome of his will but the principles of his creation For the Angels how they can be said to stand by grace received from Christ a Mediatour I know not they being no fellow-members with us though fellow-servants And howsoever accidental benefits come to the Angels by Christ in their joy to see lost man restored and reconciled as to God so also to their fellowship and communion according to that of the Apostle Ephes 1. 10. Col. 1. 20. in their experimental knowledge also of the wisdome of God in this great mystery 1 Pet. 1. 12. Ephes 3. 10. yet I doubt not that it was for man whose nature he assumed that Christ was incarnate and that he is a Mediatour between God and man 2 Tim. 2. 5. and not between God and Angels and that for fallen man and not for man in his integrity Therefore I conclude the first covenant was immediate no Mediatour intervening all the blessings of the first covenant flowed from the whole Trinity as the Creation it self without respect to Christ incarnate there was no revelation of that high mystery to man in innocency In which the Reader may consult Gâ—marus in Colos 1 20. The covenant of grace is by a Mediatour mans fallen condition in so great a distance from God necessarily calling for it Two cannot walk together unlesse they be agreed Amos 3. 3. That fallen man may walk in covenant with God it is necessary that a way of agreement be found This the second person of the Trinity by covenant with the Father hath undertaken and therefore he is stiled The Mediatour of the New Testament Heb. 9. 15. A Mediatour of a better Covenant Heb. 8. 6. The Mediatour of the New Covenant Heb. 12. 24. Many obstacles were in the way of mans covenanting with God and attaiment of the mercies and grace of the covenant all of which lay on the Mediatour to remove that God and man might once more be at one All of these Christ undertakes and effects and so is the Meditatour in this work CHAP. XVII Works incumbent upon the Mediatour of the Covenant of Grace THis work of Christ in his Mediatourship I suppose may fitly be reduced to these heads First to bring man into a capacity of covenanting with God Secondly to bring man into the bond of the covenant professedly to accept it Thirdly to enable those whom he brings to glory to perform the duties of the covenant to be steady and upright in it Fourthly to crown those with glory whom by grace be brings up to the terms of the covenant 1. He is to bring man into a capacity of covenanting of which sinne had made mankinde uncapable for though it should be granted that God in absolute justice is not bound to punish sinne wheresoever he findes it and that it is not against his Essence as some would have it to pardon sin without satisfaction yet his ordinate justice is thus bound That law of his being presupposed The day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die he cannot recede from it the penalty of this Law must be born in order to reconciliation and justice satisfied for mans transgression which must be done by such a one that can answer the claime of divine justice The beasts of the Forrests and cattel of a thousand hills which were yet often given to God in sacrifice could not do it The Apostle tells us that it is impossible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sinne Heb. 10. 4. They were never guilty and they are no valuable consideration nor yet the Angels who are above mankinde as the bruit creatures are below Man had sinned and a sacrifice from among man-kinde is to be found Neither can man in sin and under the taint of it be accepted all that he can suffer is due for himself and therefore can be no other mans discharge In the payment of my own debt I set free no other debtor Neither can any that is meer man go
Exod. 34. 7. when he sets out his name in several particulars this is one by no means clearing the guilty Some indeed have said conceiting with themselves thereby to promote free grace that God justifies sinners as sinners which as it must needs if true bring in the salvation of all à quatenus ad omne valet argumentum then a man need no more but sinne to conclude his salvation and the more sinne the stronger evidence so it is utterly destructive to the Gospel and overthrows the whole work of Christs merit as the Apostle saith If righteousnesse be by the Law then Christ is dead in vaine Galatians 2. 21. So we may safely say If a man be justified as a sinner without a righteousnesse So that the truth is God justifies as righteous what he esteems as an abomination in man that he doth not himself but this in man is an abomination to him He that justifieth the wicked and condemneth the just even they both are an abomination to the Lord Proverbs 17. 15. Secondly Man hath no righteousnesse of his owne to bring in plea for his justification in which he can appeare before God in judgment This will be plaine if we consider the wayes of acquital where proceedings are just and legal This must be either as innocent when a man can plead not guilty to that which is given in charge So did David when Cush the Benjamite did traduce him Psalm 7. 3. If I have done this if there be iniquity in my hands And so did Paul to the charge of Tertullus Acts 24. 13. Upon this account Pilate was willing to have acquitted Christ I finde no fault in this man Luke 23. 4. Or else by way of satisfaction or discharge of the penalty which the Law imposeth so in all penal Lawes when the penalty is borne the delinquent is discharged Man cannot be acquitted as innocent his guilt is too palpable There is no men that sinneth nâ—t saith Solomon 1 Kings 8. 4 6. The Scripture hath concluded all under sinne Gal. 3. 22. The Law speaks that language that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God Rom. 3. 19. Man is under that guilt that he is wholly silenced which renders the way of salvation by works impossible Neither can he be acquitted by way of satisfaction where the way of pure justice is held the debtor under charge can never come out till he hath paid the uttermost farthing Mat. 5. 26. Which here amounts to such an heighth that man may be ever paying but never able to satisfie Our guilt is according to the majesty of him whose Law is transgressed and wrath incurred This is seen in Devils and damned souls who bear in their own persons the reward due to their sinnes That man that must suffer it in his own person may well say with Cain My punishment is greater then I can bear Gen. 4. 13. Thirdly Man in this sad and perplexed estate hath yet a righteousnesse of grace tendered him a righteousnesse without the Law but witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Rom. 3. 21. And this is by way of discharge of his guilt by anothers suffering Our name was in the Obligation in case of sinne to suffer death Christ was pleased by consent and covenant with the Father to put in his and as he was thus obliged so he suffered the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God 1 Pet. 3. 18. We brake the Law and he bore the penalty whether idem or tantundem the same in specie or the same in value is scarce worth dispute So that it be yeelded that justice was answered and the Father satisfied and that we come out not on our own but our sureties account And this as I yet conceive is by Christs passive obedience His suffering in the flesh is our freedom his death is our ransome There needs no more than innocency not to die and when guilt is taken away we stand as innocent no crime then can be charged upon us But to reign in life as the Apostle speaks to inherit a crown there is farther expected which we not reaching Christs active obedience imputed to us not adding to ours but being in it self compleat is accounted ours and we are discharged And whereas some say Object that being freed from death upon that very account we reigne in life and therefore in case his sufferings deliver us from death they necessarily confer upon us life there is not nor can there be conceived any medium between them I answer Answ It is true of our natural life and death A man not dead is alive But taking death in Scripture-sense for the wages of sin which comprizes as we have heard all misery and life for an immarcessible crown of glory there may be a medium conceived between them and is not onely conceived but assigned by Papists in their Limbus infantum Neither will it serve to say that Christs active obedience served onely for a qualification to fit him for the work of suffering none but innocent man free from sin could be a sacrifice for sinne seeing Christ had been innocent though he had never come under the Law to have yeelded that obedience His person had not been as ours under the Law unlesse of his own accord he had been made under the Law Gal. 4. 4. Somewhat might be said for the subjection of the humane nature in Christ the manhood of Christ which was a creature but the person of Christ God-man seemes to be above subjection Much may be said for the subjection of the Sonne of David so considered he may say with David I am thy servant and the sonne of thy handmaid but not so of the Lord of David had he not for our sakes made himself a servant We know the mortality of the humane nature yet Christ had never died unlesse he had made himself obedient unto death neither needed he to have served unlesse he had humbled himself Phil. 2. to take upon him the forme of a servant See the confession of Faith agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines chap. 8. sect 5. and Dr. Featlies speeches upon it Fourthly This righteousnesse of Christ whether passive or active or both passive and active is made ours by faith This is our way of interest and appropriation of it to our selves Faith and no other grace this grace and no other Gospel-work gives us title and therefore as it is called the righteousnesse of God so also the righteousnesse of faith These two are promiscuously used and taken for one another Rom. 10. 3 4. Phil 3. 8. Called the righteousnesse of God being the free gift of God wrought by Christ who is God denied to be our own righteousnesse being neither wrought by us or inherent in us called the righteousnesse of faith not of works not of love not of patience or meekness It is alone faith and none of these graces that puts out it selfe to receive it
