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
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
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
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
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 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
the Spirits witnesse 2. It is for the most part in or upon performance of some duties or conscientious employment of a mans selfe in the way of his calling 3. After some great abasement of a mans spirit and more than ordinary soul-humiliations and self-denials 4. After some great adventures made for God and the advancement of his Name 5. After some great combate and conflict with temptation in which God gives in his Spirit as an honorarium or glorious reward upon victory obtained First by way of concession it is not to be denied that God in a more than ordinary measure doth many times manifest the gift of his Spirit for this work of Assurance and that upon these occasions here laid down the soule hath many cheering consolations nigh unto raptures The Spouse hath not like converse with the Bridegroome at all times Sometimes she walks with him in the Galleries Sometimes she is with him in the wine-sellers Sometimes she can say in a way of exultation My beloved is mine and I am his But these limits in the instances before laid down seem to me to be a full denial instead of proof that it is thus immediate without all reflex upon our graces These being means sanctified of God to stir up the habit of grace by his Spirit wrought within us and to bring them forth into action which God then farther honours with a greater measure of light to discerne his own work wrought in us Our spirits being got into such a posture are in an aptitude to witnesse with us and God is then pleased to come in by his Spirit to joyn in Evidence So that still the conditional promises are not only a safe but the alone way in which through the help of the Spirit we get Assurance that we shall be saved They that go about to assert an immediate teste will never secure the soule from delusion Satan will soon finde an artifice to counterfeit this testimony and bear witnesse in the Spirits stead and when we think we have the Spirit of truth to assure we shall have the father of lies to deceive A gappe will be opened to all licentious presumption Children of disobedience will soone heed vain words Object that the wrath of God shall not come upon them Neither will it be to purpose to demand how the Prophets were assured that it was the word of the Lord that came to them and no delusion and to affirme that the same way we have assurance of the truth of the Spirits witnesse seeing Gods extraordinary way of discovery of himself in visions dreams or what other way himself pleased to chuse is not the same with his ordinary way of discovery unto us we no more understand that way of discovery than we do the way in which by power received they wrought miracles As for Doctrines which men are apt to obtrude upon the Spirit so for testimonies in order to our adoption and salvation we must go to the Law and to the Testimony The Law and Testimony lead us for Assurance to our own hearts excusing or condemning in the particulars mentioned And if our hearts condemne us not then have we confidence towards God and whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight And this is his Commandment that we should beleeve on the Name of his Son Jesus-Christ and love one another as he gave us commandment 1 John 3. 21 22 23. And if the stresse of all had not lien here Christ had never compared the Professor that hears and does not to the foolish builder that raises his hopes of salvation on a sandy foundation upon a bare title of an empty profession without any well grounded interest and the Professor that heares and does to the man that builds on a rock and so layes his hopes of salvation on a foundation that never will deceive Neither would the Psalmist have concluded that he shall not be ashamed his hope would not make him ashamed when he had respect unto all Gods Commandments Psalme 119. 6. And howsoever our doing does nothing by way of merit yet our doing through grace in which beleeving is comprized which is the command of God 1 John 3. 23. does all taking in the Spirits help to cleare the integrity of these works by way of Assurance And though it be no foundation of our subsistence in grace and therefore the Apostle durst not rest on that bottome nor will be found in his own righteousnesse yet it is the foundation of our evidence The Apostle gives it in command to Timothy Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded nor trust in uncertaine riches but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy that they do good that they be rich in good works ready to distribute willing to communicate giving this in as the end of all Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life 1 Tim. 6. 17 18 19. God hath ordained these that we should walk in them Ephes 2. 10. and walking in them we are pronounced blessed Psalme 11 9. 1 2. The efficient cause of our happinesse is grace the free favour and good will of God towards man Being justified freely by his grace Rom. 3. 24. The formal cause is the imputation of Christs righteousnesse without ours when we fall short of the righteousnesse of the Law Christ is the end of the Law for righteousnesse Rom. 10. 3. Therefore the Apostle observes that David describes the blessednesse of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousnesse without works that is wherein his blessednesse doth consist saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sinnes are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin Rom. 4. 6 7 8. The instrument or hand applying is Faith Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth for propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 3. 24 25. But the subject on whom this blessednesse rests is the godly righteous man The Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself Psalme 4. 3. The man that hath clean hands and a pure heart who hath not lift up his soul unto vanity nor sworne deceitfully he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation Psal 24. 4 5. There is a concurrence of sundry causes in mans happinesse but all falls upon the head of him that is stedfast with God in covenant that comes up to the termes and conditions of it He is pronounced and shall remaine for ever blessed and without holinesse no man shall see the Lord. It is questioned by some whether it be the truth or the degree of these graces which are conditions of the Gospel covenant upon performance of which we may
all children but in Isaac shal thy seed be caled that is they that are the children of the flesh those are not the children of God but the children of the promise are counted for the seed But saith he the children of the promise are children born after the Spirit whether they descended from Abraham and Isaac or no with much more to this purpose We have drunk up the Protestants poison and their great care is to preserve their party by the Jesuites antidote They are wholly beholding to them for the receipt what probatum est they can write upon it must be examined And that they may not deny but in the examination of this triumphing Argument they have square dealing I shall give you the Authours words at length I deny not saith he but there was some other promise included in that objection to wit some promise made to Israel or the house of Israel probably that Jerem. 31. 33 36 37. For so the words verse 6. They are not all Israel which are of Israel do intimate But without question the promise made to Abraham Gen. 17. 7. was one which was included in that objection Beza Twisse Ames and others answering Arminius call it the Covenant of God with Abraham which was that Gen. 17. 7. and the very phrase of Abrahams seed in Isaac shall thy seed be called verse 7. The children of the promise are counted for the seed verse 8. Sarah shall have a sonne as verse 9. do evidently shew that the promise objected to prove that if the Jews were rejected from being Gods people then God failed in making good his word was that promise to Abraham I will be thy God and the God of thy seed whereto I may adde that the answerers of Arminius and the cited Remonstrants to wit Baine and Ames do say it was the word of promise not of the Law as Arminius conceived for the word of promise saith Ames Animadv in Remonstran Script Synod de praedest Cap. 8. Sect. 4. is distinguished and opposed to the words of the Law Gal. 3. 17 18. Now the word of the promise there is to Abraham and his seed verse 16. and this is there called by him verbum foederis the word of the Covenant now let us consider how the Apostle answers it He denies that Gods Word made to Abraham did fall though the Jews were rejected because that promise I will be thy God and the God of thy seed as it comprehended saving grace was never meant by God of all Abraham posterity or of any barely as they were descended from Abraham by natural generation but of the Elect whether descended by natural generation from Abraham or not And this is apparent both from the words vers 7. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children but in Isaac shall thy seed be called vers 8. It is expounded thus that is they which are the children of the flesh these are not the children of God but the children of the promise are counted for the seed Whence it is apparent that the same are not always the seed by calling which are the seed of Abraham by natural generation and that the children of the flesh are not the same with the children of the promise and that the Apostle conceived this the right may of answering those that objected the falling of Gods word upon the rejection of the Jews by restraining the promise of being God to Abrahams seed only to the Elect whether of Abrahams natural posterity or not with so little respect to any birth-right-priviledge that he not onely rejected Ishmael and took Isaac but also loved Jacob and hated Esau by prophecie declaring his minde The elder shall serve the younger and in this the Apostle acquits God from unrighteousnesse in that he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardens notwithstanding his promise made to Abraham and Israel or any Birth-priviledge they could claime Yeelding that this Text in that place is brought into question by the Apostle Before I come to the Apostles words themselves I have divers Queres to put 1. How Baine and Ames come to the name of Remonstrants I had thought they had been on the party that are called Contra-Remonstrants 2. Where it appears that Arminius conceived that the covenant there spoken to was the word of the Law and not of Promise I am sure in his Analysis on this Chapter to the Romans he speaks in another manner even in our authours own Dialect as though the ones Comment had been spit out of the mouth of the other The sons of the flesh with the Apostle saith he are those that by the works of the Law follow after righteousnesse and salvation The sinnes of the promise are those that seek after righteousnesse and salvation by faith in Christ and he thus frames the principal Syllogism of the Apostle for confutation of the Jews arguing from the rejection of the Jews Gods failing in his promise If the word of God comprehend only the sonnes of the promise shutting out the sons of the flesh then it follows that the word of God doth not faile though the sons of the flesh be rejected But the word of God comprehends only the sons of promise shutting out the sonnes of the flesh Therefore the word of God doth not faile though the sons of the flesh be rejected Armin. Anal. Cap. 9. ad Ro. p. 781. Let any now judge whether he can interpret this of the Law and not of the promise 3. When he affirmes that to be borne after the flesh is all one with the Apostle with legal justiciaries as he doth which is Arminius his Interpretation how then can he by that distinction of children of the flesh and children of the promise shut out the natural seed of Abraham are the natural seed of Abraham and legal justiciaries one and the same 4. If the Apostle exclude all the natural seed of Abraham from this Covenant of God as Stapleton argues and from him the Anabaptists and takes in only his spiritual seed how can he be reconciled to himself in the words immediately before this objection he speaks of the Jewes as his kinsmen according to the flesh which were the natural seed of Abraham and saith To them pertaine the Adoption the Glory and the Covenants c. How then can his distinction be interpreted to throw them out of Covenant when in expresse termes he had affirmed that they were in covenant How can he deny that these are children vers 7. when he had affirmed that to them pertaineth the Adoption vers 4. Which may be confirmed by abundant other Texts of Scripture Ye are the children of the Lord your God Deut. 14. 1. Out of Egypt have I called my Sonne Hosea 11. 1. It is not meet to take the childrens bread and cast it unto Dogges Matth. 15. 26. where all that were not Gentiles all to whom Christ was sent are called children
