eternal love to us and why should you or any other think that Hezekiah so approved and commended a long time for a truly-Religious King should now call his spiritual estate into question or doubt no circumstance in the Text arguing any such thing and if it had been so he had gone far about to fetch his comfort and assurance from his works and life and it would have been very uncertain and weak when he had done And so this makes nothing at all against Doctor Crispe who would have all to derive their comfort and peace from the pure fountain even Faith in the satisfaction discharge and atonement made by Christ as the most direct neer and infallible way and not from works which must be first carryed to our Faith or assurance that our state is good there to be proved to be good and so at best can but secondarily and weakly seal that comfort formerly had by believing I think Hezekiah might be reproved and condemned Linguae impiorum est quotidiena sornax Aug. as by Rabshakeh so others neerer unto him for his zeal in demolishing Idolatry whereupon he going to God maketh him the witness of the righteousness of the things done and of the integrity of his heart in doing them Notitia nostri certior intue As David many times did being wrongfully charged by Saul and others and as it is our case who are falsly slandered as Antinomians and yet can and dare boldly go and appeal to God before whom all things are naked saying Thou knowest O Lord we are no Antinomians no Libertines Non est plâ—x ponderis in alieno convitio quam in nostro testimoiro Teachers of licentious Doctrine c. and so the testimonie of Hezekiahs Davids and our Consciences being cleer of such things in the presence of God is a great support a sure defence and an effectual comfort against all those calumnies censures and false aspersions This is my rejoycing saith Paul being misreported to be what he was not the testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdom but by the Grace of God we have had our conversation in the world 2 Cor. 1.12 But now all this is touching things controverted between man and man where our innocency such as it is is and ever will be the best Buckler plea and comfort and it is not pertinent to what Doctor Crispe entreateth of or if this satisfie not I could add that as the Churches estate was then servile Gal. 4.1 2. and as servants not having the promised Spirit of Adoption they did all things rather ex timore then amore out of fear more then love so Hezekiah having discharged the office of a godly chief Magistrate and now being called upon by death to lay it aside presenting himself before the Lord hath his own thoughts to witness his integrity touching the generality of the course of his life and so they excusing and comforting him in that case do give him some boldness even as it is with a servant who hath answered the requirings and done the commands of his Master in the day of his accounts Thus it is one thing to be comforted from the inward testimony of my Conscience reflecting with an impartial eye upon my conversation in this world and finding it to be unblamable and in all integrity of heart especially when adversaries do accuse and speak evil of me Terret me tota vita mea nam apparet mibi aut petcataem aut tota florilitas Aus and another thing to fetch my peace and comfort thence concerning my spiritual estate and atonement with God he that is exercised with inward consticts and temptations will easily perceive how dangerous a thing it is to have the eye and consideration of the soul taken off Christ and his righteousness and to be set upon any work or qualification of our own then nothing but Christ all is accounted as dung and loss else our own righteousness as unclean and filthy rags Phil. 3.8 9. Isa 64.6 But without spiritual buffetings of Satan the Doctrine of Faith of Christ our righteousness our reconciliation and peace cannot be prized learned nor purely taught M. B. 11. They are necessary in respect of God c. a Leah though blear-eyed yet when she was fruitful in children said Now my husband will love me so may Faith say Now God will love me when it abounds in the fruits of righteousness Answ God is not as man his love to man is not begotten or caused by any thing he seeth in us he loveth before and without works even while we were enemies our mindes being in wicked works Rom. 5.8 Colos 1.21 thus the Word testifieth and Faith receiveth it what good he worketh in us or frameth and inableth us to work are they effects and fruits of his love not causes of it M. B. 12. In regard of others c. 1 Pet. 3.1 It is an exhortation to wives so to walk that their husbands may be won to the Lord So that thy life may convert him By the Word the Apostle meaneth the publike preaching Answ You rather make more obscure then cleer the sense and drift of the Apostle while you are minded to plead for good works you attribute too much to them Faith in Christ and conversion to God is by hearing of the Word Rom. 10.17 If the husband were an Idolatrous Ethnick or prophane yet by the sweet humble and dutiful carriage and vertuous life of the wife Maritos preparent ad amplexandam Christi fidem Calv. he might happily be gained to approve and like well of her Religion which had wrought such a sensible alteration and brought forth so plentiful and pleasant fruits in her and so be moved to give ear and attention to the Doctrine of the Christian Faith thus his minde becometh prepared and more ready to embrace that which did not so well please or perhaps was an offence before This is all that can be meant or intended in those words M. B. Obj. If good works be still necessarily requisite why then is not the Covenant of Grace still a Covenant of Works c. A. Although good works be requisite in the man justified or saved yet it s not a Covenant of Works but of Faith because Faith onely is the instrument to receive Justification and eternal life Answ I see no difference in effect between the Arminian Doctrine and yours in this you hold good works to be imperfect so they and you make all the promises of eternal life to belong and to be made unto them and what do they more 2 You Answer Although they be requisite in the Justified or saved before you said in a man to be Justified and saved yet it is a Covenant of Faith Answ Where do you finde it to be called a Covenant of Faith it is a Covenant of Grace and so it is entire without our Faith M.B. Good Works are to qualifie the subject
law wherefore I am not the first deviser or broacher thereof nor alone in this opinion as walking in an unbeaten path But unto me it is most strange that M. B. should be so self-confident and bold of spirit as to presume to carry it with violence against all others Let me commend unto thee the words of Perkins because he is worthily approved of and best known unto the simple sort upon Gal. 3.2 Here saith he we see the difference between the Law and the Gospel the law doth not minister the Spirit unto us for it onely sheweth our disease and giveth us no remedy the Gospel ministereth the Spirit And upon Gal. 2.19 Evangelical sorrow is sorrow for sin because it is sin this indeed is the grace of God but it is not wrought by the law but by the preaching of mercy and reconciliation c. the Law then being the cause of no good thing in us And Cudworth on Gal. 6.2 in the last difference between Law and Gospel hath these words The law is no instrumental cause of faith repentance or any saving grace Is this now but seemingly to comply with our opinion when they say the law is no instrumental cause of faith repentance nor of any saving grace nor yet of any good thing in us and still these Authors were no Antinomians but we must be so because our Adversaries like those of Stephen Act. 7. do rule and will have it so I tremble to consider the woful consequences if the Ecclesiastical power should be once in their hands but I trust God will not suffer the wise and honourable Parliament so to intrust them But let us listen what his conceit is M. B. I shall now labour to maintain the positive part that the law preached may be blessed by God instrumentally to work the conversion of men An. The question is not of Gods power whether he may or can do it but whether he hath done it let it appear in all the New Testament that any one was converted but by the Gospel Nay Paul and Priests with others who had been zealous in the way of the law were then onely converted when they received the Gospel and become obedient to the faith Act. 6.7 or did God ever reveal it that his will is to convert by the law God can or may make heavy mountains to ascend as high as the Sun and there abide and the waters in the Sea to burn like straw or other combustible matter but he never did so as yet If you shew it to be his will we shall question it no further M. B. And it is necessary to make this good Answ Because you have undertaken it and are resolved to oppose the apparent and generally received truth to be contrary to all the Orthodox to gratifie Sion Colledge to get a name to your self of being a knowing man seeing more then all other learned Divines or at least to maintain your owne credit now it is necessary for you M. B. For were the contrary true it would be a Ministers duty in great part to lay aside the preaching of the Moral Law as not instrumental and subservient to that maine end of the ministry which is the conversion of souls Answ If I take your words in their true sense they argue 1. I am sorry to speak it that M. B. knoweth not what conversion of the soul is but this may be tryed by and by 2. That he intendeth when he preacheth to convert people by the Law and looketh that the Spirit should