making blessed There are many promises in Scripture made to Abraham and the seed of Abraham and there is much difference among interpreters to which of these promises this text refers The Reader if he please may consult Paraeus on the words and Junius in his parallels but to what text soever it is that these words do refer I am confident that the Apostle speaks not of any blessednesse received by covenant but a promise of making Nations blessed and this is not indeed to seeds as of many but to seed as of one which is Christ which I gather by comparing the words in hand with v. 8. of the same chapter and the Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the Heathen through faith preached before the Gospel to Abraham saying In thee shall all Nations be blessed This is the promise that this Text holds out which is not a covenant for blessednesse but a promise to make blessed repeated againe verse 19. The Law was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made which is not Christ collectively or mystically but personally considered not entring covenant but as Mediatour of the covenant So that this text serves nothing for this purpose A learned Writer indeed sayes It is beyond my brain to conceive that God should immediately make a Covenant with us who were children of disobedience and of wrath who could not be capable of any such covenant and conditions That Christ hath a hand to bring us into covenant before was yeelded and how far he hath a hand further to carry on the covenant may be yet further considered but man is a party in covenant and as God may make promises and give good things to fallen man so he may enter covenant with him likewise CHAP. V. The outward and not the inward Covenant is a covenant properly so called WHereas there is an usual distinction almost in all that write or speak of the covenant of a double covenant between God and his people one external and the other internal one passing outwardly and the other inwardly kept and observed Or as Dr. Preston expresseth it a single and double covenant which I shall forbear to examine seeing I know there is a right meaning though I much doubt whether there be in the Reader a right understanding My second Proposition shall be that it is the external Covenant not the inward that exactly and properly is called by the name of a Covenant and to which priviledges of Ordinances and title to Sacraments are annext This Proposition occasioned by this received distinction is of three heads which in case the Reader please he may subdivide into three distinct Positions 1. The outward and not the inward Covenant is most exactly and properly called by the name of a Covenant which I thus make good 1. That covenant to which the definition of a covenant doth belong hath exactly and properly the nature of a covenant this none can deny The definition sets out the nature of the thing defined But the definition most actly belongs to the outward covenant not to the inward This is plain An agreement of parties on tearms and Propositions is the definition of a covenant Now the outward covenant is an agreement on tearmes and Propositions as I have abundantly declared in that covenant God engages himself to man for his happinesse and man engages to faith and obedience The inward covenant hath no tearmes or Propositions at all for man to make good upon account of his covenanting seeing the performance of the conditions of the Scripture-covenant is his very entrance into the inward covenant He that believes and repents keeps covenant nothing more is expected of God or promised by man But beleeving and repenting is the first closing with God in covenant according to them that speak of an inward covenant 2. A covenant to perform conditions is a covenant properly so called But the outward covenant not the inward is a covenant to perform conditions This is plain The conditions in the inward covenant are the covenant 3. That which confounds entrance into covenant and keeping of covenant is no covenant properly so called In a covenant properly so called these are distinct But the inward covenant confounds entrance into covenant and keeping of covenant and therefore in exact propriety of speech is no covenant 2. The outward and not the inward Covenant is most usually in Scripture called by the name of a Covenant which is plaine in that they that have no part or portion in the inward covenant are yet still spoken of in Scripture as people in covenant God calls all Israel his people and that upon covenant termes Deut. 29. 10 11 12 13. Al of those that thus covenanted with God were not in the inward covenant This people at their worst and the wrost among them are called the people of God as by those that were strangers to this covenant These are the people of the Lord say the men of Babylon and are gone forth out of his land Ezek. 36. 20. so also by the Lord himself Jer. 2. 32. Can a Bride forget her attire yet my people have forgotten me dayes without number How often doth God own Israel as his people when he yet brands them as a rebellious revolting stiff-necked treacherous and adulterous people They that forsake the covenant of God that break covenant that deale falsely in it upon whom God brings a sword to avenge the quarrel of his covenant are in the outward not in the inward covenant But such there be among Gods covenant-people as he frequently complaines that break covenant c. These are not then in his inward but outward covenant The great objection is and all that carries colour against this Jer. 31. 32 33. where the Lord differencing the Old and New covenant saith This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt which my Covenant they brake although I was an husband to them saith the Lord But this shall be my Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people That is alone the inward covenant and the elect regenerate are alone within it The inward covenant then is called in Scripture a covenant and is in exact propriety of speech a covenant For answer I shall have further occasion to speak to this Text. In this place I shall only put some Queries 1. Whether those that carry this Text to an unconditionate covenant and restrain it alone to that which they call the inward covenant do not make the covenant in the time of the Law and that in Gospel-times essentially
profuse c. A man consenting to serve whether in bare words or taking earnest as is most usual or by hand and seal as in the case of apprentices is a servant although he intend with Onesimus to purloyn or take his opportunity to be gone Some thinks it makes for their advantage to say that unregenerate men are unsincere in covenant but that concession utterly destroys them If they be unsincere or as the Psalmist speaks not stedfast in covenant then they are in covenant A propositione secundi adjacentis ad propositionem primi adjacentis valet argumentum If it be true that Catiline is a seditious man then it is true that he is a man that Peribomius is a vicious man then he is a man that Judas is treacherous and perfidious in covenant then he is in covenant A mans conviction that he is an unjust steward or an unfaithful servant doth not conclude him to be no servant or no steward but the contrary And whereas it is said The differences must be taken notice of between humane Covenants and ours with God or else all will be marred Men know not one another hearts and therefore make not laws for hearts nor impose conditions on hearts and therefore if both parties do confesse consent though dissembledly they are both obliged the Covenant is mutual But God offers to consent only on condition that our hearts consent to his terms and therfore if we profess consent do not consent God consenteth not nor is as it were obliged This were somewhat to purpose in case it could be made to appear that Scripture denies all being of a covenant between God and man where the all-seeing eye of God sees not all integrity and sincerity But Scripture-language which is the fasest for us to follow being as we have heard far otherwise there is nothing marr'd in non-observance of any such supposed difference See Psal 78. 34 35 36. When he slew them then they sought him and they returned and enquired early after God And they remembred that God was their Rock and the High God their Redeemer Neverthelesse they did flatter him with their mouth and they lied unto him with their tongues 5. There is a real and serious purpose in many unregenerate persons to serve the Lord and to come up to as much as they think he in covenant requires though with Austin they have a great mind to delay and often to put off the thought of their more exact and serious service and too ordinarily think that they keep covenant when they break it having not as yet any right knowledge either of their own hearts or Gods commands and in this posture in which they thus stand before they come up any higher yea though they never come higher they reach unto graces in themselves real true and good and all do the works which God commands There is a common grace which is not saving yet real and so true and good and so true grace as well as special grace which is saving saith Master Baxter Saints everlasting Rest Part. 3. Sect. 6. Which may be a faire answer to that which is objected against me that in my explication of Dogmatical faith I adde by way of exclusion though not affecting the heart to a full choice of Christ where he seems saith my adversary to imply though he expresse it not that the faith that he meaneth doth affect the heart to a choice of Christ which is not full But if so then 1. It is much more then assent or a meer Historical Dogmatical Faith 2. But is the choice which he intimateth real as to the act and suited to the object That is the real choice of such a Christ as is offered and on such termes If so it is justifying faith If not either it is counterfeit as to the act or but nominal as to the object and is indeed no choosing of Christ That which is real and true is neither counterfeit nor meerly nominal so far as they know either Christ or their own hearts they undissembledly choose and take to him as expecting to be happy in him and not in any other object though too often it is upon mis-information and when they come to a right understanding of the termes they are in danger to quit the way in which they might enjoy him It is further said That I think that there may be an undissembled profession which yet may not be of a saving faith But then I conceive saith one it is not an entire profession of the whole essential object of Christian faith viz. of assent and consent In which he doth but cast dust in his Readers eyes in confounding the intirenesse of the object and the integrity of the subject There may be an entire profession of the whole essential object of faith where the will is brought in to make no more full choice or consent then hath been said and the desired integrity of the subject wanting I am told It will be an hard saying to many honest Christians to say that a man not justified may believe every fundamental article and withal truly professe repentance of all his sinnes and to take God for his Sovereign to rule him and his chief good to be enjoyed to his happinesse and to take Christ for his Lord and only Saviour and his Word for his Law and Rule and the Holy Ghost for his guide and Sanctifer and the rest which is essential to Christianity I think it will be nothing hard for any honest Christian to say that a man not justified may believe every fundamental article as to assent and that he may be convinc'd of the necessity of such repentance and accordingly to make profession of it as Johns converts who were not all justifi'd did and were baptiz'd into it or that such an one may freely yeeld that God hath right of Sovereignty and rule and that he is the chief good to be enjoyed for happinesse and that he ought to take Christ for his Lord and Saviour c. and that this may be done truly not only as to reality of assent but as to reality of purpose to make this choice so farre as the man knows his own heart or the minde of God in this work though there be not that integrity to yeeld up himself wholly which yet by the power of Ordinances through the Spirit in Gods time may be done and through grace perfected Lastly God setting up a visible Church upon earth in order to that which is invisible will have those admitted that give assent to Scripture-doctrine and accordingly wake profession And this of it self in fero Dei brings them into covenant-right and visible Church-membership And therefore according to the minde of God and as Apollonius speaks jure Dei in this estate are to be received Though they shall hit or misse of the mercy of the covenant accordingly as by grace they come up to or by sin fall short of the Propositions contained