this covenant between God and his people which is to be spoken to elsewhere As the being of a covenant is thus plentifully proved by Scripture-testimony so we might as amply prove it by arguments drawn from thence The Churches of Christ are espoused unto Christ Hos 2. 19 20. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever yea I will betroth thee unto me in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulnesse and thou shalt know the Lord. 2 Cor. 11. 2. I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you to Christ and Spouses are in covenant with their Bridegroom The Churches of Christ are married to Christ Isa 54. 5. Thy Maker is thine Husband the Lord of hosts is his Name and thy Redeemer the holy One of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called And wives are in covenant with their husbands Their sinnes against God are branded with the names of Adulteries Whoredomes and these are not barely dis-obedience of a Command or neglect of a favour but breaches of covenant The Churches of Christ are servants of Christ Levit. 25. houshold servants Ephes 2. 19. and servants are their Masters by covenant Their sinnes in this relation are not barely obstinacy stubbornness or ingratitude but they are charged with treachery falsehood dealing falsely in covenant and their hearts being not stedfast in covenant It is above me to conceive how man can be a covenant-breaker not alone respective to man but God as he is frequently charged when there hath past no covenant between God and him They may question whether there were ever any such thing as a covenant in the world that deny this to be a covenant in the proper nature of it some objections raised in their due place will be answered CHAP. IV. The Covenant of Grace is between God and man and not between God and Christ. HAving asserted a covenant in the proper nature of it it is necessary before I proceed further on to give differences between this covenant of Works and the covenant of Grace to speak something by way of Explication covenant being taken in so various and ambiguous senses or at least so many senses put upon it which I take to be a misunderstanding of the Scripture-covenant I shall lay down certaine Explicatory Propositions for clearing of the thing in question And the leading on shall be this The Covenant of grace is between God and man between God and those of fallen mankinde that he pleases to take into covenant God and man are the two parties in the covenant It is not made between God and Christ. This is so plain that a man might think there needed no words about it but that there are some that will have man to be no party in it and that it is entred onely with Christ on behalf of those that God hath chosen in Christ to himself To this I shall speak first by way of concession yeelding to them of this opinion these three things that follow 1. That there is such a covenant of which they speak which was entred between God and Christ containing the transactions which passe between the Father and the Sonne the tenor of which covenant we find laid down by the Prophet Esay 53. 10 c. and commented upon by the Apostle Phil. 2. 6. There we see first the work that Christ by covenant was to undergo To make his soul an offering for sinne that is as elsewhere is exprest to give his life a ransome for many and as he covenanted so he did He became obedient to death even the death of the crosse Phil. 2. 8. and that upon account of this covenant entred Christ himself speaking to it and of his work in it saith John 10. 18. This Commandment have I received of my Father Secondly the reward that he was to receive which is laid down by the Prophet in many words 1. He shall see his seed ver 10. As Isaac being received from the dead in a figure saw a seed had an innumerable posterity so the Lord Christ who was received from the dead in truth hath his seed in like manner beleevers innumerable which are called his seed in resemblance to the seed of man 2. He shall prolong his dayes not the dayes of his seed as some would have it making this one with the former and rendring the words videbit semen longaevum being delivered from death he shall live and reign eternally Revel 1. 18. 3. The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand he shall irresistibly do whatsoever is the Fathers pleasure to be done in the work of mans salvation 4. He shall see the travel of his soul and shall be satisfied upon this work done he fully enjoys the whole of all his desires 5. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoile with the strong He obtains a perfect victory hath a plenary and full conquest over every adversary 2. We yeeld that the whole of these covenant-transactions between God and Christ was on our behalf Making his soul an offering for sinne he offers it for those that are fallen by iniquity All is as is there said for the justification of many Whatsoeve it is that upon the work done redounds to himself yet the reason of undertaking was for us Vnto us he was borne unto us he was given He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities he was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification He endured the mulct and we reap the benefit 3. We confesse that it is the work of Christ that we enjoy a being in covenant as it is his gift that we enjoy the blessing of Ordinances But when all these are yeelded the truth must be asserted that there is a covenant to which Scripture constantly speaks which is entred of God with man and not with Christ which me thinks with much ease might be made to appear 1. There are frequent testimonies of Gods entry of covenant with his people 1. With the leading persons in the covenant which stand as the root of many thousand branches which are their off-spring in covenant He entred covenant with Abraham Gen. 15. 18. Gen. 17. 2. The like he enters with Isaac Gen. 26. 3. with Jacob Gen. 35. 11. and therefore he is so frequently called the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. And the covenant of God is alike known by the name of the covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob. 2. He enters covenant with the whole body of the people of Israel Deut. 5. 1 2. Hear O Israel the statutes and judgements which I speak in your ears this day that ye may learn them and keep them and do them The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb the Lord made not this covenant with our fathers but with us even us who are all of us alive
inflicts the Lord 4. His way of dealing as a Father in love and not in vengeance Now turne to Heb. 12. 5 6 7. and there we shall see the Apostle 1. Quoting this Scripture 2. Checking them for not heeding it 3. Commenting upon it Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children My sonne despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth If ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with sonnes for what sonne is he whom the Father chasteneth not These words of the Apostle confirm all the Old Testament proofs before mentioned give a shrewd check to all those that would cast them off and are a full New Testament-proof of the point in hand our aversaries tell us that the children of God in New Testament-times have that great and happy priviledge to be free from all chastisements for sinne The Apostle on the other hand sayes that it is their happinesse to be chastised and would be their sorrow if they were without chastisement For this cause saith the Apostle many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep 1 Cor. 11. 30. There we see judgements inflicted the persons suffering and the cause of suffering assigned The judgements are set out 1. By the quality or kinde such as were visible on the outward man as their sinne was open so was their suffering 2. By their several degrees in which they suffered some weak languishing under infirmities some sick taken with diseases some fallen asleep surprised with death The persons suffering are set out 1. By their multitude many 2. By the application of the stroke Corinthians had sinned and Corinthians suffered The cause is implyed in the illative particle For and exprest in the foregoing words their unworthy addresses unto the Lords Table sinfully eating and drinking they eat and drink their own judgement and though it cannot be said that all were in grace that thus suffered yet there were some at least in grace among them in that the Lord chastened them in the world that they might not be condemned with the world The Lord Christ speaks fully to this in his letter from heaven to Laodicea the Church of Rev. 3. 19. As many as I love I rebuke and chasten As Scripture expresly holds out this truth so it is also clear in reason if God should not hold up his Sovereignty in this way of exercise of discipline upon his children his love could not be continued to them but would be withdrawn from them as we see in Christs words but now mentioned Rev. 3. 19. as also in those words of Solomon and the Apostle Pro. 3. 11. Heb. 12. 5 6 7. The love of God is such to his children and such a league of friendship is past between them say our adversaries that it will not suffer him to strike them We say his love is such that he cannot forbear to strike and will not suffer that they should sinne and carry it with impunity There are indeed some such parents that are so indulgent that children must neither have check nor stroke from them what course soever they take they scarce hear words much lesse do they suffer stripes These call this love but a wiser then they calls it by the name of hatred Prov. 13. 24. He that spareth the rod hateth his sonne but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes Pity will not suffer to make children smart But it is greater pity that the want of smart should bring them to the condemnation of hell Prov. 23. 13 14. With-hold not correction from the childe for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell A childe in sinne must either be beaten or spared Beating will not be his death but sparing tends to his condemnation The similitude is not ours but the Holy Ghosts One of the most terrible texts in all the Bible may be found as one sayes Hoses 4. 14. I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredome nor your spouses when they commit adultery He spares not some that he may for ever spare them chastening them in the world that he may not condemn them with the world He spares some and everlastingly destroys them 2. Otherwise God would be reconciled to the sinne of his people and in league not only with their persons but with their wickednesse which is most abhorrent to his holinesse We read of Gods reconciliation to the world but never to the wickednesse of the world God may be at peace with those that have sinned not imputing their trespasses but he will never be at peace with sin 3. It will not stand with his honour to suffer his to go on in impunity in these ways Their wickednesse will be said to be by his allowance Men in sin are ready to say as the Psalmist observe that God is such a one as themselves Psalme 50. 21. and that because they sinne and he keeps silence And men of the world will say the same if his people go on in sinne and prosper This the Lord sees and takes care this way to prevent Ezek. 39. 23. And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity because they trespassed against me therefore hid I my face from them He will make it appear that he is no patron to them in that which is evil 4. God hath given in charge to Magistrates his vice-gerents for to punish They are revengers to execute wrath upon them that do evil Rom. 13. 4. they are sent of God for the punishment of evil doers 1. Pet. 2. 14. They have no commission to spare upon supposal of any interest in God or grace when they are found in any acts that are wicked What they do God does they acting by his command and by vertue of his commission For further clearing of this point and if it may be to work a right understanding I shall lay down severall Positions 1. God considered in his absolute Sovereignty may inflict sufferings without injustice on his innocent creatures there is no absolute necessity that sinne should go before all manner of trouble Punishment cannot be without a fault that alwayes implies guilt where justice is followed Yet such is Gods Sovereignty that he may lay affliction where there is no transgression We do it upon our fellow-creatures we tread upon wormes that never did offend us God may much more do it upon his creatures yea God does it How much do bruit creatures suffer in the world and unwillingly suffer as the Apostle speaks Rom. 8. 20. and that from Gods hand that hath made them subject to these suffering that which God doth unto one creature he may do unto any creature that which he doth to the meanest he may do to the most noble creature As a potter may
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
to walk in Gods statutes Ezek. 36. 27. A work as of authority so of power Fifthly Plucking out of the power of Satan an act of the free grace and power of God 2 Tim. 2. 26. Sixthly Drawing A work of power in him that draws weaknesse in him that is drawn Joh. 6. 44. No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him And therefore the Spouse prayeth Draw me and we will run after thee Cant. 1. 4. There must be more power in God for conversion than in Satan for the souls ruine Grace must have advantage of temptation but Satan can allure perswade Our first parents had woful experience of his faculty this way He hath his moral perswasions If God make use of nothing more they are even yea Satan hath the advantage by so much as we are more apt for sinne than obedience And as these metaphorical expressions hold it forth So in plain termes it is exprest in Scripture The Apostle prayes for the Ephesians that the eyes of their understanding being enlightened they may know what is the exceeding greatnesse of Gods power to those that beleeve according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead Ephes 1. 19. And by way of simile makes Application ch 2. verse 1. c. Even when we were dead in sins hath he quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Ephes 2. 5. Lest any should say the former Metaphors are stretched above their line when they are brought in to hold forth that for which they have been produced the Apostle here makes application and shews that the like mighty power which was exercised of God in raising Christ dead in the grave and setting him up above all principalities and powers is exercised in raising those who are dead in sin to sit in heavenly places with Christ The Apostle entring a similitude chap. 1. 19. makes not an end of it till chap. 2. v. 8. Only having named the exaltation of Christ upon his Resurrection does not leave till he have shewed how high he is exalted and having named mans low ebbe in sin does not leave till he hath set out how low which drawes out the similitude to such length in which this truth is set forth unto us which comparison with the application leaves the necessity of an Omnipotent concurrence in this work without exception Reas 3. This further appears in that inability which is in man to accept that which God of grace doth tender unlesse God cure the faculties by his power He is wanting 1. In power to understand or to discerne the glory of that grace which is offered The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishnesse unto him neither can be know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. This native blindnesse in man with the necessity of an Omnipotency for cure is plain not only in the Heathens who wanting the light of Revelation are as St. Paul speaks darknesse But also in those to whom light is brought and the word preacht that stand in actual covenant with God as appears Deut. 29. 1. 