make it effectual for that purpose and however he putteth in or subservient to that main end yet he meaneth not onely preparatorily for that he saith he cannot yeeld unto which yet is the clear judgement and constant and sound doctrine of all true Divines but he will be singular But see his ground and how sandie uncertain and weak it is to lay and erect an edifice of so great consequence upon it M. B. I suppose that Jesus Christ hath obtained of God by his death that such efficacy and vertue should go forth in the Ministery that whether it be by Law or Gospel he preacheth the souls of men may be healed and converted thereupon Answ And must your meer supposition satisfie us in a controversie so newly needlesly and yet dangerously started up to the great offence and disturbance of the Church of this nature and high concernment you may suppose Christ hath redeemed all men and Devils A Papist supposeth that Christ by his death hath obtained that his Alms-deeds Penance and good works should have a meritorious vertue and efficacy in them for pardon and salvation and upon that deceitful foundation or supposition the silly deluded wretch buildeth and hazardeth his everlasting salvation Oh that any should be so simple and unwise to content himself with an I supposed it is so 2. You say whether it be by law or Gospel so as if God and Christ are indifferent and it is left to mans choice to use either as he liketh for conversion that is more liberty then is allowed you 3. That the souls may be healed and converted The right order is first to be converted then healed Mat. 13.15 But let this pass yet it is requisite that we agree about the terms for some doubts or differences may arise from the ambiguity of the words yet not as if I would yeeld that regeneration conversion or healing of which I see you make no difference in whatever Scripture-acceptation are wrought instrumentally by the law but to help the weak reader and to clear the truth every way And first Regeneration is the begetting again of the soul to God which God doth freely of his owne accord by the word of truth Jam. 1.18 but because this will not be current that this is meant of the Gospel onely as is objected and as is to be discussed more fully in the next Lecture in that the law is also called the word of truth Let me therefore add two pregnant Texts to put this out of all doubt that it is to be understood of the Gospel exclusively The first is Eph. 1.13 In whom you also after you heard the word of truth the Gospel of your salvation by which Paul telleth how the Ephesians came to their faith and hope in Christ namely by the preaching of the Gospel So saith Calvin He adorneth the Gospel with two Epithets in that he calls it the word of truth and in that it is the instrument of salvation which two adjuncts saith he are diligently to be observed And the Gospel is not onely a certain truth which cannot deceive for so is the Law but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he calls the word of truth as if properly no truth were without it and the vertue and efficacy of it is such that it bringeth salvation unto us as it is also Rom. 1.16 The Gospel is the power of God to salvation c. and therefore Paul was not ashamed nor afraid to
is not because the Law hath lost its power to accuse and condema as you would bear us in hand but because he is not under the Law but under Grace Rom. 6.14 Gal. 4.4 Christ hath satisfied for him taking all his sins guilt and curse unto and upon himself and God hath justified and set him free so he liveth in peace and at rest by Faith in Christ who loved him and gave himself to redeem him Also the grace and benefit of his Justification doth in some sort redound upon the actions of a Believer For was it not by his Faith that Abels sacrifice pleased God Heb. 11.4 There is no such purity perfection or dignity in the best thing you can do which of it self simply considered can procure or finde acceptance with God The Scripture and all Orthodox Divinity do hold forth Christ only as the ground and reason of all acceptation of man his works and ways 1 Pet. 2.5 Ye are an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ You say Dr Crisp is wide and see not your self out of the way of Truth and Charity A man under grace is no more under the Law he is dead to the Law that he may live to God Gal. 2.19 M. B. 6 Caution Law is not to be decryed because we have no power to keep the Law Ans Who cryeth down or speaketh against the Law You cannot shew or name any And who are so much against the Law as your selves who are become vain and needless Advocates for it The blinde Pharisees pretended most zeal for God and his Law who were yet in the state of enmity and by reason of their inward malice and envy against Christ opposition and hatred of the truth of his Doctrine false accusations and seeking to entangle and bring him into danger they lived in the continual breach of the Law Well it is too evident that you with thousand others of your Fraternity cease not to quarrel with except against and to condemn us for Antinomians and yet no demonstrative proof is extant of any such Error or guilt It is easie to lay on load of accusation upon Innocency it self hence such aspersions and indignities cast upon David Paul and that immaculate Lamb Christ himself if the corrupt heart within give way and be bent thereunto How weak is thy heart seeing thou hast done all these things Ezek. 16. The weakest and worst sort have been the most zealous and confident accusers We know say the Jews that this man Christ is a sinner Joh. 9.24 yet they knew no such thing by him What accusation saith Pilate bring you against this man They answered If he were not a Malefactor we would not have delivered him unto thee Ioh. 18.29.30 If so many of that Religion say it it is unquestionably true though there be no reality nor jot of verity in the accusation yet know it that it is an Antinomian part to slander and miscal and to make no crime to appear Thus may the greatest delinquency and guilt of Antinomianism be layd at yours and your fellows doors There is one that accuseth you even Moses in whom you trust Joh. 5.45 M. B. Ibid. It is an expression that an Antinomian * Dr. Crisp useth The Law saith he speaketh to thee if troubled for sin Do this and live Now this is as if a Judg should bid a Malefactor If thou wilt not be hanged take all England and carry it upón your shoulders into the West Indies What comfort were this Now doth not the Gospel when it bids a man believe speak as impossible a thing to a mans power Answ Doth the Doctor in this saying decry the Law Your own words and judgment too do import the like impossibility What a sinister minde is this But all if voyd of prejudice and partiality may clearly see by this his expression that Doctor Crisps main desire design and scope was to instruct erect and comfort a poor distressed and troubled Soul and that therefore he so applyed and ministred Gospel-Cordials Observe the ground and reason of his words if thou be troubled for sin and then you have no cause so to reprove and censure him as you do 2. His counsel and direction differ much from theirs of your way who in such a case bid the dejected man to desire promise and endeavor his utmost to do and walk according to the Law and so put him in hope of mercy in that as it is taught the Law is mitigated Evangelized God accepteth the will for the deed c. The Doctor wisely telleth him of the impossibility of making his peace that way knowing also how apt every one is to take that course that so he may utterly despair of himself self-doings and active righteousness and more readily hearken to the voyce and tydings of the Gospel only And 3. though to believe be as impossible to mans natural power yet it followeth not but that he is rightly put upon the believing the Gospel as Paul did bid the Jaylor Act. 16. to believe in the Lord Jesus that he might be saved The believing way is the only way of life peace and Salvation and the Gospel is to be preached for the obedience of Faith Rom. 1.5 You seek a knot in a rush M. B. 7 Caution I much wonder at one speaking thus The Law doth not only deprive us of comfort but it will let no body else speak a word of comfort because it is a rigid keeper and he consirmeth it by that place Gal. 3.23 But how short this is appeareth 1. Because what the Apostle calleth the Law here he called the Scripture in general before 2. He speaks it generally of all under that form of Moses his Regiment so that the fathers should have no comfort by that means Answ Your Margin might have directed us to the Author or Book if not to the page and place where that had been candid for the circumstances there would have given much light Many sentences of your own if singled separated from what precedeth would speak strangely and make a harsh sound I think that the expression which occasioneth so much admiration in you is either D Crisps or some other reputed Antinomians and his words are Allegorical Though Pauls friends had free access and might minister unto him Acts 24.23 yet many a Martyr in Queen Maries time had not that favor So the Law being a spiritual Jaylor to the Conscience suffereth none in a Legal way to comfort it no work no duty performance or reformation nor man nor Angel The Law came by Moses but Grace Pardon Peace Favor Life Consolation by Jesus Christ 2. That place Gal. 3.23 doth sufficiently confirm it and hath been used for that purpose by such Divines as you have no exception against 3. Your Reasons are invalid For first That Scripture in general is the Law or nothing in the Scripture but the Law which concludeth all under sin Verse 22.