be greater cannot be determined but when man fell mankinde wholly was lost and unlesse grace save must everlastingly perish As some with the lost Angels must be objects on whom God will glorifie his justice Matth. 25. 41. So others must be vessels of mercy on whom his free grace shall be seen to make them as the Angels of heaven Therefore love is assigned as the alone impulsory motive God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten sonne John 3. 16. God who is rich in mercy according to the great love wherewith he loved us when we were dead in sinne Eph. 2. 5. Of this all that expect to be saved by grace must be tender that it be not obscured Gods designe being to advance it our care must be that it be not lessened In this exercise of free grace God yet keeps up authority and rule power and dominion still is his Man was made of God subject to a Law and under dominion having the law written in his heart from the Creation and he was not divested of it by Adams fall nor yet delivered from it by Christs Redemption Corvinus indeed in his Reply to Moulin cap. 8. sect 7. saith That men under an obligation to punishment are not under any obligation to obedience God will not be served by that man that hath violated his Covenant giving his reason of this assertion To be admitted to serve is a to token of favour which is not vouchsafed as he sayes to menunder guilt and wrath But this is a manifest errour Mans guilt can never rob God of his Sovereignty nor yet disingage man from his duty Standing right with God he is bound to homage Under guilt he is bound both to homage and punishment and to be admitted to serve is not meerly of favour but of dominion and power It was no great favour that Israel in Egypt found in the service of Pharaoh to serve with acceptance is indeed a favour but necessity and duty ties all that are under Sovereignty As man fallen in right is a subject though in his demeanour a rebel So in his regenerate estate still he ows subjection When God became a Saviour to the Elect of mankind he did not cease to be a Sovereigne The children of a King and Emperour know their father to be their Sovereign as by one is well observed The child of God knows God in Christ to be his Lord We are redeemed not to licentiousnesse not to a state of manumission from the command of God but to serve in righteousnesse and true holinesse all the dayes of our life Luke 1. 74. It can be no part of our Christian freedome to be from under the Sovereignty of heaven This Sovereignty of God is two wayes held forth unto us First in keeping up his commandments the power and vigour of his precepts Secondly in his exercise of discipline in chastisement and correction Here I shall assert three things First God in the days of the Gospel keeps up the power and authority of his Law the Obligation of it is still in force to binde the consciences of beleevers Secondly That this Law which God thus keeps up in force is a perfect and compleat rule to those to whom it is given Thirdly That this Law binds as given by the hand of Moses As to the first when I speak thus of the Obligation of the Law I hope I scarce need to tell in what sense I do take the Law Not in the largest sense for any doctrine instruction or Ordinance of any kinde whatsoever Men have their Laws and Directories but I have to deal with the Law of God Neither do I take it for the whole of the Word of God all his will revealed in his Word as it is taken Isa 2. 3. The Law shall go forth of Zion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem Nor yet as it is taken for all the Scripture of the Old Testament as in that Text of the Apostle In the Law it is written by men of other tongues and by other languages I will speak to this people 1 Cor. 14. 21. Nor yet for the five books of Moses as it is taken in the words of Christ All must be fulfilled that was written in the Law of Moses Luke 24. 44. Neither do I here understand the Ceremonial Law which stood up as a partition between Jew and Gentile Ephes 2. 14. All that did binde the Jews and was not of force from God with the Gentiles is taken off from Christians There was a confession of guilt a beast needed not to have been slain if they had been innocent this held them under hopes that there was sacrifice to take away sinne imposed on the Jewes till the time of reformation Heb. 9. 10. as an Appendix to the first Table fitted to the Jewes state and condition as a shadow of good things to come Heb. 10. 1. Nor yet the judicial Law given to order the Common-wealth or State of that people farther then so much of it as was of nature and then did bind the Gentiles It is the Moral-Law that I meane that Law which was obligatory not only to the Jews but Gentiles for breach of which they suffered Levit. 18. 27 28. Neither do I understand the Moral Law as a covenant upon observation of which life was expected and might be claimed This is utterly inconsistent with the Gospel If there had been a Law that could have given life verily righteousnesse had been by the Law Gal. 3. 21. And this righteousnesse giving life utterly overthrows the Gospel If righteousnesse come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain Gal. 2. 21. In which sense I deny that the Jewes were ever under the Law The Law was not given as such a covenant as shall God willing be shewn So the Moral Law and Ceremonial Law should militate one against another The Moral Law holding them in themselves looking for a righteousnesse of works and the Ceremonial Law leading them out of themselves unto a sacrifice for remission of sinne Abraham was under no such covenant he had the Gospel preached to him Gal. 3. 8. and so had the seed of Abraham But it still hath the nature of a Law binding to obedience it is for ever a rule for the guide of our wayes That it was once of force is without question and above all contradiction and therefore I need not to multiply Old Testamentâ— Scriptures for it There is no repeale of it it was never antiquated and abolished therefore it is of force Though a Law be urged yet if a repeal may be pleaded there is a discharge That it is not repealed I shall shew and further that it is not capable of any repeal If it be repealed then either by Christ at his coming in the flesh or else by his Apostles by commission from him after the Spirit was given But neither Christ in person nor the Apostles by any commission
bindes us to believe 2. Much of that which I have spoke by way of answer to the former may be applied to this likewise 3. I shall hereafter speak to this that faith is a duty of the Moral Law where the Reader may have further satisfaction 4. If Adam had no command for faith then he was not in any capacity to believe and by his fall lost not power of beleeving And consequently it will not stand with the Justice of God to exact it at our hands having never had power for the performance of it 5. I say there was power in Adam for that faith that justified but not to act for justification Adam had that habit and the Law calls for it from all that are under the command of it But the Gospel discovers the object by which a sinner through faith is justified 3. The same answer may serve to the third exception which indeed is the same with the former only a great deal of flourishing is bestowed in discourse of the understanding and will paralleling them with the Prefaces grounds and occasions of Laws not needful to be repeated And at last bringing all to the Articles of the Creed to which enough already is spoken 4. It is said But what if all this had been left out and you had proved the Moral Law the only Rule of duty doth it follow therefore that it is the only Rule Answ If the Moral Law be the only Rule of duty then I take it to be the only Rule for I enquire after nothing but duty and I take righteousnesse to be matter of duty and then the only Rule of duty is the only Rule of righteousnesse It is further said Sure it is not the only Rule of rewarding And I say Rewarding is none of our work but Gods and I look for a Rule of that work which is ours and that we are to make our businesse I confesse an imperfection in it to give life but assert a perfection as the Rule of our lives It justifies no man but it orders and regulates every justified man 5. It is further said The same I may say of the Rule of punishment To which I give the same answer It is not our work but Gods either to reward or punish And here he speaks of a part of the penalty of the new Law And I know no penalty properly distinct from the penalty of the old He is wont to compare it to an Act of Oblivion and Acts of Oblivion are not wont to inflict penalties but serve to remove them when another Law imposes them That of the Parable is instanced None of them that were bidden shall taste of the Supper when the sin for which they there suffer is a breach of a Moral command 6. It is said The principal thing intended is that the Moral Law is not the only Rule what shall be the condition of Life or Death and therefore not the only Rule according to which we must now be denominated and hereafter sentenced Just or Vnjust To this I have already given a sufficient answer and if I had not our Authour answers fully for me where he says The precepts of the Covenant as meer precepts must be distinguished from the same precepts considered as conditions upon performance of which we must live or die for non-performance And I speak of them as meer precepts and so they are our Rule of righteousness not as they are conditions either of the covenant of works or grace And a man may be denominated righteous by the Laws Rule when he cannot stand before the sentence of it as a covenant of which we have heard sufficient After a long discourse against all possibility of justification by the Law of works as though I were therein an adversary or that the Antinomian fancy were above all answer that a man cannot make the Law his Rule but he makes it withal his Justification he goes about to prevent an objection and says If you should say this is the covenant and not the Law he will reply 1. Then the Law is not the only Rule To which I say When my work is to make it good that the Law is our only Rule I marvel that he will so much as imagine that I will say that which makes it not the only Rule But perhaps he thinks I do not see how it cannot follow as indeed I do not neither can I see any colour for it 2. He replies It is the same thing in several respects that we call a Law and a Covenant except you mean it of our covenant-act to God of which we speak not who knows not that praemiare and punire are Acts of a Law And that an Act of Oblivion or general pardon on certaine termes is a Law and that the promise is the principal part of the Law of Grace To which I say that praemiare and punire are essential in a Law Some have power of command so that their words in just things is to be a Law where most deny any power of punishment as an Husband over the Wife Some parents have Authority to command children children remaining under the obligation of the fifth commandment as long as the relation of a childe continueth when they have neither power to reward or punish Jacob took himself to be in power to command Joseph among the rest of his Sons as appears in the charge concerning his burial Gen. 47. 