4. Compared The Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive speaking to men in covenant and eyes to see and ears to hear unto this day 2. In will to desire and heart to embrace any such tender but on the contrary there is a readinesse still to oppose which is plain not onely by the stirres that are raised wheresoever the word is preach't as we see through the History of the Acts So that it is grown into a Proverb Evangelicum ciet bellum But also by the struglings to withstand any motion or conviction which the Word works what Stephen tells the Jews that they did that each man by nature is apt to do to resist the Holy Ghost Acts 7. 51. There is much resistance in the heart which grace by power does not utterly take away but overcome and subdue 4ly This appears in Gods indication and full declaration of himself what his work is what is to be expected from his hand in the covenant-conditions which he requires of us which we finde from his mouth in several Texts of Scripture The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God Deut. 30. 6. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit I will put within you I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes Ezek. 36. 25 26 27. But especially in that Text Jer. 31. 31 32 33 34. The dayes come saith the Lord that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with 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 the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days 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 and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying Know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more In which Texts a necessity of supernatural grace for the ends mentioned is abundantly set out unto us Had man power left in nature for this work or nature so repaired in all that abilities were universally conferred this declaration needed not No reason can be given of these engagements by those that deny any necessity of an Omnipotent concurrence These are usually called Promises and they runne indeed in the nature of Promises so that they deserve not blame that so conceive of them Generally taken also to be absolute Promises saith Mr Baxter Aph. of Just page 9. and being Promises they must indeed be absolute ones we bring not the condition of faith to accept of them Here is nothing prerequired as in Promises that are conditional Being Promises if Promises of Grace as some have distinguished and not Promises to Grace they are spoken to those that are in their unbelief and unregenerate condition Yet that which is necessarily required to make up a full Promise here is wanting In Promises properly so called some may claim their interest and know themselves to be within their verge and conclude the thing in Promise upon termes at least to be theirs which here none can do This indeed concernes the Elect but being in unregeneration they
Spirit This conviction unto change is hardly without compunction remorse and terrours in the soul It was not the single case of the Corinthians but common with other Christians as the natural work of godly sorrow that it worketh repentance not to be repented of 2 Cor. 7. 10. I will not stand to diâ—â—â—â— whether any ever are exempted from this preparatory work I question not Gods prerogative I am upon enquiry after his usual method I know some instance in Matthew who being called suddenly followed Christ and we heare nothing of any work upon his spirit to trouble But who knows whether Matthew a Jew were not called by grace before this call to an Apostleship and if not in grace whether it necessarily followed in that instant The like is objected of Lydia The Lord opened her heart that she attended to the things that were spoken of Paul Acts 16. 14. without any sorrow or trouble in spirit is mentioned Neither is there mention of any joy or rejoycing in spirit and she by many is believed also to have been a Proselyte Yet this of godly sorrow must be understood with some limit 1. An equal degree of sorrow and preparative work is not necessary in all One mans terrours and heart-breakings are no necessary precedent for all others to reach 2. An high degree is not necessarily required of any God can come sooner in with Gospel-cordials after Law-convictions unto one than another 3. No man hath reason to quarrel his conversion because his sorrow hath not been like some others each man hath not like paine in cure of a like malady 4. None should beg of God overwhelming and amazing shakings and humiliations of Spirit God better knows their frame than they understand themselves 5. None can judge of the truth of their repentance by the greatnesse of their trouble It may possibly end in horrour and work nothing better than it self It may only have its present work to cast hell in the face and then the person returne to his old byasse to his sinful pleasures his worldly advantages as Saul to his Musick Cain to his building of Cities yet when God thus plowes it is a hopeful signe he intends sowing and men in this case must not reason themselves to be such soyle on whom no good can be done as though they were past all husbandry of the Lord He can take away a heart of stone and turne a rock into a fruitful field This is Gods method do not dispute but believe 6. Then it is in a degree sufficient when it effects the work for which it serves when it brings the soul out of love with sin takes it out of the paths of sinne when it so works to an apprehension of dangers that it works the soul to cast it self on Christ Jesus When horrours work desires not of ease but of grace of Christ and of whole Christ of pardon of sin and power against sin there is a true work For the essential parts of this grace which I make a Gospel-engagement and condition of the covenant they are privative or positive Privative is the destruction of what hath been Positive is the introduction of what is not Every change hath two termes The one is terminus ad quem which is endeavoured The other is terminus à quo which is left and so in this change which grace works and to which the covenant of grace doth engage The privative part which we are to leave is sin the work of Satan The positive part which we are to endeavour is that which stands in full opposition Forsaking of sin we must follow after righteousnesse and turning from Satan we must turne to God and therefore the Ministery which findes men out of covenant and works them into it is to bring them from darknesse to light from the power of Satan to God Acts 26. 18. The privative part is frequently enjoyned as that which bindes at all times and to all times A man in covenant with God is to have no more to do with sin Cease to do evil put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes Isa 1. 16. Be ye separate touch no unclean thing 2 Cor. 6. 17. Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth fornication uncleannesse inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousnesse which is idolatry for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience In the which ye also walked sometimes when ye lived in them But now you also put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication out of your mouth lie not one to another seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds Col. 3. 5 6 7 8 9. Old things with Christians are to be done away This is the duty of all those that pretend to Christ Let every one that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2. 19. All that is in Christ is wholly against it His Prophetick office leads us from it and gives us light to avoid it In his Kingly office his Law is against it and his Priestly office is to redeem from it They that are in Christ and learn him as the truth is in Christ Jesus attaine to it Ephes 4. 22. That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts It is the character of a man in Christ Gal. 5. 24. They that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts And this upon peril of bearing their sinne Ezek. 18. 30 31. Repent and turne your selves from all your transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruine Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will ye die O house of Israel No man in sinne is for glory 1 Cor. 6. 9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God The works of the flesh are manifest which are these adultery fornication uncleannesse lasciviousnesse idolatry witchcraft hatred varience emulation wrath strife seditions heresies envyings murders drunkennesse revellings and such like of the which I tell you before as I have also told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdome of God Gal. 5. 19 20 21. Upon these termes it is that they obtaine pardon of sinne Isa 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him returne unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Grace is no where more freely tendred than there Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters and he that hath no money come ye buy and eat yea come buy wine and milk without money and without price Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not hearken diligently unto me and eat you that
which is good and let your soul delight it self in fastnesse Incline your ear and come unto me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you even the sure mercies of David verse 1 2 3. And yet we see upon what termes it is tendered That which keeps from us the mercies and brings upon us the curses of the covenant is upon covenant-condition to be shunned This is true of all covenants made where any good is hoped and evil feared That sinne against God keeps us from the mercies and brings upon us the curses of the covenant is clear in what hath been spoke What hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou should'st take my covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hast instruction and castest my words behinde thee Psal 50. 16 17. A people that keep to their termes of covenant are in communion with God but sinne separates between a people and God that is the ground of quarrel Hos 4. 1. between earth and heaven Men entring and keeping covenant with God are of God and not of the Devil They are turned from the Devil to God from fellowship with Belial to fellowship with God But he that committeth sin is of the Devil 1 John 3. 8. Christ that carries on the covenant as you have heard will never cast off those that walk up to the termes of the covenant but he casts off with a dreadful sentence all those that work iniquity Mat. 7. 23. As for those Antinomian spirits and ranting wretches that do contend that sinne is no barre to their communion with God That God is as well pleased with man in the greatest heighth of sinne as the most holy duties That this doctrine charges a change upon God to be now pleased and presently in wrath and displeasure they do but deceive themselves and make it their work to deceive others They neither know sin nor the direful guilt of it nor yet God nor his direful displeasure against it The Apostle makes it his businesse to undeceive them as Ephes 5. 6. having reckoned up a catalogue of sins he thus speaks Be not deceived with vaine words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience Neither is there any change according to this doctrine supposed in God The change is in them that covenant against it and walk in it Did they know the terrour of it they would tremble at the thought of running upon it and by heaping up sin to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgements of God Rom. 2. 5. They will finde this an aggregate of all miseries and let them take beed that they call not to the rocks and mountains to hide them from it The Positive part is to be followed as the Privative part to be shunned As Timothy must flee covetousnesse so he must follow after righteousnesse godlinesse faith love patience meeknesse 1 Tim. 6. 11. Faith in the former place as an instrument serviceable for our accesse to God makes up as we heard a condition of it self As a work or inherent grace it is here comprised in this covenant-condition together with others to hold up our communion with God As we must cease to do evil so we must learne to do well As we must put off the old man with his deeds so we must put on the new man It is not enough not to bring evil fruit wilde grapes but we must be fruitful in every good work God hath a quarrel with his people upon a charge of negatives as well as affirmatives omissions as well as commissions She obeyed not the voice she received not correction she trusted not in the Lord she drew not neer to her God Zeph. 3. 2. We must not alone be free from that charge of Christ upon the Jews of doing the work of the Devil John 8. 44. but we must abound in the work of the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. And this upon the penalty mentioned in the former branch Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewen down and cast into the fire Matth. 3. 10. Upon these termes it is that we avoid the curse of the covenant Those on whom no condemnation is charged walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentlenesse goodnesse faith meeknesse temperance Gal. 5. 21 22. Upon those termes salvation the mercy of the covenant is obtained Christ is the Authour of everlasting salvation to them that obey him Heb. 5. 9. When the Apostle makes light of outward priviledges he puts the whole stresse upon mans faith and obedience Gal. 5. 6. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but faith which worketh by love Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God 1. Cor. 7. 19. That which is so mightily available with God in covenant is the walking up to the terms and observance of the conditions of the covenant But faith and the keeping of the Commandments of God are as we see thus available and prevalent These two are distinguished but never severed That faith which looks at Christs blood as a Saviour accepts him as a Sovereign and the latter about which there is most dispute is an evidence to conclude the former Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his Commandments where knowledge is put for faith as appears in the context 1 Joh. 2. 3. These are heard of God in prayer Joh. 9. 32. If any man be a worshipper of God and doth his will him he heareth Whatsoever we aske we receive of him because we keep his Commandment and do those things that are pleasing in his sight 1 John 3. 22. These are sealed of God by his Spirit 1 John 3. 24. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him and he in him And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us These great mercies are for men in covenant that keep covenant But the mercy of the Lord is 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 Ps 103. 17 18. CHAP. XXIV Objections against the conditionality of Repentance answered HEre Objections must be removed Object First joyntly against faith and repentance some making challenge of both as no covenant-conditions So Mr. Baxters questionist How do you make faith and repentance to be conditions of the Covenant on our part seeing the bestowing of them is part of the condition on Gods part can they be our conditions and Gods too In case these two cannot stand together that they should be conditions both Gods and ours we may answer by way of retortion Answ and I am sure we have the better end of the staffe that