upon false grounds 1. That a man cannot distinguish himself from hypocrites 2. That there can be no assurance but upon a full and compleat work of godliness Answ 1. No A man cannot distinguist himself certainly without faith's evidence how would you have discovered Paul having a zealous respect to all Gods Commandments 2. No one nor all your works can bring assurance sufficient I dare say that soul which seeketh establishment and to overcome doubting that way is far from it in the secret bottom of it Imperfections in all whereunto the conscience is privie will more weaken then confirm Semper operum respect nest trepidandi materia M. B. 4. All those Arguments will hold as strongly against faith for are there not many believers for a season or may not a man then know assoon the nature of his heart as the truth of his faith Answ 1. Though true faith fail never yet that is not simply from the nature of faith for there is no gift of grace but of it self it is perishable Constancy and immutability natural be only proper to God therefore Christ prayed that Peters faith might not fail 2. Faith doth not ascertain in that it indureth but in that by it the soul hath an effectual entrance into that grace wherein it standeth irremoveably Rom. 5.2 3. There is not that light of evidence in sincerity which is in faith Heb. 11.1 faith giveth light to those things which otherwise cannot lightly be discerned M. B. Now let us consider their grounds for this strange assertion Answ I cannot say what assertion you mean but it is not much material M. B. Because Rom. 4. It is said God justifieth the ungodly Now this hath a twofold Answer 1. That which our Divines do commonly give that those works are not to be understood in sensu composito c. therefore they compare these passages with those of making the blinde to see c. not that they did see while they were blinde but those who were blinde do now see and this is true and good Answ If you grant that a man is as meerly ungodly till he be justified as a man is blinde till his eyes be opened with those divines the Doctor and you might agree but this answer likes you not though you say it is good and true so well as another viz. Mr. B. 2. But I shall secondly answer it c. Vngodly there is meant of such who are so in their nature considered having not an absolute righteousness yet at the same time believers even as Abraham was So then the subject of justification is a sinner yet a believer Now it is impossible that a man should be a believer and his heart not purified Act 15. Answ So that in few and plain words your opinion is as we see by this and other passages where you call Abraham the ungodly man That a man must be a believer have his heart purified by faith be qualified as Abraham was at least then when it was said his faith was imputed for righteousness before he can be capable of justification here is poor and cold comfort to a distressed conscience who feels himself nothing but a meer compound of sin and misery Do you put men to believe and to know they believe and to be sure faith hath purified the heart but you mean not faith neither but the Law and sanctified them before they come to God who justifieth the ungodly A profound Rabbi O strange Divinity much good do it you You fear infection and so get as far from Doctor Crisp and from Paul's Doctrine as may be yet truth is with you Your Comes individuus to part at and you is impossible You might have named some of those learned men for I know them not But to deal punctually 1. You know that Doctor Crisp speaks of justification as it is Gods only free act absolving and discharging all the Elect of all their sins at once even then when he laid them on Christ Now as God said to Job Where wast thou when I cast the mountains so where was this Faith purity of heart and sanctification then this is no evasion you know but by this all you have said is annihilated he makes faith not to be necessary to justification but the evidence of it in due time for the relieving staying and comforting of the conscience troubled and affected by sin and the Law 2. To draw nearer to you who have thus set your self at this great distance that your longest weapon cannot teach your Adversary to harm him I will grant you that the Scripture setteth forth God as a justifier of them that are of the faith of Jesus Rom. 3.26 but let me then aske whether it be his faith or Gods act in justifying that doth alter him and his condition Israel looked upon the Brazen Serpent but the blessing of health came from God which did effect the cure 2. You say faith purified the heart Act. 15. what before justification or after Calvin and Luther understand that purifying to be by justification Luthers words are Totus purus es ratione hospitis tui because of Christ received by faith the heart becometh pure And when you tell us Abraham is that ungodly man if you mean he was ungodly when he was justified there is no difference But if you consider him otherwise he was then a worker and so the text is fully against you To him that worketh not c. But when Paul saith He believed in God who justifieth the ungodly it is a description of the object of faith or of God on whom faith believeth even that God whose nature property office and promise is to justifie an ungodly man and not a declaration how the subject or man is to be qualified So that the true God of the Gospell findeth men ungodly when he justifieth them but leaveth them not so Or if you will understand the place of Abraham yet there is no circumstance requiring it how ever he was so qualified by faith his heart purified he reported and found to have exellent things in him at that time when it was said his faith was imputed for righeousness Gen. 15.5 yet God in whom he believed is said to justifie them that are without such qualifications even the ungodly M. B. Another place they much stand upon is Rom. 5. Christ died for us while we were enemies while we were sinners But why then do they say that if a man be as great an enemy as enmity it self can make him if he be willing to take Christ c. be shall be pardoned which we say is a Contradiction for how can an enemy with Christ close with Christ So that would seem more then in some places they seem to allowe Answ You doe not surely deny the truth of that Scripture but argue the inconsistency of it with that assertion viz. That such great enemies and sinners closing with Christ can be pardoned this is a Contradiction say you I
sinners he must be fain to look upon us in our Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness you like to set the Law as a medium between God and you which presenteth you with sin and wrath c. And why do if not your self yet many others in their prayers say Lord behold us not in our selves but in our Lord Jesus c. If there be no such pure and secure estate why pray we to attain to it and if we be perswaded of the truth of it why wrangle we against it you might inform your self and others 1. what it is to continue of your selves separated or remote from Christ and 2. of the meaning of the phrase God seeth no sin you reserve this till afterward so do I and withal for more full satisfaction I refer the hony-combe of free justification and the Assertion of grace M. B. ser 3. You shall carefully distinguish between these two propositions good works are necessary to beleivers to justified persons or to those that shall be saved and this good work 's are necessary to justification and salvation Answ It 's too evident that your self do not heedfully observe this distinction Besides your sense in the tearms you use is doubtful when you say good works are necessary to justified persons Is it your meaning after justification according to that of Augustine Nulla sunt bona opera nisi quae sequuntur precedente fide In Psal 67. no works are good except they follow faith going before or that they are necessarily required in order to go before so that their presence must be had necessarily when God justifieth as your pleading hath been heitherto I know the tearms or words themselves are plain and distinct but you confound them in your afterprosecution 2. There be many kinds of necessary And if you understand them to be necessary after justification in a right sense you have no adversary But if good works be necessary to those that shall be saved I would ask you what you mean for do you not hold salvation to be the proper next and immediate effect or consequence of justification can a man be said or supposed to be justified and not to be saved if he be justified he hath Christ he that hath Christ hath eternal life Ioh. 3. ult the essence of eternal life or salvation is but one and indivisible You cannot make the full revelation or seasible fruition of it to be any part of it your error is that you will have good works necessary to come in between justification and salvation at least as a cause sine qua non or conditions of it or so requisite that the promise of eternal life is made to them and only by vertue of that their promise eternal life becomes his that doth the works But eternal life is the free gift of God Rom. 6.23 And salvation is in Christ alone Act. 4.12 Ioh. 5.12 He that hath Christ hath life and if he have not Christ he can have no life whatsoever works he have So that as a man may have Christ without works by faith so may he have salvation in order before good works unless you will say either that without Christ a man can do good works or that Christ may be nad as separate and a part from life and salvation Christ and salvation standing