29 30. and chap. 49. 29. So compared and yet he was not in power either to reward or punish him And though they be acts of a law where he that gives the Law is in power Yet they are no parts of a Rule nor any directory of life to him to whom they are proposed I know that an Act of Oblivion or general pardon may be called a Law as many other things are catachresticè and abusivè but that it should be a Law properly so called I know not The Romanes defined a Law whilest that a Democratie was in force among them to be Generale jussum populi aut plebis rogante magistratu Afterwards when the State was changed and the Legislative power was in other hands they defined it to be Jussum Regis aut Imperatoris And Tully's definition of a Law is that it is Ratio summa insita in natura quae recta suadet prohibetque contraria Here jussio suasio and prohibitio are express'd which are not found in Acts of Oblivion That every man who is within the verge of such an Act may be said to be acquit by Law I willingly grant seeing that act takes off the force of the Law condemning him But that it is a Law strictly so taken I know not CHAP. XII The Moral Law bindes as it was delivered by the hand of Moses A Third branch of the general Proposition before delivered follows which is that the Moral Law as delivered by the hand of Moses is obligatory to Christians This I
not necessitated Upon these grounds it is that I finde no reason to widen the differences between these promises and priviledges in either covenants The identity of conditions in the covenant of Works and Grace on Gods part we have seen The great diversity in the conditions called for from man comes to be spoken to And in the first place this difference offers it self The conditions of the covenant of Works were in mans power being left to the freedom of his will he had abilities in himself without seeking out for further assistance then a meer general concurrence to perform them This ability in man to answer whatsoever was called for at his hands from God appears First in the integrity of his nature Being made like God his principles must needs carry him to a conformity with God and these principles were connatural to man in his first being and beginning Man being made of God to contemplate his glory and to enjoy communion with himself he made him not defective in any of those noble qualifications that serve for it or have a tendency to it Papists indeed will have this to be a supernaturall gift of grace and above the glory of mans first creation Bellarmine compares it to a bridle given to curb that lust which riseth against reason in us That rebellion of lusts in man they conceit would have been if man had not fallen which as it layes a high charge upon God in such an aspersion of his pure work drawn after such a patterne so it makes way for other opinions that the first motions without consent are no sins and that lust in the regenerate is not sin But as the bottom is rotten so also the building that is raised upon it is ruinous There was an happy agreement in man as well with himself as with his Creatour The fall brought in a necessity of support and supply of Grace Secondly this appears from the equity which must be granted to be in the command of God which requires that the work given in charge be not above his abilities that is charged with it The Arminian argument from a command to abilities to keep the command from a threat to conclude a power to keep off from the thing threatned is of force as long as the person under command keeps himself in the same station and strength as when the command was given But applying this to man in his fallen estate who had sinned away his abilities the strength of it is wholly lost The command of God retains its perfection when we are under the power of corruption The Law is nothing abated though we be weakened 3. It appears in the work it self which was charged upon man upon performance of which he was to expect happinesse There is no more explicitely mentioned then that negative precert Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die This all may yeeld might easily have been kept if the command had been heeded or the menace observed The Jews at their worst could observe the commands of non-licet meats and this was a command of like nature yet this was not all unto which man was tied Being made in the image of God he had clear light to discern good from evil and as all yet retaine darkly and obseurely so he had the Law written in his heart clearly Adultery Murder though no otherwise condemned then by that light which he had by creation in that estate had been sin The former positive Law was evil because forbidden take away the prohibition and there had been no sin in eating These are forbidden because evil The Law imprinted by creation being presupposed there needed no further Law to make them sinful They that never had the written Law are condemned for these practices by that Law which by nature is written in their hearts But against these there was in nature an Antipathy Mans pure nature had them in abhorrency As now there needs no Law more then nature doth suggest to forbid the eating of poyson feeding on dust or carrion So then there needed no more Law to condemne these practices so that obedience in that state was in mans power must necessarily be yeelded The conditions of the covenant of Grace are not performed but by special grace a power from God must concurre for their work in man Man hath no abilities in himself to answer what God requires and if he rise not up to the terms of this covenant till he raise himselfe he will for ever fall short of it As the covenant was vouchsafed of grace so grace must make us meet to partake of the benefits of it This appears 1. In the state and condition in which God findes man when he first enters covenant with him yea after covenant entred till a change be wrought and abilities conferred to answer that which God in covenant requires This state of man the Apostle expresses Ephes 2. 1. Dead in trespasses and sins alive and in power for nothing at all but sinne This was the condition of Heathens never in covenant and so of the Jews who were a people in actual covenant and owned of God as his inheritance as God willing shall be shewn Their conversation was the same as the Apostle there confesseth Among whom we also had our conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the minde and were by nature the children of wrath as well as others This in abundant other expressions in Scripture is discovered holding forth the same thing Rom. 5. 6. For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly That infant Ezek. 16. 4 5. had no more possibilities of life then is to be found even in the state of death Reas 2. It appears in that power which is exercised by God in the change of those in covenant with him whom he fits for himself for Eternity This power in Scripture is set out in several expressions First Creation Ephes 2. 10. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works All ability to good is from the frame into which grace puts us As there is a power out of man which gives him Being So also there is an answerable power for his new Being He that is begotten of God keepeth himself and the evil one toucheth him not 1 John 5. 18. Secondly Quickning The dead have not power to raise themselves without a further power for their Resurrection Neither is it in the power of man Who is dead in trespasses and sinnes Eph. 2. 1. Thirdly Taking away the heart of stone and giving an heart of flesh Ezek. 36. 26. To change the nature of things which is here done is the work of an Omnipotence which was Satans argument not denied by Christ If thou be the Son of God command these stones to be made bread Mat. 4. 3. Fourthly Causing
onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Mark 16. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that beleeveth not shall be damned Acts 10. 43. To him give all the Prophets witnesse that thorough his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sinnes Acts 13. 38 39. Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man is preached unto you forgivenesse of sinnes And by him all that beleeve are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts 16. 31. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy whole house Rom. 3. 25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 10. 4. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth In all these texts and several others faith is required of men in covenant and if men did not engage to beleeve they could not be so much as professed covenanters This is in reason further evident 1. That which gives us interest in the Mediator of the covenant without which we have no title to him or portion in him is a condition of the covenant This is plain of it self without interest in the Mediator of the covenant we are as though no covenant were entred and the former distance held up But it is faith that gives us interest in Christ the Mediatour He dwells in us by faith Ephes 3. 17. He is set forth a propitiation through Faith in his blood They that believe receive him John 1. 12. Others hold a distance from him To as many as received him to them he gave power to be the sonnes of God even to those that beleeve in his Name 2. That which receives all that grace gives must needs be a condition of the covenant of grace This is as plain to be under a covenant of grace and void of the gifts of grace is a vain entrance upon it and the reception of the gift is a condition necessarily requisite But Faith receives all that grace gives It is of Fath that it might be of grace Rom. 4. 