suddenly on no man neither be partaker of other mens sins In case Timothy had had that power to have conferred with the calling qualifications for the calling he had no need to have been in that way advised to use such circumspection Why should he be so careful to see them first fit in case his laying on of hands would fit them There need not such trial whether they were gifted in case a touch of the hand would be the gifting of them And for Timothies Ordination in the place quoted 2 Tim. 1. 6. it followes not from our grant that extraordinary gifts are there specified that authority for the Ministerial work is denied It is plain that Moses authorized Joshua for succession in his place by laying on of hands Deut. 34. 9. The people upon that took him for his successor yet it is as plain in the Text that the Spirit of wisdom was then conferred upon him Authority and power are sometimes given at once yet all that are in power to authorize cannot impower for this businesse he that will see more may read Dr. Seamans Treatise on this subject and jus divinum Ministerii Ecclesiastici CHAP. XXIX Ministers of Christ must bring their people up to the termes of the Covenant pressing the neccessity of Faith and Repentance THen it farther yet follows that the Ministers of Christ are to call their people unto these duties before mentioned as conditions They must urge and presse the necessity of Faith and Repentance These are the termes of the covenant and stipulation to which God in covenant doth engage in which the Apostles of Christ spent their paines Testifying both to Jews and Gentiles repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Acts 20. 21. And this must be the businesse of those that make it their businesse to preach the Gospel in all ages Men must be taught to observe what Christ commands and teaches Matth. 28. 20. These Christ teaches and gives in charge Thus he begun his Ministery Mark 1. 15. Repent ye and beleeve the Gospel They must so preach that men may not perish that they may not be the savour of death But they only that beleeve shall not perish John 3. 16. They that repent not must perish Luke 13. 1. They must so preach Christ that men may have their interest in Christ that they may not be cast off by Christ But Faith gives this interest He dwells in our hearts by Faith Ephes 3. 17. Workers of iniquity must be cast off Mat. 7. 23. Depart from me all ye that work iniquity It is no plain dealing in any of the Ministers of Christ to make tender of promises to hold forth priviledges and conceale the termes upon which they may be obtained to speak of salvation to men in sinne without so much as the name of sanctification or application to God in a way of Repentance to tell men in the Prodigals course of the Fathers bowels and readinesse to meet them with kisses without mention of the Prodigals humiliation or coming in to tell them of the many sinnes forgiven to the woman in the Gospel Luk 7. 47. without once mention of those many tears that were shed in evidence of her repentance They say that these are the strongest motives to work men from sin This I gladly yeeld when the promise is tendered and with it repentance urged I know it was the way of the Prophet Esay 55. 7. and therefore a prevalent way Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him returne unto the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon The way also of the Apostle 2 Cor. 6. 17. Be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you But the severing of the promise from the duty so that Christ is heard only in a promise not at all in a precept when they heare that Christ will save but are never told that they must repent These are but delusions Promise-Preachers and no duty-Preachers grace-Preachers and not repentance-Preachers do but as the Apostle hath long since given warning deceive with vain words Ephes 5. 6. This will never work men from sinne but strengthen men in sin Ezek. 13. 22. Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad whom I have not made sad and strenthened the hands of the wicked that he should not returne from his wicked way by promising life These promises of life thus tendered we see are lies for men in sinne are men for death Ezek. 18. 31. These promises strengthen the hands of men in sinne that they return not from it It is the observation of many that the false Prophets so branded in the Old Testament vented no errours in Faith but only misapplications of truths They promised peace where the Lord had promised no peace and therefore a false Prophet among the Jews is distinguished from a false Teacher among Christians 2 Pet. 2. 1. These latter bring in damnable heresies and so did not the former But as ours outstrip them in that they bring in errours in faith so they joyne with them in misapplications of truths If thou be a whoremonger a blasphemer a drunkard a mad man in iniquity saith one or words to that purpose and there be no manner of change wrought in thee yet come and take Christ c. Does any Gospel-Text speak of such a mans taking of Christ without any manner of change wrought Are not those the enemies of Christ that rise in hostile rebellion Psal 68. 21. And while they despise him can they receive him We would not have such a sinner if we can possibly imagine a great sinner kept from Christ Jesus but he must come in at the Gospel-door He must come in the way of his call He must come to receive whole Christ in each function of his He must come for every gift which Christ poures out He must come for repentance from Christ as a Prince as well as remission of sins as a Saviour Acts 5. 31. God hath exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance to Israel and forgivenesse of sinnes He must come by the way of Faith for forgivenesse This both Prophets and Apostles Old Testament and New Testament-Gospel calls for Acts 10. 43. To him give all the Prophets witnesse that through his Name whosoever beleeveth in him shall receive remission of sinnes They must come by repentance and conversion in order to forgivenesse Acts 3. 19. Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. I do not say that there is no promise in Scripture made to a wicked man that is the greatest Gospel-paradox But I say they are not made good to wicked persons They are made to the wicked made good that
sinners of the Gentiles Gal. 2. 15 16. All these identities evidence one and the same Church ours and theirs Therefore say I unto you the Kingdome of God shall be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof Matth. 21. 43. The same Kingdom was taken from them and given to us was taken from the Jewes and given to the Gentiles where Sem left there Japhet took possession Gen. 9. 27. Sems Tents are Japhets These speak the covenants into which we have successively entred to be one and the same in substance A covenant entred by the same parties upon the same termes and propositions on either hand is the same covenant Such is the Old covenant entred with the Jewes and the New covenant entred with Christians they are therefore one and the same in substance CHAP. XXXII Differences assigned between the Old and New covenant THese covenants are not in that manner fully and entirely one but there is difference in the way of administration They are one in substance constituting one Church one Kingdome but different in circumstances Upon which account they are distinguished by the names of the Old and New the first and second Covenant Some have made it their ambition to rise as high as may be in the number of differences and have assigned several where there is a full accord and perfect agreement I shall lay down such where the difference is clear and afterward take view of those imaginary differences upon which any controversie of moment hangs 1. They differ in the agents employed in administration of these respective covenants entred of God and upheld and continued with his people The Old covenant was administred and held forth by Servants only Prophets Priests and such as God pleased to appoint whether by ordinary call as those of the Tribe of Levi who were appointed among men in things appertaining to God Or extraordinary to whom he spake in visions and dreams God in sundry wayes and manners as the Apostle to the Hebrews observes then speaking to his people Heb. 1. 1. The New covenant is held forth by the Son as in the same place the Apostle witnesseth He was the Angel or Messenger of the covenant Upon that errand he came from the Father clothed with our flesh This is that great salvation which first began to be spoken to us by the Lord Heb. 2. 3. And this he carries on by his delegates and deputies whom from the right hand of the Father he gifts and qualifies 2. They differ in their extent and latitude as to the Nations taken into covenant The Old covenant received only the Jews To them appertained the Adoption the Glory and the Covenants Rom. 9. 4. Circumcision the Seale of the covenant was proper to them with some few of other Nations that forgetting their own people and their fathers house joyned themseves to them whilest other Nations were known by the name of uncircumcision being without title to that Seale and were without Christ aliens to the common-wealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of Promise Eph. 2. 12. Therefore the Apostles before the vaile was taken away had that restraint upon them Matth. 10. 5. Go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any City of the Samaritans enter ye not The lost sheep of the house of Israel being in covenant onely were in their commission That was a valley of vision All other people were in darknesse They were a people of God Others were no people The New covenant takes in all Nations respective to the covenant no Nation hath any barre put to it but in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousnesse is accepted with him Act. 10. 35. Christ having taken away the partition wall the Apostles have a commission for the discipling of all Nations so that in Christ Jesus There is neither Jew nor Greek Scythian nor Barbarian Col. 3. 11. 3. They differ in their duration or continuance The Old covenant had but its date of time which being expired it must give way for the New to succeed Thus the Apostle reasons from the Prophets prediction of a New covenant Heb. 8. 13. In that he saith A New covenant he hath made void the Old now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away This was to stand till times of reformation Heb. 9 10. This second covenant must remaine till the end of time These are called the last dayes in that after these there must be no change of Ordinances The Ministery now established is to remaine to the end of the world Matth. 28. 20. and the Sacraments until Christs second coming unto judgement 4. They differ in the way of dedication or consecration The Old covenant was dedicated and purified with the blood of Bulls and Goats and other Sacrifices which according to the Law were slaine and offered as the Apostle to the Hebrews observes from Exod. 24. 7 8. Heb. 9. 19 20 21. When Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the Law he took the blood of calves and goats with water and Scarlet-wool and hysope and sprinkled both the book and all the people saying This is the blood of the Testament which God hath enjoyned you Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the Tabernacle and all the vessels of the Ministery But in the New Testament the dedication is in the blood of Christ This is my blood in the New Testament shed for you and for many for the remission of sins Where we see 1. An agreement Either of both are Testaments and covenants Either of both have their dedication Either of both are dedicated in blood 2. An answerable difference and opposition The first was the Old Testament to be antiquated The second the New to succeed in place of the Old The first was dedicated in the blood of Bulls and Calves The second in the blood of the Mediatour in my blood saith Christ The first had no possible power to take away sinne as the Apostle presently shews chap. 10. 4. But this is shed for many for the remission of sins The Apostle in the words immediately before these quoted gives the covenant the name of a Testament though a covenant and a mans last Will and Testament really differ seeing herein they agree that the covenant had its validility as a Testament by the death of him that made the covenant Heb. 9. 16 17. 5. They differ in the way of exhibition of Christ the glory and grace of the covenant And upon a threefold account here there is a difference 1. In the Old covenant we have Christ only in a Promise to be incarnate to suffer and to rise again and to be received unto glory Under that covenant light was by way of prophecie In the New covenant he is evidently set forth as come in the flesh Having been dead and now alive Rev. 1. 18. Having suffered in the flesh risen again and entred into glory To us
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