at a distance so after he be come unto Christ and have him he must do good works that by them he may come unto it but both these are impossible Works done in this sense with such a minde and for such an end as to help us to salvation as if Christ did not sufficiently content us these works saith Luther cannot be good but whatever they be for the matter of them are and ought to be numbered among the worst of evil works fornication stealing lying c. are not so hanious saith he neither is the danger and fearful effects and fruits of these evils comparable to the evil of such pretended good works While I do good to help me to salvation I in heart deny Christ to be my full and sufficient Saviour I make faith void and the promise to be of no effect I overthrow the whole Gospel of salvation I appropriate the promise of life not to Christ nor saith but to my works And if it be said it is onely the presence of good works that is accounted necessary to those that shall be saved I answer Gratia Dei remissio per justitia vita eterna in solo Christo mediatore proponuntur illum vero non apprehâ—ndimus bonis operibus sed sola fide Gratia Dei in christo 1 Cor. 1 data est quia hoc constâ—u um est a Deo u qui credit in chrisâ—um saluus sil sine opere sola fide Vnum illud asseveâ—averem quod sola fides per se salvum fecit Chrys Evangelium proponit justiti salutem credeâ—â—ibus in Christum gratis sine conditione bonorum operum Ger. Si bona opera sint nessaia tum promissiones Evangeliâ—ae non erunt gratuitae sedâ—onditionales Insidâ—luas solad mnaâ— hoc est repellâ—t Christum una cum Christo vitam eternam quae non misi in Christo offertur Aug. 1. How can they be present when I must have Christ and with him eternal life before I can do any good work 2. Is not the presence of Christ and his righteousness sufficient Why then did Paul desire to be found in Christ not having his own righteousness of works but only that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith Phil. 3.9.3 What comfort or pleasure can they afford or gain when as Calvin saith If God do respect or look upon them we be to us and there cannot be so little a fault or so small a blemish in our works but the same is enough to make them foul and leathsom unto God Thus all Abrahams vertues saith he if they had been examined could have brought him nought but damnation Abraham bad no other help nor comfort therefore but his faith in Christ in whom God did singly consider and accept him Rom 4.1 2.4 If as you affirm the promise of life be made to them and their presence then cannot the soul receive or lay bold of any promise of life till they come into sight And what promise then is made to the righteousness of faith or of Christ Paul was most diligent and faithful in his ministery abounding in the works of the Lord fought a good fight kept the saith finished his course but the crown which was laid up for him and which he certainly expected was the crown of the righteousness of faith 2 Tim. 4.8 See Dr. Foulk on that place against the Rhemists If the crown be not due to that righteousness to what purpose is it and if it belong and be annexed to it will God make promise of it to our good works It is true It shall be said at the
believing Faith onely is the condition or instrument that doth receive the Covenant but yet that a man believe is required the change of the whole man Answ They qualifie the subject believing in some sense is true but do they qualifie before he believe in believing or after Faith this you should have told us it may be concluded from your words that they must qualifie the subject before he believe and this is your reason because that a man believe is required the change of the whole man as if good works did change the man and so were pre-required to believe I answer 1. That the heart must be first changed I grant for the natural heart is evil and unbelieving And secondly It is a good work to renew and change it yet that is no work of ours but Gods Thirdly Do our good works qualifie towards God Coram judicio Dei as Melanct. or towards others Or to our own sight and sense Is not Christ in us put upon us formed and dwelling in us qualification sufficient for acceptance to salvation M. B. Vse Answ You are still ministring your vain Antidotes Take you heed of that spiritual Anti-Christ within man which strongly maketh head against the true Christ What you preach and profess may be a deceitful flourish you bid reconcile Law and Gospel Justification and holiness c. I know none making such jars between one and the other as doth your self Is the Law then against the Promise Gal. 3.21 That is a blinde conceit Christ was ordained to be the Righteousness of the sinful and lost soul of man and to be received by it in the feeling of the failing and want of all goodness in it self He dwelleth in the poor meek low and broken heart to receive heal and satisfie it We may think and talk of him out of us as held forth in the letter and outward Ministry and all this to small and no effectual consolation or purpose LECT V. 1 Tim. 1.9 Knowing this that the Law is not made for a righteous man M. B. COncerning the righteous man here we must not interpret it of one absolutely righteous but one that is so quo ad conatum desiderium Answ Why may we not understand it as well of one who hath attained to righteousness by Faith which is absolute and perfect as of inherent sanctification which is inchoat and imperfect or why is it that you do altogether exclude this passive and imputed righteousness You do not with the Papists hold it onely to be a putative and not real righteousness And you erre if you take that which is sensible inchoat and so defective to be yet more worthy to give the denomination M. B. pag. 49. The Antinomian and Papist do both concur in this errour though upon different grounds that our righteousness and works be perfect c. and that not only in Justification but in Sanctification also Answ Though the righteousness of Faith in Christ and sanctification by his Spirit which are inseparable in regard of the subject be two distinct things yet they argue not the party to be in a twofold estate towards God for acceptance to favour and life but his estate is peaceable and safe onely by the free grace of Justification You grant your sanctification is imperfect and defective Now sith the sinfulness remaining in us doth dispread it self throughout all the powers of the soul all parts actions and passages of the whole man When you then have gathered and summ'd up all in one do you not bring all your works in the end to yur Justification by your confession of weaknesses wants pollutions c. and so seek forgiveness of the sins of your Prayers Etiam bona opera egent remissione peccati your failings in your Sermons errours of heart and life And this is in effect to have all healed and justified by free justification or the blood of Christ knowing that otherwise all is damnable and in law and justice to be rejected know it and cause also your hearers to learn it that though Justification be one individual act yet the vertue and efficacy of it is necessarily to be extended throughout all the life and wayes of man It purifieth the man and maketh all pure also and acceptable Tit. 1.15 To the pure all things are pure Thus may you see that it is a truth that all are become perfect and the manner also how and lastly that all is in Justification and not in Sanctification and so know your mistake If you receive not this how shall what is imperfect be accepted except either by some mitigation of Gods Justice contrary to that place so much and that without cause urged against us Matt. 5.17 18 or that you will so far be beholding to the new Covenant with the Arminian as to seek for the Grace of it which may pardon or pass by our defects or in effect to deny the extent and continuance of the force and vertue of Justification and Christs blood unto the last end What you charge upon your old Antinomian Islebius I pass by as an Author I never read M. B. As for the latter Antinomian he speaketh very uncertainly and inconsistently Sometimes he grants the Law is a rule but very hardly and seldom then presently kicketh all down again for saith he it cannot be conceived that it should rule but that it also should reign and therefore thinks it impossible that one act of the Law should be without the other the damnatory power of the Law is inseparable from it Can you put your Conscience under the Mandatory power and keep it from the damnatory Assert of Gr. p. 33. Answ None can speak more uncertainly and inconsistently then you in these Lectures you make neither to appear in your adversary but he proveth you guilty of both For when you use these expressions Good works are necessary in the justified and then presently They are necessary in him that is to be justified Again onely Faith in Christ is necessary to salvation the promises of life are made to the believer and good works have the promises of life every good work thou canst do hath a promise made to it of eternal life c. you both leave your reader uncertain what your opinion is and these will in no wise consist together besides many other like passages Also here you say he grants it a rule and yet do charge him with the total abolition of it pag. 43. Is not this inconsistency You say he granteth it hardly nay doth it freely without constraint B. And seldom Ans If need require he will do it toties quoties This is not to kick all down again to say the Law if it rule it doth also reign the latter doth not overthrow the former but onely it crosseth and overthroweth your vain and ayry conceit of a Law ruling and not reigning You say he thinks it impossible that one act of the Law should be without the other