16. God gives nothing at least tending to eternity but he puts it into the hands of Christ He is the Fathers treasury and store-house Col. 1. 19. It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell And that of his fulnesse we should all receive Joh. 1. 16. And faith receives al from him He that believeth out of his belly flowes rivers of living water Joh. 7. 38. 3. That which interest us in and gives title to all priviledges of a people in covenant with God through Christ is a condition of the covenant This is plaine the end of the covenant being to conferre those priviledges upon us But Faith interests us in and gives title to all these priviledges Paul is sent to the Gentiles to turne them from Satan to God to bring them out of Satans kingdome and to bring them in a covenant-way into Christs Kingdome That they may receive forgivenesse of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified saith Christ by faith that is in me Christ is the object of a Christians faith on whom it is terminated Faith which is in Christ receives that leading priviledg forgivenesse of sins without this priviledge we are strangers to all other priviledges Being under sinne we are heires of wrath and in no capacity of mercy Faith interests us in this Acts 10. 43. To him give all the Prophets witnesse that through his Name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Acts 13. 39. And by him all that beleeve are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Rom. 3. 25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousnesse for the remission of sinnes that are past through the forbearance of God Faith interests us in the consummating priviledge an inheritance among them that are sanctified He that believeth hath everlasting life John 6. 40. Faith interests us in all intermediate priviledges which a man in covenant can enjoy in the way to this inheritance Adoption of sonnes is this way obtained John 1. 12. Gal. 3. 26. Pacification of Spirit Serenity and tranquility of minde Isa 26. 3. Rom. 5. 1. Boldnesse at the throne of grace Ephes 3. 12. There is no priviledge bottomed on Christ that hath foundation in him but Faith receives Faith then must be a condition of the covenant 4. That which puts into a capacity to receive the mercies of the covenant held forth in Promise is a condition of the covenant and the want of it strips off all hope and expectation of it But Faith puts into a capacity to receive all the graces of the covenant given in promise Said I not unto thee if thou wilt beleeve thou shalt see the glory of God John 11. 40. God exerts and glorifies his power in great things for good unto those that exercise the grace of Faith Paul saw the Creeple had faith to be healed Acts 14. 9. Sure if there be such a thing as a condition in any covenant in the world any such thing as a conditional covenant then sure faith is a condition of the covenant of grace Some conceive an absolute covenant made of God for grace as Jer. 31. 33. This with me is very disputable and I have given my reasons But the covenant made to grace must needs suppose grace There is no covenant for happinesse made with any creature but upon termes and conditions For further clearing of this point we must know that faith is considered under a double notion First as an instrument or if that word will not be allowed as the way of our interest in Christ and priviledges by Christ Secondly as an inherent grace or Christian duty to which both the Law and the Gospel call The radical grace from which others flow though not in their being yet in their farther growth and encrease I speak of Faith now in the first acception Neither as a part or any way a working cause of the farther progresse in inherent righteousnesse so it will come in the second place but as interesting us in another righteousnesse and so I say it is a condition in the covenant of grace immediately serviceable for our returne to God and reconciliation in Christ For clearring of which I shall clear it in some propositions First God will by no means justifie a wicked person no man in sin shall stand and live in his sight He that hath made a Law to forbid it ordained hell for the punishment of it will not justifie the person that is convinced and found guilty of it Some say it is against his essence The justice of God which is God ties him to take vengeance sure I am it is against his declaration of himself
be full and how to be hungry he can beare prosperity and not be puffed up He can be under adversity and not be cast down In the worst of times the just lives by faith Hab. 2. 4. He can make use of every Ordinance for his spiritual advantage The word preach is for his benefit Being mixt with faith when he receives it Heb. 4 2. He knows how to improve the Sacraments for his spiritual growth those seales of the righteousnesse of Faith Rom. 4. 11. Abel by Faith exceeded Cain in sacrifices Heb. 11. 4. and so do these exceed all unbeleevers in their performances All of these might be farther and more fully enlarged but that it is done at large by better hands Master Ward in his Life of Faith Master Culverwel especially Master Ball in his elaborate treatise on that subject CHAP. XXIII Repentance is a condition of the Covenant of grace THe condition immediately serviceable for mans reconciliation to God we have seen that which respects his reparation in his qualifications to hold up communion with God follows which is Repentance The end of Christs coming in the flesh being to save sinners He saves them not in their sins but from their sins and therefore calls them to repentance and engages all to it that he receives into covenant As God will have a self-outed and beleeving people So he will have an humble and an holy people So John Baptist the forerunner of the Mediatour began his Ministery Repent giving in this as his reason The Kingdome of heaven is at hand that is a New Testament-state in which the covenant of Grace was to be opened and the glorious priviledges of it made manifest Matth. 3. 2. With the self-same words Jesus the Mediatour of the covenant begins his Ministery Matth. 4. 12 17. verses compared From that time Jesus began to preach and to say Repent for the Kingdome of Heaven is at hand To this he resolves to engage those that he receives So it was with the twelve that were men employed to bring Nations into covenant They thus began their Ministery Mark 6. 12. They went out and preached that men should repent Neither let any make these two Faith and Repentance or Faith and Obedience which is comprised under Repentance one and the same and old project to introduce justification by works The Scriptures evidently distinguish them Paul makes them two distinct heads in the Ministery when he preached either to the Jews or Gentiles Acts 20. 21. Testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ They are two distinct heads of Catechisme in the Apostles times Repentance from dead works and Faith towards God Heb. 6. Repent ye and beleeve the Gospel Mark 1. 15. There are those acts in Scripture attributed to Faith that will by no means be ascribed to love or obedience as the taking in of the priviledges before mentioned If Faith work by love as the Apostle speaks Gal. 5. 6. And love be the end of the commandment out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1. 5. then faith is a distinct thing from love If by Faith the Worthies of old wrought righteousnesse then righteousnesse may be distinguished from it Heb. 11. 33. As Faith and Hope make two Graces so Love a third 1 Cor. 13. 13. It is not the Gospel way to confound them together They must not be divided but they are to be distinguished In this of repentance which is a Gospel-grace and condition of the covenant we may observe First A necessary pre-requisite to it Secondly The essential parts of it A necessary pre-requisite to this of repentance as to the other of Faith is Conviction Compunction Remorse Unto which the name of repentance is often given though it be of farre more narrow comprehension than the whole work yea it reacheth not unto any thing which is of the essence of it Called repentance as some say by a Synechdoche the part for the whole but I rather take it to be a Metonimy Sorrow is rather an adjunct than a part of it yet such an adjunct that still accompanies it and makes way for it as the needle as the Ancients use to expresse it enters the cloth not to stay but to let in the thread An Officer enters an house to throw out one inhabitant and to let in another but not to stay himself It hath its name from paine grief or trouble which affects the soul for sin which must needs follow when once we look upon it with shame and wearisomnesse Who can imagine a man to have his eyes opened to see that through his whole life he hath risen up in hostility and opposition against God hath taken off that stamp which God in creation put upon him run his soul upon everlasting hazard and all of this without sense of shame fear or trouble Who can imagine that the soul can leave so ugly a path as that of sin formerly so pleasant and desired without any grief or trouble of minde that he hath so long held it Or that any will make out for help in a Saviour till they see themselves through sinne in a lost and undone condition I speak not of infants who neither act faith nor repentance but of those of growth whom God works for himself by his Ministers As they have their call by the Word So the Word hath its efficacy in some measure of soul-shaking by the Lawes discovery by which is the knowledge of sinne as Rom. 3. 20. Evangelical allurements on which by some the whole of the work is laid can never I suppose work on the soule without Law-convictions If these Gospel allurements draw to Christ they must draw from sinne and how shall any be drawn from what he does not know nor ever understood either to be evil or dangerous It is with me no lesse a Paradox that a man may be drawn from sin without the discovery of the Law as to be drawn to Christ without the light of the Gospel And to say the Gospel discovers sin as well as the Law taking the Gospel in opposition to the moral precepts as here it must be taken is the greatest absurdity Exem gr If it be questioned whether to take up armes be a sin whether to fight a duel be a sinne whether usury be sin or to marry within the Levitical degrees forbidden be sin shall I determine this out of a Gospel-promise That Jesus Christ came to save sinners That the blood of Christ takes away all sin That in him all that beleeve are justified A thousand of these will contribute nothing to the expediting of these or like questions or the conviction of any under guilt The work must be brought to the rule the action to the line for discovery Upon the Laws convictions there may follow Gospel-aggravations But conviction is the work of the Law as an instrument of the