their flesh this signe and seale of the Covenant 2. Upon it they had many and great priviledges yea all Church priviledges followed upon this leading priviledge though otherwise strangers to the Common-weale of Israel now they were look't upon as of Israel 3. Answering unto and in sincerity making good that unto which they do actually engage the whole blessing of the Covenant is theirs They that undertake the termes on which covenant-salvation according to the Gospel is had are actually vested in a a saving covenant but they undertake the termes on which covenant-salvation according to the Gospel is had they are therefore in a saving covenant 4. In case unbelief and impenitence in them be not only Law-transgressions but also gospel-Gospel-sins and breaches of a Gospel-covenant then these professed believers are under a Gospel-covenant This is evident They sin not against the Gospel that are not under the Gospel they break not covenant that were never in covenant but their unbelief and impenitence are above law-Law-transgressions they are Gospel-sins and breaches of covenant as I think need not to be proved and therefore it is plain that they are in covenant Upon this account I confesse I have often marvelled why many eminent and godly Divines do earnestly perswade their people to whom they speak to enter covenant with God giving directions what way they are to take to come into covenant with him telling them that it is of great concernment to them to know under what covenant they are whether under a covenant of Works or a covenant of grace when the same men expressely say that we all entred covenant in baptisme and that unbelief and impenitence at least if not every sin is a breach of our baptism vow and covenant Might not any think that these did perswade to be baptised and that they tell their people that it is of great concernment to know what covenant it is that baptisme seales whether it seales the covenant of Works or the covenant of Grace If we enter in covenant in our baptisme as they truly say that we did as to the Jus in re then how comes it to passe that any that are baptised are out of it and being already actually in it how are they perswaded to enter into it These perswasions therefore and motives to enter covenant I think should be to presse men on to keep covenant and so the directions which they lay down are indeed of divine and excellent use And when they say it so much concernes men to know what covenant they are under I conceive it should rather be to let them know of how great concernment it is to them to see that they have their interest in the mercies of the covenant through grace answering to the termes of it and requisites in it and so the entring of covenant which is done as these say in baptisme and keeping of covenaut or obtaining the mercies of the covenant would not be confounded but distinguished Their labours would likewise be of excellent use which otherwise scarce suit either with their own words or the Scriptures It may be objected that in case they are from under the covenant of Works and under the covenant of Grace then they are exempted from the curse and acquitted from the condemnation which is annext to that covenant which cannot be affirmed of any meer Professour of Christianity in unbelief and impenitence and enough is spoken in this Treatise it self against it To this I answer 1. The curse may follow upon the transgression of the Law as a Law without consideration of any covenant at all whether of Works or Grace and it is not interest in Covenant but interest in Christ which these supposedly such have not that frees from condemnation 2. What if it be yielded that they beare no more than the penalty annext to the breach of the Covenant of grace If the Gospel be consulted that is sufficiently sad and heavy If they be put to beare that nothing more needs to be added to the burden and indeed with submission to better judgments not resolvedly determining any thing it is my thoughts that professed Christians in unbelief and impenitence suffer not upon account of the penalty annext to the breach of the covenant of Works but upon account of the penalty annext to the breach of the covenant of Grace and let not any here object that the transgression of the Law shall not then be laid to their charge for the Gospel bindes us to the obedience of the Law though not in exact perfection yet in sincerity and truth And this I suppose receives strength from that of the Apostle 2 Thes 1 7 8. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which character therof not knowing God Interpreters saith Dr. Slater upon the words generally take to be a description of the Gentiles who though they know God by his Works yet they know him not by his Word and to this he subscribes The other character of not obeying the Gospel of Jesus Christ is as he saith a circumscription of Christians according to Interpreters Gospel-disobedience is then their guilt and upon account of this they suffer Had they believed and yielded sincere obedience which they professed and to which they engaged themselves they had not perished and the want of this appears to be their destruction CHAP. XLI Interest in a Church-state is of equal latitude with the Covenant THen it follows by way of necessary corollary that Church-membership interest in a Church-state is of equal latitude not only the elect and regenerate but all in covenant as before spoken to have their right stand entitled to Church-priviledges And here lest I should be mistaken let me explaine my selfe that my meaning is not ipso facto because in covenant with God and called by his name to entitle them to the Church invisible and so to suppose them lively members living in grace by influence of the Spirit from Christ This would clearly enough contradict that which before I have spoken and were indeed a contradiction in the adject I mean it of a visible Church-state and interest in visible priviledges If any quarrel at the distinction as some have done on either hand endeavouring to take off both members The Church of Rome not admitting any Church invisible and others not brooking any Church but such as consists of invisible members as may appear in their definitions of a particular Church putting in those clauses that belong only to the Church invisible I shall refer them to Doctor John Reynolds in his second Thesis fully bottoming it on that Text Mat. 22. 14. Many are called but few chosen which yet must be confest with judicious Master Hudson that it is not a division into two distinct Churches or species of Churches but a distribution of the subject by the adjuncts
them John Baptist in that place doth not deny them which also now they had in visible possession All sorts of men fare better by priviledge of birth in civil things Prov. 19. 14. House and riches are the inheritance of fathers The Jews fared better respective to Religious things Rom. 3. 1. VVhat advantage then hath the Jew or what profit is there of Circumcision Much every way Priviledge of Ordinances in the Church of God is a Birth-inheritance CHAP. XLVIII The Covenant in New Testament-times takes in parents with their children BUt in case all this be yeelded in Old Testament-times that the Covenant entred was in this latitude that the whole of Abrahams seed were taken with him into Covenant and that then it ran in a race by carnal descent yet it is otherwise at least in New Testament-times No childe fares now the better respective to any visible Church-interest for the Faith or Religion of their Ancestours And here is a fourth difference between the first and second the Old and New Covenant according to some The first Covenant was entred in that latitude to take in Children with their parents Posterity with their Ancestours according to the Charter so long infisted upon But in New Testament-times the Covenant reaches no farther then the person that actually enters He covenants for himself his seed have no more or farther interest then the seed of Heathens and Pagans When I first published my Birth-priviledge I here expected opposition and did look that some would appeare to put this limit to the Covenant in New Testament-times but for the state of the Church under the first covenant I thought I should not have found an opposite and therefore was lesse mindful of the confirmation of it which I hope is now done to the Readers full satisfaction As to those that plead such a change of things in New Testament-times we might interrogate them in sundry particulars First when God by free Charter did once vouchsafe such a grant to his people how it can be made appear that it was ever reversed or any such limit put to it when the Church of God hath held it in see from Abraham to this present hour they may well look that they should produce some plaine word from God revoking his grant that challenge them for usurpation It is true that Gods Sovereignty is such that he may contract his grace at pleasure As he may wholly strike a people out of covenant so he may put what termes he pleases to it but such that affirme it should make it appear in which hitherto they have been silent They that will eject us out of so long a possession had need to make their plea firm for our eviction Secondly we might demand the reasons why the Covenant should run in so narrow a limit now being vouchsafed in so great a latitude then being once made of God as with men of yeares so with little ones Deut. 29. Why should little ones be now excluded and onely men of growth admitted when it is granted on all hands that God continues a people to himself how comes it to passe that he admits them on such new termes That his favours are now thus shortened that as a lease for terme of life differs from a fee-simple for inheritance so the Covenant in New Testament-times differs from the Covenant vouchsafed of God to our fathers Where the absurdity lies that Baptisme should be administred to those that do not actually beleeve when yet Circumcision was administred to infants in as great an incapacity Thirdly we might demand how they can avoid that great scandall that must needs by this meanes be given to the beleeving Jewes who waved the old way of the administration of the covenant and embraced the new to have their infants upon this new admission struck out of Covenant A man that should be seized on an inheritance for ever will hardly be brought to quit that tenure and accept with limit for terme of life God was their God and the God of their seed Gen. 17. 7. They did bring forth children to God Ezek. 16. 20. Now they bring forth children without God They have a seed but no holy seed a world replenished but not a Church or people to God continued The savage Indians in a married condition have this priviledge that their issue are not bastards and this is all that can be claimed by Christians Fourthly we might demand if so great a change were made and held in the Apostolique Primitive times how it comes to passe that there was such silence no man moving a question about it The pomp of worship and observation of places formerly in use was laid aside in Gospel-times but this we hear of and the reason of it John 4. 22. The initiating Sacrament of Circumcision had a period put to it of this we hear and many complaints about it Psalteries Harps Organs Cymbals and such instruments of musick in use in the time of the Law were laid aside in Gospel-times and not known in the westerne Churches till after Thomas Aquinas his dayes As this was done so it was not past in silence but spoken of as elsewhere I have shewn and given reasons of it by Justin Martyr or at least one that beares his name Chrysostome Isidore Thomas Aquinas When none of these changes can passe but observation is made it is more then strange that so great a change as this in the termes of the Covenant between God and his people can be so carried on without any observation at all or one word once moved about it or spoken in it See Master Baxters Treatise of Infants Church-membership proving that Infants were sometimes Church-members page 26 27. that there is no repeale of this grant vouchsafed of God p. 27 28. Waiting for some faire answer to the former demands I shall proceed to those texts of Scripture where the Covenant in New Testament-times is held out in this latitude to beleevers and their seed comprizing their parents in the same priviledge of Covenant and participation of promise First let us look into those words of Peter delivered in his first Sermon after the receiving of the holy Ghost the first place in which the Covenant of promise and Baptisme the Seale of the Covenant are mentioned to the Jewes with whom the Apostles as yet held communion being not actually rejected out of a visible Church-state Repent and be baptised every one of you in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sinnes and ye shall receive the gift of the holy Ghost For the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are afarre off even as many as the Lord our God shall call Acts 2. 38 39. In which words we may observe 1. An Exhortation as to repentance for the guilt of the blood of Christ of which they stood convinced so also unto Baptisme 2. A Motive stirring them up to embrace baptisme in the
saying To you and to as many as the Lord your God shall call it plainly shewes that he does not limit but amplifie the mercy extending it not barely to the Jewes who in present by reason of fruition of Ordinances were a people near to the Lord Psal 148. 14. but also to the Gentiles who Ephes 2. 17. we affare off 2. In that he saith this promise belongs to them not simply as Jewes but as called is a full contradiction A Jew uncalled at this time before the Kingdome was taken from them is as much as a Convert unconverted or a Gentile disciple undiscipled In case they think to come off by limitting it to an effectual call the Scriptures by themselves quoted doth evidently contradict it Christ came to give them that effectual calling and not onely to those that were thus called It is yet said Peter doth exhort to repentance and Baptisme together and in the first place perswades to repentance then to Baptisme which shews repentance to be in order before baptisme To which I answer that these who had crucified Christ as a blasphemer a seditious person an impostour must needs repent before they would accept Baptisme in his name or hope for remission of sinne by him I had been lost labour for the Apostle to have pressed those that had crucified Christ and retained their former opinion of him to become disciples to him and to look to be saved by him To perswade them to look for remission of sinnes in his blood who took themselves to be without sinne in shedding of it Yet notwithstanding this guilt of which the Apostle would have them to repent he shews that they and their seed are under the promise of God and puts them into a way in acceptation of Christ in the Gospel-tender in his present way of administration to be continued his people still in covenant and that as is plainly enough signified that they might enjoy it in their former latitude to them and to their children The promise of which they were not yet dispossest but stood as a people of God in visible Covenant and their children is here brought as a motive to encourage them to hold correspondency with God as his covenant-people embracing the way which their long expected and desired Messiah had now instituted appointed But this promise was to them and their children Here is yet another evasion The text speaks not expressely of Infants but of children indefinitely And if infants be not children we will be content that they be cast out of covenant and will hold no more plea for their Church-membership nor Baptisme God in the Covenant with Abraham did not expressely mention infants but seed yet infants were his seed and as his seed by Gods command to be circumcised And all our infants are our children and consequently to be baptized Acts 20. 