are resolved to venture against the pikes of old tryed and pure truth innocency and a good conscience Well henceforth be better advised like one bemisted you have mistaken your way misrepresented your adversaries and run your credit cause and conscience into a great hazard and you may expect worse in all these without wise and timely retreat The counsel is good if it can be seasonably taken and it cometh from a friend and well-wisher M. B. page 63. This law of nature can never be abrogated And herein we may demand of the Antinomian Whether the law of nature do binde a believer or no whether he be bound to obey the dictates of his natural conscience Answ If a man were not first bound he could not be said properly to be loosed or set free It is granted yet with much limitation and in some things only that every one is bound to obey the dictates of his natural conscience and it is as true to be granted by you also that in case he hearken not at some times or in some things or in case of defect and failing or imperfection this natural law will give out sentence of condemnation for the same as Rom. 2.15 from which it is the peculiar and continual office of faith to set free and secure the conscience So that you do very improperly demand whether the law of nature do binde a believer quatenus so whereas a man believeth that he may be set at liberty in Christ In whom he in his spiritual estate towards God in the things of his peace and life is free as Christ is free with whom by a true and real union he is become one spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 And so is passed from judgement of condemnation and from death to life Fidei nil proponi debet praeter meramgratiam aâ—que haec est ejus objectum Calv. John 5.24 And here faith doth not stand bound to give ear to the voice of either implanted or moral law for the procuring or preservation of peace and comfort but turning from both and not regarding them doth direct and confine ear eye the thoughts and meditations of the soul to that alone simple object Christ and to what he speaketh in the word of grace and salvation whose blood sprinkled and shed for remission of sins cryeth for better things then the blood of Abel This is the proper office obedience and exercise of faith So in God will I praise his word Psal 56. here will I settle my thoughts and fortifie them against the dictates and accusations of a natural conscience sense of sin reason law Satan or whatever assaileth If faith give not an acquiescence and rest to the foul in that free and full atonement by Christ and the goodness and favour of God in him it is in danger to be lost for ever And as you have given me this fair occasion so for the more simple and weak Christians sake who is little versed herein and principled otherwise let me further add That although nature do acknowledge a God and that he is to be worshipped and served Nil magis adversatur fidei quam lex ratio Luth. yet this opinion which is also seconded and much strengthened by the moral law is not without danger and is repugnant to the doctrine and knowledge of faith for nothing is more cross to faith then the law and natural reason the maine battel and dispute in a believer is between the dictates of his natural conscience confirmed by the moral law and the principles of his faith and as the law of faith doth enter and prevaile so it captivateth razeth and expelleth the natural and legal knowledge and thoughts of God and imprinteth a divers from them only suiting to the Gospel or covenant of Grace for now since the death of the Testator the covenant is so ratified and confirmed with God that he remembereth the sins of his people no more but abides fully In illa gratuita reconciliatione per obsignationem spiritus acquiescit It a gloria datur Deo non considerat fides quicquâ—d in nobis vel aliis creaturis ei adversari videatur Olev and for ever pleased with them in his Son and through faith herein the conscience also is made to yeeld to it to receive and imbrace it and so is led and brought into this confidence of the quietness and peace of God towards us and hereby effecteth our assured rest in God reconciled for ever which is the true Christian Sabbath Thus every high thing exalting it self against the knowledge of God according to the Gospel is to be cast down and every thought to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.4 5. And by this is glory given unto God while one thing is felt or suggested within and another is believed Let this be well marked of great and continual use in every Christian that the law implanted by nature is ever contradicting and reclaiming against the testimony of God in the word of his grace whence ariseth the difficulty and impossibility of believing save by the power and operation of God Col. 2.12 therefore in the weighty things of faith to hearken to the natural conscience or moral law will quite overthrow whole Christianity and turn aside the soul to destruction The seeds of morality and remanents of the covenant of works may be found in nature but there is no sparke nor intimation of any pure Gospel In innocency Adam was not principled to finde and receive his righteousness peace and life in another out of himself M. B. Think not that because he Christ dyed to free you from the curse of the law that therefore you are freed from the obedience Answ And do not you think nor teach that Christ came to take away the curse and condemning power from the law contrary to his own express words Mat. 5.17 18. where he saith that every jot of the Law is imperishable and in his opening and applying it afterwards he doth as command so reprove threaten and condemne 2. You will not deny but what Christ hath performed for me as my surety that I am so freed from that it may not be required of me to that end as before 3. Christ doth free us that we by his Spirit may serve freely and cheerfully and without all fear in holiness and righteousness before God all the dayes of our life Luk. 1.76 Therefore are we taken into a New covenant that giveth power and fitness so to serve wherein he promiseth the law in our hearts to put his Spirit into us to give a new heart and a new way c. which the covenant of works could not do Jer. 31. Ezek. 36.27 c. M. B. Vse of instruction against the Antinomians who must needs overthrow the directive and obligative force of the law of nature as well as of Moses Ans This is but the old slander the same false charge so often repeated It is by this
You may seem to disparage the learned too much as if confining or ascribing all the promises to the Gospel or accounting them to be Gospel they should deny any promise to appertaine to the law Whereas I think you cannot alleadge one learned Author who doth not grant the law to have its promises also yea and to make this difference also between legal and Evangelical promises that the Evangelical are free and absolute the legal conditional Promiss alia conditionales aliae gratuita yet never read I of any hard or undue expressions cast upon the law as you insinuate If the curse be not sometime expressely set down yet it is implicite and necessarily included wher-ever the law is mentioned taking it for law moral but you reserve this to a future time and so it is referred M. B. pa. 141. In the moral law is required justifying faith and repentance c. the second commandment requireth the particular worship of God insomuch that all the ceremonial law yea our Sacraments are commanded in the second commandment Answ 1. You may as well say also that the judicial law is included in the first commandment and the second table and so jumble and confound all in one law which in their delivery nature use and end are so distinct 2. Justifying faith is so called only from the object of it unto which it hath respect Non aliunde nos salutem quam ex evangelio consequi quoniam non alibi suam nobis justitiam Deus patefacil quae sola nos ab interitu leberat Calv. but this object is not propounded in the moral law for the soul to have respect unto therefore it is an error to teach that justifying faith properly so called is required in the moral law and a confounding of law and Gospel The righteousness of God is the object of justifying faith therefore it is called the righteousness of faith also Rom. 10.6 and that in opposition to the righteousness of the law v. 5. and it is only revealed in the Gospel whence Paul inferreth it to be the power of God to salvation Rom. 1.16 17. and the Gospel is preached for the obedience of this faith Rom. 1.5 that is to call and bring men unto this justifying faith but if the law do it it is not the proper office and end of the Gospel 3. What requireth repentance must necessarily propound a promise of pardon and acceptance unto the penitent but the moral law knoweth nor offereth no such mercy to any sinner 4. God cannot be rightly worshipped nor known but in Christ the Mediator by whom alone we have access with boldness and confidence Deus nisi in Christo suo coli nec cognosci Eph. 3.12 but the law teacheth not Christ 5. And if our Sacraments be commanded in the second commandment then they were commanded the Jews for whatever the law requireth it is of them that live under it as did the Jews Rom. 3.19 but I hope our Sacraments were not commanded them to use yea and we by that are to be circumcised who now have the second comman