20. They had their righteousnesse and as was supposed they made a great progresse in the way of righteousnesse yet we must have an exceeding righteousnesse above that which they taught and practised or else there is no salvation in this covenant These two covenants notwithstanding remaine distinct and not confounded together There is a legal righteousnesse such as the Law in the highest extremity of it requires without the least indulgence in case of failing This the covenant of Works calls for and in this we fall short but Christ answers and therefore He is the end of the Law for righteousnesse Rom. 10. 3. and by this we are saved There is a righteousnesse of the Gospel which God in covenant calls for to which it is his Spirit enables and in this we are saved 2. Gospel-obedience is called for in the Covenant but not as any condition of the Covenant Faith is the alone condition obedience necessarily flows from it and follows upon it when once we believe it need not to be conditioned or indented for seeing when we are in Christ by faith we can then do no other than obey I answer This position here laid down that obedience necessarily follows and flows from Faith is a position indeed maintained by the reformed Churches against Papists Arminians Socinians and other opposites of it from which position of ours they inferre as by necessary consequence that all commands requiring obedience are then needlesse and all exhortations reproofs motives and promises to no purpose None either commands or perswades the Heavens to move the Sunne to give light the Fire to give heat or the water to give moisture That which necessarily works is let alone to work and to take its course in working And this Objection taking away this Gospel-condition on this ground is of the same stamp Obedience necessarily flowing from Faith includes Gospel-commands exhortations reproofs as well as Gospel-conditions If God need not to condition and engage for obedience from Beleevers because they thus necessarily obey then he needs not give commands or presse obedience for the same reason when yet the Gospel is full of exhortations commands menaces promises with application to Beleevers to men professing Faith to men in Christ by Faith For satisfaction then of this Popish-Arminian objection we must distinguish of consequents which necessarily flow from their principles Some are natural which of themselves have their effects as those in the objection mentioned Here is neither command imposed condition required nor promise held forth They are not in any capacity of acting or working otherwise than they do Others are moral who work not by way of Physical necessity but are kept in their way by the power of grace upholding which does not exclude but necessarily takes in mans endeavour in the use of meanes to yeeld obedience and to hold on in all patience and perseverance This argument followed home will be of equal force against Faith as a condition as against sincerity seeing Gods Elect shall beleeve as they that beleeve shall yeeld obedience There is a like necessity of faith flowing from election as there is of obedience to flow from Faith as Faith therefore so obedience either of both in their places are covenant-conditions CHAP. XXV What degree of obedience the Covenant of grace calls for from Christians HEre is seasonably moved and is not without some difficulty answered what degree of obedience this new covenant calls for from us that so we may endeavor it and understand our selves when we have by grace attained to it that having entred covenant with God we may not be found of those that have wickedly departed and dealt falsely in the covenant In this there are several opinions which are to come under examination First some say that it is required of Christians in an exact way in a full perfection as of parts so of degrees answering to the perfection of the Law as written in the heart and given on Mount Sinai And so required that obedience in a more low degree will not be accepted or the mercies promised in the covenant obtained which doctrine of theirs rigidly followed stands as that two edged sword Gen. 3. 24. keeping the way of the tree of Life and making the way to salvation unpassable Thus the Councel of Trent If any man shall say that by Baptisme men are obliged to Faith only and not to the observation of the whole Law let him be accursed which Chemnitius in his Examen confesses in a qualified sense might be admitted seeing persons baptised owe subjection but not in the sense which that Canon holds forth being an allusion to that of the Apostle Gal. 5. 3. I testifie again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor of the whole Law By which Glosse Baptisme makes Christ of none effect as well as Circumcision as it was taken in the sense of those false Teachers among the Galatians viz. as a leading ceremony of the Law binding to the observation of the whole And so also Bellar. lib. 1. de Baptis cap. 15. Baptisme doth not make us debtors to Faith only but to keep the whole Law and there explaines himself that to deny a man to be a debtor to keep the whole Law may be taken two wayes either so as that to do things against the Law were no sinne as though the Law were abrogated This he confesses Protestants do not say and in that he saith there is no controversie or else so that justification or salvation doth not depend on the fulfilling of the Law but only on the mercy of God by faith applied this he makes the Protestants errour and so brings in justification by the Law and utterly confounds the covenant of works and grace together onely I confesse the businesse seemes much mollified by the explanations that they give of those words fulfilling of the Law First curtelling the Law in taking off the first fomes and motions of actual sinne yea even all that goes before consent of will making it no sinne at all as also multitudes of actions some of them foule enough as not within this verge such which they call by the name of venial sinnes which are besides the Law but not against it bending as some merrily speak but not breaking the Commandments though they would never give us a catalogue of sins mortal or venial nor any certaine mark or character whereby they might be distinguished All these are pared off as no breaches of the Law nor in their own nature deserving the sentence of eternal death and the temporal punishments due to them after death is holpen out by their Indulgences Secondly so helping themselves out with distinctions at least some among them that keeping the Law with them is no other than the grace of sanctification in the very sense as the Orthodox hold it forth He that pleases may read what Jansenius hath chap. 81. of his Harmony Opposing Luther for his denial that
the first and great Commandment in the Law in this life can be fulfilled and charging it with blasphemy Luther having Austins authority in several places as Jansenius confesses for to second him affirming with him that this Commandment in this life cannot be perfected or fulfilled but it is to be fulfilled in the life to come giving his reason As long as there is any thing of carnal concupiscence to be restrained God is not with the whole heart loved The good Bishop knows how by distinction to salve Austin and maintaine his doctrine to be good divinity and denying Luther that favour to leave him under the brand of blasphemy so that the result of all with him is this God is then loved with the whole heart when any one out of inward and sincere affection to God is principally exercised in those things which are of God studying above all things to please him and carefully to observe not one but all his Commandments and that not slothfully and against heart but diligently and cheerfully grieving from the heart if any thing by others or himself through infirmity of the flesh be admitted contrary to the will of God So that some might think all controversie in this point may cease and that the difference between us were no more than a strife of words seeing we do not only confesse that this ought to be done but also urge a necessity of doing of it and they say the Law is fulfilled when it is done But here 1. Much wrong is done to the Law as though it were a rule of our strength not of our duty that it answered and might be applied to each mans impaired strength and weakened abilities or that the Gospel-grace of godly sorrow for sin against the Law were the keeping of the Law making repentance a satisfactory discharge for disobedience When these men cannot bring up mans nature to the streight line of the Law they bring down the Law to the crooked nature of man 2. It is injurious to man puffing him up with conceit of answering the Law setting him up as high as he should be laid low ready to say with the young man in the Gospel All these have I kept from my youth when holding out the Law in its just latitude as it was happily brought home to the Apostles conscience sin would revive and he would see himselfe in a lost condition A second opinion is that the covenant of grace requires perfection in the exactest way without help of these mens distinctions in an equal degree with the covenant of works but with this difference In the covenant of works there is no indulgence or dispensation in case of failing but the penalty takes hold the curse follows upon it But the covenant of grace though it call for perfection such is the exactnesse of it yet it accepts of sincerity such is the qualification of it through grace or the mercy in it If I should take up any opinion in the world for the Authours sake or those that have appeared as Patrons of it then I should embrace this The reverence deservedly due to him that I suppose first manisted himself in it hath caused it to finde great entertainment but upon more than twenty yeares thoughts about it I finde it labouring under manifold inconveniences 1. It establishes the former opinion opposed by Protestants and but now refuted as to the obedience and the degree called for in covenant And if I should be indulgent to my affections to cause my judgement to stoop Dislike of the one would make me as averse from it as an opinion of the other would make me prone to receive it Judgement therefore must lead and affections be waved 2. If this opinion stand then God accepts of Covenant-breakers of those that deale falsely in it whereas Scripture charges it only upon the wicked upon those of whom God complaines as rebellious Deut. 29. 25. Josh 7. 15. Jeremy 11. 10. Jeremy 22. 8 9. Yea it may be charged on the best the most holy in the world lying under the guilt of it according to this tenent 3. Then it will follow that as none can say that they have so answered the commands of the Law that they have never failed they have not if put to answer in the greatest rigour once transgressed so neither can they with the Church make appeale to God That they have not dealt falsely in the Covenant nor wickedly departed from their God Psal 44. 