7. is an expresse Text with some of this party without any help of consequence to prove that women received the Lords Supper Because it is said that disciples came together to break bread as though woman and disciple were synonyma But here the promise being made to children infants must neither be comprized in the letter nor yet by any favour of consequence included It is further objected that the text speaks not of the children of the Gentiles at all of whom we are but of the children of the Jews and therefore if that promise be extended to infants which doth not appear the promise is to be expounded so as to note something peculiar to the Jews infants If the Gospel held out any such transcending priviledges appertaining to the seed of the Jews above the Gentiles they may do well to produce a Text for it otherwise we shall take it for granted from Saint Paul that there is none at all that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew Circumcision nor uncircumcision Barbarian nor Scythian bond nor free And when the Apostle addes To those that are afarre off even as many as the Lord shall call he plainly meanes the Gentiles as appears comparing Ephes 2. 13. and though I take not the boldnesse to adde to the words as some stand charged yet it is cleare that he same is understood there in reference to the children of the Gentiles that is exprest before to the children of the Jewes If any shall grant an inheritance to Titius and his heires for ever and to Caius every one will understand that the heires of Caius are meant as well as the heirs of Titius especially if it can be proved out of the Grant it self that the priviledges conveyed to Caius are as ample as that to Titius We can prove the priviledges granted to the Gentiles in the Gospel to be equal to those granted to the Jews when the Jews children then are under the promise with their parents the children of beleeving Gentiles cannot be excluded CHAP. XLIX Rom. 11. 16. Vindicated SECT I. The Series of the Apostles dispute opened and several Arguments deduced THe next Scripture for proof of the Covenant in New Testament-times takes in children with the parents is Rom. 11. 16. For if the first fruits be holy the lump is also holy and if the root be holy so are the branches which Scripture that it may be aright understood we must look into the whole Series of the Apostles dispute in that place Having before largely discoursed of the rejection of the Jewes out of a present Church-state and fellowship with the call of the Gentiles and their present Adoption now somewhat to allay the seeming harshnesse of that doctrine of his against the Jewes and to take down the insultings of the Gentiles over that people in this chapter he speaks to both 1. To the Jews by way of mitigation limiting this doctrine of their rejection with a double caution 1. That it was not total 2. That it was not final That it was not total he first asserts secondly proves asserts ver 1. I say then hath God cast away his people God forbid Proves by a threefold argument 1. By instance in himself verse 1. For I am also an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the Tribe of Benjamin and he doth not dispute for his own rejection 2. By instance in the elect of God verse 2. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew 3. From a parallel Scripture out of 1 King 18. which parallel he first lays down verse 2 3 4 Wâ—t ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias how he maketh intercession to God against Israel saying Lord they have killed thy Prophets and digged down thy Altars And I am left alone and they seek my life But what saith the answer of God unto him I have reserved to my selfe seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to the Image of Baal And afterward applies verse 5. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace And so falls into a digression
judgement in this way of refutation as though the right in which they stood could be no Topick from which in a moral way the Apostle might perswade them to Baptisme When Shechaniah perswaded Ezra to the reformation of the marriage of strange wives in these words Arise for the matter belongeth unto thee Ezra 10. 4. Here was a motive in a moral way to call upon him to do it and an Argument inferred that it lay upon Ezra as a duty by command from God to set upon it The reason added is worthy of observation This is manifest from the form of words ver 38. which if they had exprest a right to Baptisme by vertue of the promise should have been in the indicative mood in such a forme as this you are to be baptized you may be baptized you have right to it the Minister ought to do it but the words are in the imparative mood exhorting them and perswading them to it They have quite forgotten that the words holding out their right are in the indicative mood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the promise is to you and your children And here is a notable correction of the Apostle he should have said if this had been his meaning you must be baptized and he sayes Arise and be baptized Lastly It is said In the paraphrases which usually in their disputes Paedobaptists make of Acts 2. 38 39. they put not any thing to answere the terme repent as if it stood for a cipher but paraphrase it thus Ye may be baptized you and your children for the Promise is to you and your children The sixth exception was against our interpretation of the word repent ver 38. as if it were as much as to say Covenant for your selves and your children and here it is complained that it is left for a cipher And the Author thinks he hath discovered the reason of this Omission The putting the word repent first and be baptized after doth manifestly overthrow their paraphrase of a right to Baptisme from the word of promise and shew that the particle For doth not prove a right to Baptisme but presse to a duty and such a duty as iâ— to have repentance precedent and that in every person that is to be baptized I confesse it presseth to a duty and such a duty as is to have repentance precedent in them that at that time were his hearers to interest themselves and with themselves their children in this priviledge But right and duty do not shoulder out one the other but very well stand together encouraging to a duty which is a priviledge as well as a duty he fitly makes use of their interest as a motive And they might see that the Apostle puts the promise in a greater latitude than he urgeth repentance He speakes to his hearers when he sayes repent and he tells them that the promise is to them and to their children with them Whereas our Author presseth the precedency of the word repent to the command of being baptized and elsewhere saith Pâ—â—er doth exhort to Repentance and Baptisme together and in the first place perswades to Repentance then to Baptisme which shewes Repentance to be in order before Baptisme I answer as I did before Chap. 48. that these who had crucified Christ as a blasphemer as a seditious person an impostor must needs repent before they would accept Baptisme in his name or hope for remission of sinne by him It had been lost labour for the Apostle to have pressed those that had crucified Christ and retained their former opinion of him to become Disciples to him and to look to be saved by him to perswade them to look for remission of sinnes in his blood who took themselves to be without sinne in shedding of it and yet notwithstanding this guilt of which the Apostle would have them to repent he shewes that they and their seed are under the promise of God and puts them into a way in acceptation of Christ in the Gospel-tender in his present way of administration to be continued his people still in covenant and that as is plainly enough signified that they might enjoy it in their former latitude to them and to their children So that Master Stephens his Interpretation so much sleighted by an adversary and repeated not in his words but in his own paraphrase upon them is indeed the Apostles meaning The Apostle saith he pag. 14. doth speak to these Jewes who had crucified Christ that if they would receive him as the particular Messiah the same promise should still continueâ— to them and their children in the new dispensation And on this doth he build the word of command to baptize father and childe To this the word repent here referres as may be made plaine First By taking into consideration the present state of this people and that in several particulars 1. As yet they had the promises with them and were children of the covenant Acts 3. 25. Though the Apostle Rom. 9. 4. do distinguish between the covenants and the promises yet to have the promises here and to be children of the covenant there seemes to be one If any can distinguish them this people had the honour of both of them God had not yet cast them out of a Church-state and covenant-relation 2. They were in present danger to be cast off according to what Christ had foretold Mat. 8. 12. Mat. 21. 43. Being so fast riveted to the ceremonial Law which now was dead and presently grew deadly God denying any presence as hath been said with them now the substanee was come 3. These particular persons with whom Peter had to deale were now well prepared for a free acceptation of a Gospel-way under this administration which Jesus Christ having pulled down the Law of Ordinances was to set up Being amazed with the glory of the mircale which was wrought before their eyes and convinced with the powerful application of the Prophets by Peter in that elegant Sermon they fell upon enquiry what they should do Secondly By comparing other Texts of Scripture which may serve as a Comment to the clearing of this especially two Texts of two Evangelists recording the words of Christ and holding out the impenitent obstinacy of the Jewes standing out against every call to repentance respective to their rigid pertinacious adhering to former dispensations and opposition of that now tendered and offered to them 1. That of our Saviour Christ Mat. 21. 31 32. Christ having held before them ver 28. 29 30. the parable of a certain man that had two sonnes and came to the first and said sonne go work to day in my Vine-yard He answered and said I will not but afterward he repented and went And he came to the second and said likewise and he answered and said I go Sir and went not and made appeale to them ver 31. Whether of them twaine did the will of his father and they answering the first Jesus saith unto them as it followes
receives into covenant and appoints the seale hath prescribed a time when it shall be applied A man that hath a grant from King or State hath ipso facto right to the seale and the right necessarily followes upon the grant though he must stay till a sealing day before he possesse it For the exception of women though foederatae yet were not to be circumcised I say 1. Master Marshal hath sufficiently answered that they were of the circumcision and it was an exception against Sampson by his parents that he would go to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines Judg. 14. 3. Had he married in Israel as he ought in obedience to God and his parents he had married a wife of the circumcised though that sex by nature is in an incapacity of that signe or seale In diverse places of England the husband being admitted by verdict of a Jury into an estate the wife is virtually admitted his admission is her admission so it was in circumcision 2. They had doubtlesse actually received that signe of circumcision as in New Testament times they do Baptisme Acts 8. 12. Acts 16. 15. but that it was a signe whereof they were in an incapacity It is farther added If then I should farther grant the conclusion That infants of beleevers were to be signati yet you would not say they are to be partakers of the Lords Supper because it is not appointed for them So in like manner if it were granted you that infants of beleevers were to be signed yet it followes not that they are to be baptized unlesse you can prove that it is appointed to them and the truth is if it were granted that children were foederati yet it were a high presumption in us to say therefore they must be signati without Gods declaration of his minde and if it were granted they must be signati it were in like manner a high presumption in us to say therefore they must be baptized without Gods declaration of his minde concerning that Ordinance To this a reply is made by another hand that there is difference between a seale for initiation and a seale for confirmation a seale wherein no more is of necessity than to be passive and that wherein we are to be active yet to come more near to them I am content to yield the conclusion supposing that his argument is of force Every Church-member hath true title to all Church-priviledges But infants are Church-members the Lords Supper is a Church-priviledge and therefore infants have true title to it But then I must distinguish jus ad rem and jus in re every infant hath right to it yet by reason of infancy hath his actual interest suspended Paul by birth had right to all the priviledg of the Citie of Rome being born free Acts 22. 28. yet it does not follow that he was to give his vote or appear in Assemblies as a free Citizen in the time of his minority James the sixth was crowned in Scotland and Henry the sixth in England in the time of their minority so that they were reckoned among the Kings of Nations yet neither of them did in their own persons exercise regalia till yeares of discretion As these infants of title were crowned so infants that are Church-members are to be baptized when yet an infant can no more partake as a Christian ought of the Lords Supper than an infant King can wield the great things of his Kingdome An infant-heir from the first instant of his fathers death and a posthumous childe from the time of his birth stands seized of his fathers inheritance The whole title is vested in him how ample soever and in no other and he is received into it and lives upon it yet he is held from the managing of it till he can improve for his own and the publike benefit So that the taking into covenant is a sufficient declaration of Gods minde that the signes and seals in an orderly way should be granted to them and all these appeare to be cavils and not answers As these exceptions are causlesly taken against the connexion between the covenant and eale so quarrels are raised against some phrases in common use among Divines relating to this thing as making the metaphor of a seale the Genus of a Sacrament which if an errour was the Apostles errour Rom. 4. 