dment 2. If all the ceremonial law be commanded there then the ceremonial doth not differ in nature and kind from the moral but as a part from the whole Where is the specifical dissirence then so that you have vainly distinguished the law into moral ceremonial and judicial many other arguments might be used to let you see your great mistake but I forbear in a case so clear M. B. The moral law hath more particulars then can be in the law of nature hence the Apostle saith he had not known lust to be sin had not the law said so c. Ans As the moral law is not so comprehensive as to containe justifying faith and repentance so neither do you evince it to be more extensive or large then the law of nature having more particulars then be in that these be your private crotchets How will it stand with the justice of God to require more then was given to our nature at first And the invalidity of your reason is evident for though the Apostle had not known lust by it yet you know that much of that law lyeth dead and obscure in us there be many seeds and remanents of it which to us be imperceivable till the Ministery of the moral law do fetch those sparks from under the ashes revive and bring them to light And lust lurketh in our corrupt nature as fire is in the slint not known nor taken notice of till the law as the steel beat it out and cause it to sparkle abroad but it followeth not that the moral law containeth more because it revealeth more 2. You take the natural law as it is obliterated and imperfect in our corrupt nature and the moral law in its perfection an unequal comparison 3. The sin of lust was there before the law came now if there were not a law of nature or in nature against which it was how came it to be sin by what law had it a being for the knowledge of it you say was only by the moral law As you pass along you are ever and anon like a rash and passionate Schoolmaster lashing your adversaries without cause accusing them as guilty of crying down the law preaching against it reviling it c. and the like aspersions you cast upon them which argue and bewray too much gall and distemper in you but such passages I pass over being minded not to reply to every extravagant expression but only to give satisfaction in what is material LECT XVI Exod. 20.1 And God spake c. LAstly observe in general that God did not give them his law till he had humbled them Answ The principal end of giving the law is that by it as an instrument God may humble us beating down that pride and presumption in our spirits conceiting and boasting of what we neither have nor are M. B. p. 151. To signifie that the law could not be a way of justification Ans And yet you said but lately that the law requireth justifying faith to what end is it if it show no way to justification nor cannot justifie as you say afterward or how can it then be a covenant of grace M. B. God doth use the law as he doth his whole word to beget and increase the life of grace in us and in this effect of the law to increase life David doth often commend it Ans 1. There be two principal and essential parts of the Covenant of Grace 1. To hold out the way of justification peace and life 2. To promise and give the Spirit of regeneration and renovation So Jer. 31.33 34. and Ezek. 36.25 26. And the law doth neither of these therefore it is no covenant of grace 2. There is nothing more against Scripture and the maine current of all true divinity then to teach that the life of grace is begot by the law Here are two great
what Gospel what then doeth it But who will regard how promiscuously he preach seeing if he desire and intend either regeneration healing or conversion of the soul or yet as pag. 192. the increase of grace and holiness the Law as Gospel may indifferently be preached by him and blessed by God And though in respect of the use and end intended the law be subservient yet in their way propounded Gods and mans righteousness and of the effects produced by either viz. life and death they are and must be contrary M. B. And this must needs be the opinion of all sound Divines whatsoever may fall from them at other times as appeareth by their common answer to the Papists question If the Law and the commands thereof be impossible to what purpose then doth he command them Then we answer That those commands are not onely informing of a duty but they are practical and operative means appointed by God to work at least in some degree that which is commanded Answ You know they do not plainly and professedly say this is their opinion and therefore without alledging one sentence out of any directly to second this of yours you labour to derive and infer it as busily as you may such poor shifts are you put unto 2. Neither is it the opinion of all for those are as sound whose answer is That the law doth therefore command things now impossible that we may see our great loss by the fall with our present disability that so we may be humbled a viled and confounded in our selves 3. To incline and dispose the soul to look into the Gospel-way in which all cometh as to beggers by faith and prayer Therefore Augustin saith God commandeth things impossible not as you say that in commanding he may give power but that we thereby feeling our owne utter insufficiency may be occasioned to turn precepts into prayers saying Da quod jubes God bids us turn not thereby to enable us but that finding thereby both the necessity of it and also our inability we may cry Turn thou us and we shall be turned Thus we see whose hand worketh the will and deed 2. You also still mince the matter saying At least in some degree you love to play at small games rather then sit out you are uncertain not resolved as yet what to affirm and stick unto this being a fiction of your owne and no Scripture or Author can be produced to confirm or countenance it It was never questioned but what is wrought by the ministry of the word is to be attributed to the Spirit as the principal efficient and other passages of which he still giveth some verbal touch being already cleared I now proceed to his Arguments M. B. I bring these Arguments to prove the Law and preaching of it the means of Conversion 1. That which is attributed to the whole word of God as it is Gods word ought not to be denyed to any part of it Now this is made the propertie of the whole word of God to be the instrument of conversion 2 Tim. 3.16 Answ 1. Your proposition is unsound and will not be granted many things are often attributed to the word in general which canot be affirmed of every part of it Rom. 15.4 Whatsoever things are written were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope that is saith Piscator through patience arising from the comfort of the Scripture viz. that be written aforetime Now in the second premise page 188. you tell us that however the law may be blest to conversion yet it cannot be the ground of our justification adoption and consolation nor a man cannot have hope nor comfort in whatever he doth but it must be the promise onely of the Gospel See how your self will not have righteousness comfort and hope from every part of the word no from no part of the law but do restrain it to the Gospel onely and yet the greatest part of what was then written was law 2. Your Assumption is denyed also viz. That it is the property of the whole word to be the instrument of conversion And your place 2 Tim. 3.16 will not conclude it For first the Apostle speaketh not there of conversion but of conversation manners and life to the converted Secondly If all Scripture were to reprove correct then none is to comfort but one part is to reprove and another for consolation a third for doctrine c. law is to kill and Gospel to make alive what part is for one effect and purpose hath not formally any partial ability or fitness for another let the eye see the tongue speak and the feet walk as being purposely made and fitted for their proper offices The whole Scripture is as a promptuary or full Treasury out of which may be drawne and taken what is needful for faith and manners but what is for manners will be unaptly used to build up in the faith Also Matth. 13. the word compared to the seed is vers 19. called by Christ himself the word of the kingdom or note of distinction and by it is meant the Gospel as all know Lastly for that place Heb. 4.12 let Piscator satisfie you if the context will not serve you he saith it is Sermo Evangelii the word of the Gospel which is effectual to pierce the heart and convince the minde of the truth of the heavenly doctrine in it so that none can with a quiet conscience derogate from the credit or verity of it And he addeth that usitatissimum est c. It is a very usual thing with Paul by the word of God in general to mean the word of the Gospel M. B. 2. Argument is taken from those places where the law is expresly named to be instrumental in this great work not to name that place Rom. 7.14 where the law is called spiritual in that respect as well as in others because it is that which worketh spiritually in us as Paul was carnal because he wrought carnally Answ Indeed that place might well have been spared in this controversie for you finde nothing in it for your turne It is called spiritual because of the spiritual nature of it in opposition to Pauls which was carnal and because Paul was carnal therefore he wrought carnally but his working carnally did not make him carnal Also the law is called spiritual because of its spiritual discovering and convincing power or efficacy but not because of any spiritual change it wrought upon Paul as the whole context and every circumstance there maketh it plain the law let him see the vitiousness of his nature what repugnancy and contrariety was in him to that purity holiness and perfection held forth in the law and so occasionally by the commandment sin became exceeding sinful vers 13. M. B. The places are clear out of Psalm 119. and Psal 19.7 The Law of God is perfect converting the soul That which the Antinomian objecteth