17. Every sinne according to this opinion being a breach of it and a dealing falsely in it 4. Then that great promise of mercy from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousnesse unto childrens children to such as keep his Covenant and to those that remember his Commandments to do them Psalme 103. 17 18. only appertaines to those that so keep the Law that they sinne not at all against it 5. Then our Baptism-vow is never to sin against God and as often as we renew our covenant we do not only humble our selves that we have sinned but we afresh binde our selves never more to admit the least infirmity and so live and die in the breach of it 6. Then the distinction between those that entered covenant and broke it as Jerem. 31 32 33. and those that have the Law written in their hearts and put into their inward parts to observe it falls all standing equally guilty of the breach of it no help of grace being of power to enable to keep Covenant Each of these five last arguments are replyed to by a distinction of the precept and conditions of the Covenant Men that are sincere break the precept as is said but not the conditions But I know no precepts in covenants which are not conditions Faith and Repentance are Precepts and I think the alone Precepts and I know not neither do I heare of any other Conditions 7. Then it follows that Sincerity is never called for as a duty or required as a grace but only dispensed with as a failing indulged as a want It is not so much a Christians honour or character as his blemish or failing rather his defect than praise But we finde the contrary in Noah Job Asa Hezekiah Zachary and Elizabeth Nathaniel an Israelite indeed that entered covenant and kept covenant Sincerity is a degree towards perfection in obedience and if the command looks no lower than perfection in degree the imperfect degree is not commanded though it be indulged And therefore I conclude that as in the Law there was pure justice as well in the command given as the penalty threatened without any condescension or indulgence So in the covenant there is mercy and condescension as well in the condition required as in the acceptance through grace The Covenant requires no more than it accepts The alone Argument Object so farre as ever I could learn that hath brought some of reverend esteeme heretofore into this opinion is That if
confirmed at large but that others have fully done it and I know not that there is any adversary that appears in it The name of a covenant is frequently given to it Deut. 4. 13. He declared unto you the covenant which he commanded you to performe even ten Commandments See 2 Kings 18. 12. 2 Chron. 6. 11. All the essentials of a covenant before mentioned Parties Consent Conditions are found in it as we may see in that one Text Deut. 26. 17 18. Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God to walk in his wayes and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee Yea the solemnities of a covenant as before hath been largely shewne are found in it Secondly This covenant delivered by Moses to the people of Israel was a covenant of Grace the same in substance with this under which we live in Gospel-times This is so largely proved to my hand by Master Ball in his Treatise of the covenant page 102 103 104. and Master Burges in his Vindiciae legis page 224 225. that I may spare my paines yet in brief That covenant which teacheth Christ in which men attaine salvation that accepts men upon repentance in which there is pardon of sinne and in which the heart is circumcised of God that is a covenant of grace One of these single will evince it much more in their joynt strength will they conclude it But the covenant delivered by Moses was such a covenant In that covenant Christ was taught John 5. 46 47. Had ye beleved Moses ye would have beleeved me but if ye beleeve not Moses how will ye beleeve my words Whence the collection is plaine Beleevers of Moses are Beleevers of Christ and Rejecters of Moses are Rejecters of Christ See Luke 24. 25 26. with 44 45 46. John 1. 45. Acts 26. 22 23. Rom. 3. 21 22. The Prophecies Promises Types Genealogies Sacraments under that covenant whether ordinary or extraordinary all held forth Christ as might be easily shewn in their several particulars In that covenant the people of the Jews attained salvation and were not only fed with temporal Promises and a covenant meerly carnal not looking above or beyond the land of Canaan as shall be shewen In this covenant men are accepted and received into mercy and favour upon repentance When thou art in tribulation and all these things are come upon thee in the later dayes if thou turn to the Lord thy God and shalt be obedient to his voice for the Lord thy God is a merciful God he will not forsake thee neither destroy thee nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them Deut. 4. 30 31. In this covenant there is pardon of sinne the great priviledge of the New covenant Heb. 8. 12. The Lord proclaimes himself to Moses The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodnesse and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin Exod. 34. 6 7. See Exod. 32. 31 32. 2 Chron. 7. 14. Psal 25. 11. Psal 51. 12. 7. 9. 14. In this covenant the heart is circumcised another great priviledge of the New covenant Heb. 8. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God All of these any of these hold out a covenant of Grace Thirdly the ten commandments which are called the covenant of God Deut. 4. 13. 2 Chron. 6. 11. all that Moses delivered to Israel being there epitomized holds forth a covenant of Grace and not of Works This appears in the Preface intimating Gods grace and goodnesse to that people bringing them out of the land of Egypt and the house of Bondage Which deliverance had more in it than a bare temporal mercy otherwise their passage through the red Sea could have been no Baptisme as the Apostle calls it 1 Cor. 10. 1. Neither had it been any act of justifying faith in Moses to observe the Passeover which yet the Apostle observes Heb. 11. 28. Then their Rock and Manna had been a viaticum in the way but no Sacrament There God avoucheth himself to be the God of that people I am the Lord thy God and he was a God in covenant to none of man-kinde fallen but by an act of grace It appears in the first commandment where God requires them to accept him and cleave unto him which cannot be done but through Christ It appears in the second commandment in the preceptive part of it which contains the whole ceremonial Law in which pardon of sinne was found through Christ Thither Interpreters reduce all the Sacrifices Types Sacraments of the Jewes It appeares in the reasons annext to that precept which as it threatens judgement on transgressours of the Law so mercy to those that observe it Mercy is an act of Grace and not vouchsafed but in Christ It appears in the fifth commandment in the promise there annext and fastened to it So that this covenant or this summe or epitome of the covenant between God and his people which was put into the Arke and the Mercy-seat or propitiatory set upon it in the most holy place Exod. 26. 34. was a covenant of Grace Fourthly this covenant delivered by Moses and epitomized in the Decalogue being a covenant of Grace it could by no meanes be in the whole and entire nature of it a covenant of Works This is plaine God doth not at once with the same people enter covenant upon so opposite termes These are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either of them destructive to the other We may argue concerning the covenant as the Apostle doth concerning Election If by grace then it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace but if it be of works then it is no more grace otherwise work is no more work This I speak as for their sakes that make it a mixt covenant such a one as Pauls adversaries preacht in the Churches of Galatia so also for their sakes that assert it to be a covenant of Works never undertaking any answer to those arguments which so clearly conclude it to be a covenant of Grace Fifthly What this covenant is to any that it is to all whether it be of works or of grace what it is in it selfe in the tender and termes of it that is the denomination of it This is plaine Mens faith or unbelief Mens obedience or transgression cannot diversifie the nature of that which God doth tender And what God spake to the people he spake to all the people the same to all that he spake to any Exodus 19. 25. Exodus 20. 18. compared and therefore that is a mistake in some that say That the Law is doubtlesse a pure covenant of Works to some men but not to all It is a covenant of works occasionally and accidentally and not only to those which are not related to comprehended in or made
partakers of the covenant of Grace He should rather have said that the ten commandments had been a covenant of Grace but sometimes by an accident or especial occasion had become a covenant of Works which yet could not have held The covenant of Grace and the covenant of Works are two distinct and opposite Species They have one and the same univocal Genus of whose nature they equally partake Therefore as an Oxe can by no occasion or accident be a Horse or a Horse a Sheep or a Sheep a Lion or a Lion a man so a covenant of Grace can by no occasion or accident be a covenant of Works one and the same thing intended for one end may occasionally and accidentally have another event as the Ministery intending salvation may prove an aggravat on of condemnation but no occasion or accident can change the nature of any thing into that which is of a kind opposite to it and different from it And in such cases where the event is hindred and another happens the denomination is and must be from the primary intention The Apostle calls the Gospel the power of God to salvation Rom. 1. 16. The word is called the word of Life though to some through their obstinacy it turns to condemnation and to death If our author in this question take liberty to differ from all as himself professeth I hope he will not be displeased if all differ from him Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim Sixthly In Moses time and under his administration commands were frequent and full as well ceremonial as moral as also menaces The directive and maledictive part of the Law were clear and open for discovery of sinne to work to a sense of danger to put them in a posture to look for and long after the Messiah But the promises more obscure I mean the promises of eternity scarce known any otherwise then as they were shadowed out in temporal things This as the Apostle shews was figured by that vaile which was before Moses his face when he spake with the people upon the renuing of the Tables Moses his face upon his converse with God in the Mount shone with that glory that Aaron and all the children of Israel were afraid to come nigh Exod. 34. 