11. and many such like with which it is needlesse to trouble the Reader CHAP. LVII The with-holding infants of Christian parents from Baptisme is the sin of Sacriledge HEnce farther followes that the Prohibition of infant-Baptisme or with-holding them from that Ordinance that are the issue of Christians is the sinne of Sacriledge This is plaine from the premisses they are the Lords His heritage Psal 127. 3. The Lords servants Levit. 25. 42. holy ones Rom. 11. 16. 1 Cor. 7. 14. Children of the covenant Acts 3. 25. interessed in the priviledges of the people of God Mark 10. 14. Therefore they are to be given to God Caesar will account it a robbery if that which is his due be denied God will account it a robbery if that which is his be denied Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods Matth. 22. 21. Adversaries fasten the brand of will-worship on the practice of it But if Baptisme be any worship according to the minde of Christ then infant-Baptisme is out of all danger or possibility of will-worship In case infants were not within he verge yet their Baptisme could be no will worship we set not up of our selves the Ordinance that we apply to them but make application of the Ordinance that Christ hath instituted In case they have no title there is onely a misapplication of worship instituted and no devise of worship To this is replied and demand made whether infant-communion were not will-worship whether baptizing of Bells were not will-worship yet these are but misapplications of an instituted ordinance to a wrong subject I answer none of these were will-worship nor yet the Baptisme of the Horse in Huntingdon-shire but the horrid prophanation of an instituted worship Baptisme is still Gods but the application mans and here the will is not carried to a devise of an ordinance but alone to the application of it Our adversaries making it a corruption of the Ordinance of Baptisme acquit it from will-worship But in infant-Baptisme we neither devise an Ordinance nor of our own heads make application of it we know they belong to the family of Jesus Christ we know Christs order to admit them to the priviledge that was proper to those of his family and as faithful stewards we follow the will of our Master not our own will but the will of Christ Jesus Could they wash their hands of Sacriledge as we are able to clear our wills and wits from devise of a worship it were better with them The times were when men looked upon things consecrate as holy to the Lord in a
multiplying glasse we had holy places holy Altars in which some of our present opponents went too farre to the grief of the godly and farther than the times with their streames needed to have borne them had he been meerely prest and no voluntier in it I wish they would seriously consider how ordinary it is with men to carry on their wayes in extreames and out of superstition to runne upon Sacriledge It is well known how apt the people of Israel were for idolatrous wayes and ready to embrace every superstition after the way of the Heathen and in conformity to them yet after the Babylonish captivity they were quite taken off that course What wickednesse soever they were otherwise guilty of yet it is observed that they kept themselves from Idols That sinne had so consumed them that at last it had even wearied them And then as it appeares from the Apostle they runne upon this extreame to which we are here speaking Therefore when in other things they are charged with the same sinne that as men of knowledge they condemned in others Thou that preachest that another should not steale doest thou steale Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery doest thou commit adultery And the Series of the words leading to a charge of Idolatry the Apostle changes the phrase and saith Thou that abhorrest Idols doest thou commit Sacriledge Rom. 2. 22. This was now their sinne in the other extreame not on their own heads to put a supposition of holinesse to the Lord on any thing for worship but to convert to other uses that which was sanctified as holy I know some understand these words in a Metaphor that by Sacriledge is meant the robbing of God of his honour by sinne against him but that interpretation the next words contradict in distinct words forbidding that Sacriledge if they will so call it Origen will turne it into an Allegory and understand the spoyling of the sense of Scriptures and stealing Christ out of the Scriptures But the text is plaine that it is a reproof applied to their capacities and in the letter convincing as well as the former of stealing and adultery The plaine sense saith Peter Martyr is the meaning May not I now say that these things are out examples to the intent that we should not runne with them in these extreames from an abhorrency of the one to the other from an abhorrency of Idols to the guilt of Sacriledge which according to the Schoolmen is rei sacrae violaâ—io or rerum sacrarum furtum a deteigning from God that which for an holy use is separate for him which separation is either of persons or of inanimate or irrational creatures I know there are those that affirme that there is no such separation for God in Gospel times and consequently there can be no such thing as this sin of Sacriledge in our times for what is not cannot be thus violated or detained As to the separation of inanimate or unreasonable creatures it cannot be fully denied nor yet must it fully be yielded that no such things are now to be accounted as separate to the Lord we must therefore distinguish These may be said to be separate for God and consequently holy two wayes 1. By divine institution and appointment So the Temple and Utensils of the Temple were holy 2. By divine approbation when men let them apart for advancement of such an holy use as God approves The former we confesse was proper to the times of the Law but the latter yet remaines in Gospel-times and upon this account Ravanellus justly makes the sinne of Ananias and Sapphira in keeping back part of the price of their land that was set apart by them for the service of the Church to be the sinne of Sacriledge The land before sale was his own and the price after sale was his own but now it was to serve by their voluntary act onely to a purpose that was holy The detaining of it is the violation of that which is holy And in this way both the places of publick worship and the revenues for maintenance of those that attend upon this worship are separate for God It will be thought somewhat out of my way to speak to these things yet having so fair an occasion I shall take the liberty of a few words concerning the places of worship shall speak somewhat in the negative and by way of concession There is not any such holinesse in them as in the Tabernacle and Temple This is disavowed by Christ John 4. 23. These had the preheminence above our places of meeting in foure several particulars 1. They had their institution and immediate injunction from God Exod. 35. 10 11. 1 Kings 5. 5. 1 Chron. 22. 9 10. 2. Their direction and prescription Heb. 8. 5. 3. Their promise not alone respective to the worship but the place Exod. 29. 42 43. 4. Their sanction or penalty in regard of typical prophanation Num. 19. 20. In all of these particulars we must give the Temple and Tabernacle the preeminence besides that the Temple and Tabernacle were but one for all Israel we have many In the affirmative I shall lay down several positions First there is equal warrant and reason for the building of our places of meeting for the worship of God as there was for the Synagogues of the Jewes Though we put no such holinesse on these places to parallel them with the Temple yet they have equal warrant and are to have equal respect with the Synagogues which the Jewes had in every City Acts 15. 21. Not only in Judea but where they were dispersed Acts 13. 14 15. There is no word in all the Scripture for the erecting of these Synagogues no mention made of them but once where a sad complaint is made of the burning of them Psal 74. 8. But the people of God being by Gods command to be instructed in the Law they built them places for conveniency of meeting and in such places they met The Law was there preacht Christ and his Apostles did preach there our places of meeting then stand in equal honour with these Synagogues Those that can say any thing for these Synagogues which we cannot say for our publick places of meeting let them produce it 2. There is as much reason and equal warrant to call our places of meeting by the usual common Name of Churches as to call theirs by the common name of Synagogues Nothing can be said to condemne the use of the word Church for our place of meeting but the like may be said to condemne the use of the word Synagogue for their place of meeting The Scriptures therefore calling theirs Synagogues Luke 7. 5. Acts 18. 7. we may therefore fitly call ours Churches That which is objected against the word Church is that Church signifies not a house of wood or stone but a society or fellowship of men professing faith in Jesus Christ So also
of the Church of the Jewes so Hereticks are of the Church in Gospel-times 2 Pet. 2. 1. The Apostle tells the Elders of Ephesus Acts 20. 30. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them For Witches though there were a Law in Israel not to suffer a Witch to live Exod. 22. 18. Yet Israel had Witches as is seen in those that Saul put out of the Land and her that in his distresse he sought unto 1 Sam. 28. Paul had never reckoned up witchcraft among those sinnes that shut out of the Kingdome of heaven and certified the Churches of Galatia of it had there been an impossibility that any such should be found of their number that made claime to it This the Reverend Authour doth as much as acknowledge in the words that follow I deny not saith he but that in some sense any such notorious offendor may have the essence and being of a member of the Church as visible to wit in this sense a corrupt and rotten member fit to be cut off A member of the visible Church though formerly an inoffensive professor of the faith may afterwards fall away into any of these notorious scandals and yet for a while still retain the essence and being of a member of the Church as visible Master Rutherford that is there opposed I suppose will affirme no more Respective to the power of godlinesse there is in them no soundnesse nor yet in those that are better than these Some say that one that is such in any known foule sinne to them is no better than a Heathen as bad as a Turke or Pagan and nothing at all better for the name Christian And I say that to me they are as bad as to them and perhaps worse in the eyes of God This priviledge in which they stand thus interessed is an aggravation of their sinne and a farther provocation of God against them When the Lord saw it he abhorred them because of the provoking of his sonnes and of his daughters Deut. 32. 19. yet such is Gods long-suffering and forbearance of them that he is pleased to vouchsafe them farther and more large evidences of his favour Nehem. 9. 30. Hierusalem was corrupted more than Sodom and Samaria in all her wayes Ezek. 16. 47. Sodom and her daughters had not done as Hierusalem and her daughters ver 48. Samaria had not committed halfe her sinnes ver 51. In her abominations she had justified both of them yet Hierusalem enjoyed those priviledges that Samaria and Sodom enjoyed not Hierusalem was in covenant ver 16. when Sodom and Samaria were no covenant-people but worshipped they knew not what John 4. ver 22. Corazin and Bethsaida Cities of Israel were no better in the eye of God than Tyre and Sidon yea their sinnes deserved an heavier weight of judgement Matth. 11. 22. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sydon at the day of judgement than for you saith our Saviour and so it was with Capernaum compared to Sodom ver 23. yet Chorazin Bethsaida Capernaum enjoyed those priviledges from God that Tyre Sydon and Sodom wanted As the Apostles zeal against the Samaritanes sinnes Luke 9. 54 did out-strip our Saviours when they would have fire from heaven to consume them so our zeale out-goes Gods when we would have such men root and branch parent and child struck out of covenant before God hath sued out any Bill of divorce against them or removed his Candlestick and taken all covenant-priviledges from them For the baptism of children of Apostates there is a greater difficulty Some of reverend worth say They see not how justly a Parents Apostasy should deprive the childe of Baptisme and some Texts of Scripture seem strongly to favour that opinion Ezek. 16. 20 21. Moreover thou hast taken thy sonnes and thy daughters whom thou hast borne unto me and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured Is this of thy whoredomes a small matter that thou hast slain my children and delivered them to cause them to passe through the fire for them There could not be an higher evidence of Apostacy than to give their children in sacrifice to a false god It was one of the highest acts of obedience that Abraham could testifie to the Lord and yet these yield it to Idol-gods They bring forth children to God and give them to Moloch Psal 106. 35 36 37 38 39. They were mingled among the heathen and learned their works and they served their Idols which were a snare unto them yea they sacrificed their sons and daughters unto devils And shod innocent blood even the blood of their sonnes and of their daughters whom they sacrificed unto the Idols of Canaan and the land was polluted with blood Thus were they defiled with their own works and went a whoring with their own inventions These in this apostatized from God in covenant yet God lookes upon them as a covenant people ver 45. And he remembred for them his covenant c. But this seemes to be but a partial Apostasy taking in the worship of Idols they did not totally cast off the worship of God A line of profession was still it seemes held up God was not wholly cast off in Judah They seem to be of those that swore by the Lord and Malcham Zeph. 1. 5. keeping up the worship of the true God and yet take in the worship of a false god with him As for those in whom Master Firmin instanceth our Englishmen now in Turkey apostatized from the Faith to that Religion concerning whom quaeres are often put it may seem equal that as a man comes into covenant and his posterity with him So totally rejecting the covenant denying God as well in profession as in his works that he and his posterity should be out of covenant Being before an holy root to transmit holinesse to his seed now he becomes unholy and put out of such capacity and is disabled from making over any such priviledge to them But here we need not to trouble our selves with the Baptisme of such having renounced Christ they baptize not their infants in his name A Minister shall have none of these rendered to him and to baptize them into this body when he well knowes they must be never suffered to be of it were an high taking of Gods name in vaine and a mockery of so sacred an Ordinance Now in case a grandfather shall take one of these children and offer it unto Baptisme and being a Progenitor shall undertake the education in the Christian Faith and not in the Turkish abomination whether in this case there be right to Baptisme is the question Now these may be looked upon either as meer Heathens in the same condition as if they never had an Ancestor in the Faith or else as issuing out of the loynes of mediate Ancestors believing and so coming from a root that hath been holy If considered in the former way they may have a title to