inconsistent interpretation They say the law is not the instrument of sanctification Gods Spirit sanctifieth not by the law the law is the instrument of no good c. It is true you say and thus they mean that is the law not animated by Gods Spirit or separated from it Answ So neither do either they or any think Law or Gospel to be 2. If that be their meaning they might deny the Gospel to be instrumental also 3. But you read their words in the Assertion of grace to be that the Spirit doth not animate nor use the law in sanctification or conversion save onely preparatorily Now you must either grant us that these Authors unto which might be added all others of any special account are guilty of as much Antinomianisme as your adversaries are in this respect or that your quarrell is as weakly managed as it was causlesly undertaken yea and that you with your society have erred in opinion and practise I shut up all with that so pertinent and pregnant saying of Calvin on Gal. 3.19 Si quis excipiat cum lex regula sit pie recte vivendi cur potius transgressionum quam obedientia causa positadicitur Respondeo Vtrumque veram justitiam demonstret tamen in hac naturae corruptione nihil quam augere trangressiones ejus doctrina donec accedat Spiritus regenerationis qui ipsam cordibus inscribat hic autem non datur a lege sed fide percipitur M. B. I come to consider of those places c. I shall not take all because one answer may serve for many they being built upon the same ground Answ You are farre indeed from taking all but onely such by your perverse usage and wresting whereof you may more subtilly and easily elude and seem to evade M. B. First the state of the question is obscurely propounded by him for thus he saith The promise or the Gospell and not the Law is the seed or doctrine of our new-birth Assert pag. 163. Now here are ambiguities as first the promise or Gospell for by this he seemeth to decide a great question that whatsoever is a promise in the Scripture this belongeth to the Gospell but a command or threatning that belongeth to a law whereas this needeth a great discussion Answ You see a mote in your Brothers eye and consider not the beame in your own How changeable have you been in the assertion and question last discussed and handled you are so inconstant and mutable in your termes sence and scope that it is very uncertain and doubtful as yet what you are resolved to stand to But 2. where its said the Promise or Gospel and not the Law c. do you accuse this of ambiguity surely without cause except for your humour or to take occasion to trouble the simple with a dotage which none of mean understanding would ever question As for your so great question as you call it All the promises in the Scripture cannot belong to the Gospel for the law hath its promises Do and thou shalt live in them where life is promised conditionally of this is spoken before and it is of the By. 3. If the word promise were onely used yet being placed antithetically in opposition to the law who can doubt what should be meant by it Paul in Gal. 3.18 thus useth it If the inheritance be of the law it is no more of promise but God gave it to Abraham by promise Argumentum a contrariis Haereditas est promissione nempe nuda ac simplici seu gratuita non igitur ex lege i. c. promissiâ—ne conditionalis Piscat In Gal. 3. How often doth he in that Chapter as in Rom. 4. oppose law and the promise Also to avoid all ambiguity as much as was possible it followeth Or the Gospel by which it is easie to conceive what is meant by him who hath not a minde to cavil and seek a knot in a rush The learned tell us That in the Scriptures use and sense Testamentum foedus promissio pactum Evangelium ferè sunt Synonyma Well by promise then is meant the Gospel so that controversie is decided and there is no place for ambiguity And if you turne to your named pag. 163. the word promise is not at all in the proposition but a wanton spirit may finde himself sport at his pleasure M. B. 2. The State of the question is not about the Gospel or the law as they are both a doctrine but as the Spirit of God working by one or the other the not attending to this maketh the Argument so confounded Answ The proposition is formally this The Gospel and not the Law is the instrument of true sanctification What need these cautions and vain words as if none can speak plain English but you And as by your Predecessour Dr. Tailer so here we must be stiled and taken for confused men but you onely are distinct and seraphical M. B. 3. He saith It 's not the seed of the New-birth whereas conversion or regeneration is made the writing of the law in the heart and Matth. 13. The word of God in general is compared to seed sown Answ And he saith nothing but he may truely affirm it still 2. You put no difference between regeneration conversion and writing the law upon the heart which yet in propriety of phrase sense and use are distinct as is shewed before who now is guilty of confusion 3. And although the work you mean should be the writing of the Law in the heart yet it followeth not to be by the law for how then should the law in sanctification be established by faith Lastly It is not the word in general but with restriction the word of the Kingdome that is the Gospel that is compared to the seed sown see Mat. 13.19 M. B. The first instance is John 17.17 Sanctifie them c. I answer 1. The word Sanctifie when applyed to men doth not signifie onely justification or renovation but setting apart to some peculiar office or charge Answ The words in the Assertion are To Sanctifie in the sense of the Hebrews from whence it is taken is to separate any thing from a prophane and common use and so to consecrate it to God or to convert it to a sacred and divine use So that if you have learned men for your great and full Library may well exceed my poor and diminished Study who so take it that Christ prayed here for the fitting of the Apostles for their great charge yet that is of fishers to make them fishers of men and so to separate them from their former prophane and worldly calling and trade unto a sacred which thing my words do include and import also 2. But then to sanctifie them must be more then to ordain them for that function even to endue them with a great measure of holiness and gifts requisite for so high a calling Yet 3. All that I read do take the word as I say And sith Christ
in the ceremonies then used as you imply Mr. B. In what sense the Apostle argueth against the Law Answ Truly he argueth not against it in any true sense at all but for it to give and maintain all its rights Mr. B. The proper state of the question in those daies appeareth Act. 15. where you have a relation made of some believing Jews of the sect of the Pharisees who pressed the necessity of circumcision c. Answ See Act. 15.5 There arose up certain of the Sect of the Pharisees which believed saying That it was needfull to circumcise them and to command them to keep the Law of Moses Note that expression which believed So that the question was then Whether that circumcision and the keeping of the Law were needfull to be conjoyned with the faith of Christ in the point of salvation and ver 11. makes it more plain We believe through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to be saved even as did they also I confess your first words might import as much but you are not constant but shrinke much from this And tell us what opinion the Jews were generally of who thought that the observation of the morall Law without Christ was enough for their peace and comfort In your prosecution of it you sejoyne what in the proposition was rightly conjoyned Those Jews who thought as you say That the external performing of the ceremonies and a life outwardly conformable to the morall Law would secure them they did oppose Christ and perfecute his Gospel as 1 Thes 2.14 15. But the other mentioned Act. 15. did receive and preach the Gospel though not according to the simplicity that is in Christ 2 Cor. 11.3 but added and mingled other things to that of faith and so overthrew the whole Gospel and salvation also Hence it was the Apostle peremptorily said that If they were circumcised Christ profited them nothing implying that they would have Christ and circumcision too Your words are That the Apostle speaketh seemingly derogatorily to the Law because they took it without Christ But he indeed derogated not from it but acknowledged it to be good if used lawfully but they did otherwise not in taking it without Christ as you affirm but in conjoyning it with him as if he alone were not sufficient to salvation as well as to righteousness without the works of the Law Take you heed of this way and kinde of teaching Mr. B. Now where the Law seemeth to be abrogated it is taken either 1 Synecdochically put for that part which actually condemneth as Gal. 5. Against such is no Law for he speaketh as if there were nothing in the Law but condemnation Whereas we may say the Law is by way of direction and prescription for a thing as well as against it by accusation Answ If it be said the Law of our Land hath nothing