30. Afterwards he speaks to the people and talks with them And till he had done speaking with them he put a vaile before his face verse 33. Whereupon the Apostle having entred comparison between the Ministers of the Law and the Ministers of the Gospel alludes to this vaile before Moses his face 2 Cor. 3. 12 13 14. in these words Seeing then we have such hope saith he we use great plainnesse of speech and not as Moses which put a vaile over his face that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished but their mindes were blinded Upon which Diodati saith Moses Ministry kept the people under the shadows of ceremonies without contemplating the mysteries which were figured by them to the bottom which was reserved for the time of the Gospel Heb. 10. 4. Whereof was a figure that vaile on Moses his face Not saith he that that was the end of that act of Moses but of that which the Apostle saith may be allegorically understood thereby namely of the obscure dispensation of the Law Which obscure dispensation meeting with that blindnesse that was in the judgements of that people held them in such ignorance that they saw little of Grace in that covenant but rather through their blinde mistake looked upon it the generality of them as a covenant of Works And this the Apostle signifies in the place before quoted as also Rom. 10. 3. They being ignorant of Gods righteousnesse and going about to establish their own righteousnesse have not submitted themselves to the righteousnesse of God This caused them so tenaciously to hold to the precepts of the Law especially to the ceremonial part which though more burdensome yet was easilier fitted to their corruption that they refused Christ the end of the Law for righteousnesse sake to every one that beleeveth Rom. 10. 3. Seventhly There was yet so much of grace and Christ held out in this covenant that they were not only left without excuse that were under it but convinced of sin if they saw not Christ and the grace of the covenant in it Christ in his contest with the Jewes who would not receive him but stood in opposition and raised persecution against him appeales to the Scriptures Old Testament-Scriptures Search the Scriptures for they testifie of me and in them you think to have eternal life Iohn 5. 39. Where we see a double encomium of the Scriptures 1. From the Iewes own acknowledgement In them eternal life may be found 2. From the testimony they give of Christ In them upon search Christ may be found There are such discoveries there that hold him out and eternal life in him to those that search them And they suspecting by that intimacy of communion that he profest to have with the Father and the heavy charge that he laid upon them that he was about to accuse them to the Father Christ puts it off from himself and puts it upon one that they had least in suspition even Moses Moses in whom they trusted in whom they pretended to repose confidence It is he that is ready to accuse them not of breach of the Law or transgression of any command of his which they could easilier have beleeved but of unbeliefe of Moses You have one that accuseth you even Moses in whom you trust for had ye beleeved Moses ye would have beleeved me for he wrote of me Unbelief in Christ set forth in Moses is a sinne which Moses his writings shall charge upon them So also in that speech of Christ to the two disciples in the way to Emmaus O ye fools and slow of heart to beleeve all that the Prophets have spoken ought not Christ to have suffered those things to enter into his glory where we see them charged with sin in that they understood not Christ in the Prophets Christ in Moses as follows there in the next words Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded unto them all the Scriptures the things concerning himselfe Luke 24 25 26 27. They that dwell at Jerusalem and their Rulers because they knew him not nor yet the voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath day they fulfilled them in condemning him Acts 13. 27. Eightly There are those phrases in Moses which are ordinarily quoted as holding out a covenant of Works and in a rigid interpretation are no other yet in a qualified sense in a Gespel-sense and according to Scripture-use of the phrase they hold out a covenant of Grace and the termes and conditions of it To instance in some few Deut. 4. 1. Now therefore hearken O Israel unto the statutes and unto the judgements which I teach you to
narrative of the work but onely doctrine given in charge which they were to deliver which least of all speaks the order in which the duties specified must necessarily be practised All that can be collected is that we must in Gods ordinary way of conferring salvation have both Faith and baptisme though there be not the like absolute necessity of baptisme as of Faith baptisme being necessary necessitate precepti Jesus Christ having instituted it and commanded it but Faith is necessary both necessitate medii and praecepti seeing Christ not only commanded it but salvation at no hand can be obtained by men in capacity of it without it And therefore it hath been well observed that in the words following the like stresse is not laid on Baptisme as on Faith not he that is not baptized but he that beleeveth not shall be damned 2. Let Peter where he speaks of salvation by baptisme interpret these words Baptisme doth now also saith he save us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 3. 21. and then explaines himselfe Not the pntting away the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience towards God This answer or restipulation unto the outward administration of baptisme is that which follows upon baptisme but justifying Faith is that restipulation at least a principal branch of it and therefore there is no necessity that it go before but a necessity that it must follow after baptisme It is true that in men of yeares justifying faith sometimes goes before baptisme as in Abraham it went before Circumcision but it is not of necessity required to interest us in a right neither of baptisme nor circumcision Thirdly Object That faith to which the promise of Remission and Justication is made it must also be sealed to or that faith which is the condition of the Promise is the condition in foro Dei of the title to the seal But it is onely solid true faith which is the condition of the promise of Remission Therefore it is that onely that gives right in foro Dei to the seal Here is an Argument first proposed Answ secondly in a parenthesis paraphrased for the proposition I say faith is not sealed to but remission of sinnes or salvation upon condition of faith A professour of Faith that goes no farther may engage himself to a lively working faith and upon those termes God engages for and puts his seale for Remission and Salvation For the parenthesis That faith which is the condition of the Promise is the condition in foro Dei of the title to the seale I judge the contrary to be undeniable That faith which is the condition of the Promise is not the condition in foro Dei of title to the seale An acknowledgement of the necessity of such faith with engagement to it is sufficient for a title to the seale and the performance of the condition of like necessity to attaine the thing sealed To promise service and fidelity in war is enough to get listed as to do service is of necessity to be rewarded Fourthly as for the Argument ad hominem framed against those who make initial or common faith sufficient to entitle to Baptisme and yet affixe remission of sins to all Baptisme even so received without any performance of farther engagement I leave to them to defend who maintaine such doctrine and to speak to the absurdities that follow upon it Fifthly that of Philip to the Eunuch seems to carry most colour The Eunuch must beleeve with all his heart before he be baptized and I have known it troublesome that are fully convinced that a dogmatical faith gives title to Baptisme satisfying themselves with this answer That howsoever Philip called for such a faith which leads to salvation yet did not expresse himself so far that no Faith short of this gives title to baptisme It may be answered that a dogmatical faith is true faith suo genere as well as that which justifies therefore I know not why men should give it the terme of false faith seeing Scripture calls it faith and such as those beleevers and the heart in such a Faith as to an entire assent is required If we look into the Eunuchs answer on which Philip did rest satisfied and proceeded upon it to baptisme it will take away all scruple his answer is I beleeve that Jesus Christ is the Sonne of God There is no more in that then a common faith this is beleeved by men not justified yet this faith entitles to baptisme and upon this confession of faith the Eunuch is baptized CHAP. XLIV Impenitence and unbelief in professed Christians is breach of Covenant 4. IT yet follows by way of consectary that men in impenitence and unbelief that lie in sin and live in neglect of the sacrifice of the blood of Christ live in a continual breach of covenant They engage by covenant to believe in Christ and forsake their sin when yet they lie in unbelief impenitence are convinced that they are Fornicators Idolaters Adulterers Effeminate abusers of themselves with mankinde thieves covetous drunkards revellers and extortioners These do not only transgresse the Law which on the severest penalty forbids these wayes but break covenant with God and so are shut out of the Kingdome of Heaven the reward upon covenant to those whose hearts are upright For howsoever I fully assent to learned Master Baxter that all weaknesses are not covenant-breaches and therefore with him judge it to be their mistake who in their confessions acknowledge that we break covenant all that we do yet those men in the list mentioned having given their names to God and entred covenant with him walking in these forbidden wayes are found covenant-breakers and therefore the Psalmist deservedly sayes to them Psalme 50 16 17. What hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behinde thee that is to claime any mercy or favour by vertue of Gods grant in covenant as appeares in the context Engaging to him and thus flying off from him they desert the mercies which they might receive from him As a wife by adultery so they by sin forsake the covenant by which they stand betrothed and by consequence it must needs follow that Christ died for breach of the covenant of Grace as well as for breach of the covenant of Works unlesse we will say that all men by name Christian and found in any of these sinnes are in a lost and unrecoverable condition joyning with them that have said that there is no grace or pardon for those that fall into sinne after baptisme That he died not for their sinnes that live and die in final impenitence and unbelief may be easily granted and that rises to no more then that he died not for those that finally and unrecoverably break covenant with him It is granted by a learned adversary that final unbelief and impenitence are violations