and in case it were wholly yielded him whether thence he could draw his conclusion that Ministers in England should not baptize the infants of all that professe the Faith in Christ Jesus He confesseth in this question he hath disadvantage For if a man be looked upon saith he as a visible Saint and reputed a Member of a true Church if that Member be very scandalous and the Church let him alone and not deale with him that person may challenge any Ordinance in the Church both Baptisme and Lords Supper But I conceive such a person is not sufficiently qualified to make a Member of a Church nor ought to be continued a Member of the Church but the Church ought to seek to reforme him or if not to cast him out so that if the Church will let such a person alone and give him these Ordinances there will be guilt charged upon that Church Here is his acknowledgement that they are continued Church-Members though they should not be continued and see what he hath further It is true the wicked Jewes being members of that National Church so long as their Membership held they might challenge circumcision so for wicked persons so long as they continue members and the Church lets them alone they may challenge Baptism and so upon his own grounds they may of right challenge it and Ministers then must needes do wrong in case they deny it and so in all mens judgements the question is concluded in the Affirmative yea should the Church passe to the highest of her censures through all that is allowed to the highest top yet still the person under censure continues in a fundamental right of Membership though debarred of present fruition and so their infants entituled as we have seen to Baptisme His Arguments are worthy of examination in which he concludes such a one is not fit to be a Member First Members of Churches according to the Gospel are Saints visible But such a person as the question mentions is not a visible Saint Ergo. The Minor he proves Such as will say that such a person as the Question mentions is a visible Saint I thinke his eyes are not good He that tells me the Saints which Paul mentions in those places were no other than such a person as is in the Question he must pardon me though I beleeve him not Answ Visible Saint is taken either in regard of Separation for and dedication to God or for real qualifications according to the power of godlinesse in the first sense such are real Saints that he mentions and rejects in which sense we have shewn Saint to be frequently taken and such were most of the Members of the Church of Sardis there being few that had not defiled their garments and many such in the Church of Corinth In the second sense and I know not a third his eyes are better than mine that can determine concerning them Inward graces onely make a real Saint and these to me are invisible if he meanes so far as mens judgements can upon any fair ground conclude that they are such then the Apostles will be involved in our guilt who hand over head admitted members the same day they were converted being in foul sins and never staying time to make judgement of the hopeful truth of their graces Paul calls all those that he persecuted Saints Acts 26. 10. So doth Ananias Acts 9. 13. all those for whom after conversion he ordered and made Collections 1 Cor. 16. 1. And these were some of them as bad as any that in his Epistles he reproves Secondly If a bare profession in Christ be sufficient to make a member of a Church then no person can justly be excommunicated out of a Church for the vilest sins or heresies provided he doth but hold this profession of his faith the consequence is cleare the person is the same which he was when you took him into the Church The consequence is clearely erroneous for he made a profession of his faith and not of sin as we see in Simon Magus Thirdly He that manifestly opposeth Christ in his visible Kingdome is not fit to be a member of a Church But such a person as the question mentions doth manifestly oppose Christ in his visible kingdome Ergo Not fit to passe without censure should have been added but whiles he acts rebellion he professeth subjection and in the Apostles language is a professor Tit. 1. 2. Having thus made way he propounds several Arguments that Ministers by the Gospel are not to baptize the children of such Parents We come now to our Authours arguments First Such persons as de jure ought and de facto are excluded by godly Ministers from the Lords Supper ought also to be excluded from their childrens Baptisme But such persons as the Question mentions de jure ought and de facto are excluded from the Lords Supper Ergo. The Major is proved If Baptisme doth seale to the same covenant which the Lords Supper doth and doth signifie and seale as great blessings and priviledges as the Lords Supper doth then those who are excluded from the Lords Supper ought also to be excluded from theâ—r childrens Baptisme But the Antecedent is true Ergo. The Consequent This is Master Blackwoods argument to keep infants from Baptisme because they are kept from the Supper And if it be of any validity to serve our Authors turn it is of as great force for Master Blackwood Give me leave in Master Blackwoods behalfe to urge it in this manner with the least change of words that is possible If Baptisme doth seal to the same covenant which the Lords Supper doth and doth signifie and seale as great blessings and priviledges as the Lords Supper doth then those that are excluded from the Lords Supper ought also to be excluded from Baptisme But all infants are excluded from the Lords Supper eo nomine because they are infants and therefore they are to be excluded from Baptisme When Master Firmin hath given a faire and full answer to this Syllogisme he may easily fit it to his own to give like satisfaction An infant in covenant may be admitted by that signe and scale in the use of which he is meerely passive and yet be kept back on the account of his infancy from that sign and seale which the Participants must actually improve for their spiritual benefit and consequently a Parent may put a present bar to his actual admission by reason of present guilt to the one when his innocent infant can put no barre to his admission to the other The Parent stands de jure entituled when for the present he may be for his spiritual benefit de facto suspended Another reverend Authour hath made use of this argument from the uniformity of the service of God in general and in particular from the uniformity in the Sacraments to another purpose not to exclude any infants at all who descend from Christian Parents from Baptisme but for admission of
Nehemiahs better Mat. 11 11. be for sin He that is not a sinner by birth should be no sinner in his life Baptisme is the greatest honour such bear Christs name and weare his livery they have that title in which Jude and James with other of the Apostles gloried A servant of Jesus Christ Baptisme is the greatest engagement Let every one that nameth Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2. 19. To talk of Baptisme and to live in sin is to wear the colours of one and plot and fight for another to wear Christs colours and fight for Satan Baptisme renders a sinner up to the heaviest punishment The high favours shewed to the Jewes made a Jew to fare worse in the wayes of sin than an Heathen Amos 3. 2. The high favours shewed to Christians make Christians to fare worse in sinful wayes than Heathens Heb. 2. 3. All in a Christians calling bespeaks this holinesse God by whom he is called 1 Pet. 1. 15. The work to which he is called 1 Thes 4. 7. The company unto which he is joyned Ephes 2. 19. The attendants by whom he is guarded Matth. 25. 31. The rule whereby he is guided Rom. 1. 2. The Seale by which he is confirmed Ephes 1. 13. And the place whither he makes and tends Heb. 9. 8. all are holy Secondly Let the parents of such seed now see what education is expected Breeding must answer birth and descent A Christian is of the noblest birth he must therefore have the most noble education and the Apostle calls upon parents to bring up their Children in nurture and admonition of the Lord Ephes 6. 4. God may call on them thus to bring up his children in nature theirs in covenant Gods Every Christian parent hath a childe of God committed to his care and tuition How great a soloecisme is it that Parents should dedicate children so soon as borne unto Christ professing to the world that they belong to him and that with Hannah concerning Samuel they intend them for him when nothing appeares in their education but that they might have been given to Molok somewhat worse than the mongrell seed that spoke halfe in the language of Canaan and halfe in the language of Ashdod Nehem. 13. 24. Scarce a word can be heard out of their mouths to argue that they are Christians lisping out oaths as soone as words put to learne trades and little regard had that they might know Christ Jesus And how much is it to be desired that authority would take order for more careful catechistical teaching of youth in the wayes of Christian Religion that God may not complaine of England as of Israel My people perish for want of knowledge Hos 4. 7. A people of God and a people ignorant to perdition and destruction England is highly honoured of God by this gracious call with Capernaum lifted up to heaven England would highly honour God if care might be taken that all might know God from the highest to the lowest we shall never be a Gospel-like people till we be a knowing people 〈◊〉 we take care that as we are Jewes by nature so we may be Jewes in qualification so borne so bred that as our youth is descended so also they may be trained That as God honours our children with his name calling them his children so they may honour his name and advance his glory in all holinesse of conversation Thirdly Those may yet see whom they oppose that stand in opposition of a people thus interessed a people so ingratiated to God in covenant that there is not the least infant in whom God hath not his title and right of challenge The aggravation of the Psalmists complaint is that the Heathens are come into thine inheritance the dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the foules of the heaven the flesh of thy Saints unto the beasts of the Earth Psalme 79. 1 2 3. The whole body of such a people root and branch stand in relation to God as the inheritance the servants the Saints of God such inscriptions we finde in Saint Pauls Epistles not one of the whole body is excluded but they are such by covenant and such by calling Enough hath been said to make it to appeare that the denomination reaches even infants who are the Lords heritage Psalme 127. 3. and Christs name is upon them Matth. 18. 5. As it is accounted an happy work to dash the little ones of Babylon against the wall Psalme 137. 9. because of the hostility of that Nation against God and his people so it is a like execration to intermeddle with the little ones of Sion by reason of the holinesse of such a people their covenant-relations in which they stand interessed 2 Kings 8. 12. Much is spoken in Scripture against the enemies of the righteous the haters of them shall be desolate he that offends against them shall not be innocent Psalme 34. 21. God observes every carriage of the adversary towards them in misery they speak not a word but God hath it against them when Ammonites Tyrians cry Aha against the people of God they are witted with it and threatned for it Ezek. 26. 2. 36. 2. Not a proud word that they utter but it is brought in to fill up the charge against them Obad. 12. Psalme 137. 7. yea every eye that is cast with approbation of the adversary Obad. 13. 14. Every encouraging word they speak and every act they do against such a people yea injuries of elder times are kept in the deck and laid to them Deut. 25. 17. And all because they stand in this relation to God as his in covenant which you cannot limit onely to the personally righteous but all that are of a Society and fellowship that is such as are interessed in a righteous cause The holy anointing oile did make sacred when yet too often the man was wicked and therefore David looked upon Saul as the Lords Anointed It holds in Analogy and proportion unto all that have any unction from God as all the called of God have When they were but a few in number yea very few and strangers when they went from one Nation to another from one Kingdome to another people he suffered no man to do them wrong yea he reproved Kings for their sakes saying Touch not mine Anointed Psalme 105. 12 13 14 15. All the people of God have that Anointing from God that none may dare to intermeddle for their harme God promises his people that dwell in Sion that the burthen of Assyria shall be taken from off their shoulder and his yoke from off their neck and that the yoke shall be destroyed because of the Anointing Isaiah 10. 27. Some will say as this is carried The danger of intermeddling with any is with us a like Even Papists and the worst of men that are called Protestants are thus of a people that are called Gods people and go by the name of Christians For answer I