against you or to accuse you of in point of homicide Is this any seeming abolition of the Law while your innocency is cleared and justified the Law suffereth no diminution by it how tryfling and childish is this your discourse 2. If the Law be for a thing in direction and against it by accusation then by Pauls doctrine still it hath lost nothing of its power Thus the constant mistake is not ours but yours who most abolish the Law indeed Mr. B. First He is without the Law that is without the understanding of it thus the Gentiles Secondly Without the sense and experience of the terrifying power of it as Paul Rom. 7. Now the godly though they be denied to be under the Law yet are not said to be without it Answ It is true the faithfull have both understanding and experience of the Law but now faith Luther It is their cheif point of wisdom to be ignorant of the Law Is not this a Paradox or Parable You say Paul Rom. 4.14 cannot mean the Law of Moses for that was long after a poor reason Doth he not in Gal. 3. deny the blessing and inheritance of Abraham to be by the Law but by promise and yet ver 11. he saith The Law was 430 yeers after When the blessing was promised to come in that way to Abraham there was no question but now since the circumcision and the Law were after added to the promise and have been of so long continuance is that question thereby occasioned In the fifth Interpretation of what it is to be under the Law your words are nothing against us but rather confirme that exposition of Rom. 6.14 which is in the Assertion of grace against D. T. But observe withall how here you oppose Law and grace in sanctifying and healing which formerly you so much contradicted You say The Law is never so much alive as in the godly who most obey it But I say It is the spirit of Christ that quickeneth them by the Gospel to love and obey the Law and their obedience floweth from this life of faith as an expression of it He that liveth by faith as Gal. 2.19 20. keepeth the Law joyfully and freely LECT XXIIII Deut. 4.13 And he declared to you his Covenant c. Mr. B. I Have already handled the Law as a rule and now come to consider it as a Covenant that so the whole Law may be fully understood Answ Your undertaken be great and your promises sat and fair but never knew I worse success nor less performance I muse that these points so weighty and so much controverted should be so sleightly handled and your Affirmative part so weakly confirmed by a man of your learning Suppose all be clear and unquestionable to your self which I cannot believe now yet others need more light then as yet you hold forth And your Adversaries see nothing to convince and satisfie them You tell us He that is so blinde that he cannot see by the light of one Sun would not see any more if there were a thousand Suns Alas do you think that he that readeth then shall find these your elaborate and judicious Lectures so clear and beyond exception that he is like unto him that hath the nooneday to walke in and is strangely blinded if any thing be rejected as erronious or questioned as obscure To give you my ingratefull opinion I neither see light of one Sun nor yet of one beam of it I fear you are too self-conceited and self-confident I say no more but Aliorum esto judicium We are now being made publique to be censured by others Now you come to consider the Law as a Covenant c. Answ Then it is not simply a rule but it may be you will help this somwhat by telling us of a more large acception of the Law yet that is not to speak precisely to the point in controversie also though your considerations be divers yet the Law is constantly the same Your doctrine that the Law was delivered in Mount Sinai in a Covenant-way or it was a Covenant God made with his people I list not
heart no not in the least syllable of it untill it be there implanted by the faith of the Gospel Note you well this by the way And however the learned vary somewhat about this yet I can read no word favouring your odde Opinion Now come we to your Arguments Mr. B. The first shall be taken from the relation of the covenanters Argn. 1 God on the one part and the Israelits on the other God did not deal as this time as absolutely considered but as their God and their Father hence God saith he is their God And when Christ quoteth the Commands he brings the Preface Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one Rom. 9.4 Now unless this were a Covenant of grace how could God be their God who were sinners Answ God dealt with them now not absolutely indeed but yet with relation to his promise formerly made by meanes of which he had freely chosen and taken them to be his peculiar people having long before said to Abraham I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee Gen. 17.7 And hereupon the constant Martyr Mr. Bradford intending to comfort one dejected and distreffed in mind upon consideration of some failing or want of obedience as I remember writeth to this effect Let this cogitation be still in your mind that before God aske any thing of us he saith he is ours I am the Lord thy God giving himself and then all he hath to be ours And this he doth in respect of himself of his own mercy and truth and not in respect of us for then were grace no grace In consideration whereof saith the Martyr Whatever he commands though of duty we be bounden to accomplish and be culpable and guilty if not yet he requireth the same no further of us then to make more in love and more certaine of this his covenant That he is our Lord God which is made in respect of his grace in Christ Jesus and dependeth nothing on our obedience So this Covenant is most free and most sure for ever and the onely refuge and plea of the soul in the hour of tentation It is more then evident then that God as now so from the first stood reconciled to his people in Christ Jesus and in him became their God and took them into that happy relation of being his people his peculiar treasure and Children And all your Scriptures if now you look on them again do hold forth this and can speak no other truth What infirmity is this Cannot God take a people into Covenant with himself and become their God and Father in Christ his Son and yet govern and put them under the Law but we must then inferre either that all his grace and favour is conditional or else the Law we are made to live under for a time is a Covenant of grace Argn. 2 Mr. B. If we consider the good things annexed to this Covenant it must needs be a Covenant of grace for there we have remission of sin whereas in the Covenant of works there is no way for repentance or pardon In the second Commandment God is described to shew mercy to thousands c. Answ If God promise and shew mercy in this way of obedience as we Parents also commonly do deal with our Children looking pleasantly upon them using them kindly c. when we find them most dutifull and tendering and receiving them lovingly and gently upon their submission after some failing will you so farre forget the truth and your self as to infer and conclude thence that the Covenant is established on our obedience It is one word and way by which we are begotten and become Children to God our Father and he may rule us and shew us favour by another word and way especially whilst we be in minority as Gal. 4.1 2 3. And what could keep the Children of Israel in the conscience of their many faults and failings from despair or what could erect their spirits and preserve still a confidence and cheerfull hope in them was it not as Mr. Bradford said That knowledge and inward perswasion that God was their Father and they his Children by a free and faithfull promise of meer grace in Christ to come Mr. B. 3. Argn. 3 If we consider the duties commanded in the Law so generally taken it must needs be a Covenant of grace for what is the meaning of the first Commandment but to have one God in Christ our God by faith Answ What is said to the other Deus Pater seipsum in Christo abscondidit ita ut nusquam alibi quam in Christo quaeramus agnoscamus c. resolveth this also for this Commandment presupposeth that God was their God and did not now by his Law become their God by promise in the Messiah to come on his part and by faith receiving it on their side And to keep them to his faith in Christ and to prevent defection or Idolatry he propounds himself to be known and acknowledged onely in Christ the promised seed saying I am thy God in my Christ that so they might love him trust and delight in him Mr. B. From the ceremonial Law Argn. 4 All Divines say That this is reduced to the Morall so that sacrifices were commanded by vertue of the second Commandment Now all know that the sacrifices were Evangelical and did hold forth remission of sins c. then there must be grace included Answ Now I understand what you would have reduced to the morall Law And in this passage of yours I observe divers strange things as 1. That the ceremoniall should be reduced to the morall as if the one were not entire and absolute of it self without the other or that they were not distinct species under the same genus the whole Ministration by Moses being divided into Law morall ceremoniall judiciall so that every of the three is absolute of it self for the matter and doctrine contained in it and in respect of the end and use it was given for 2. You cannot let us see one syllable concerning the sacrifices in the second Command The Lord delivered by the same authority he had over them and as equally and immediately required the observation of each of these which in nature and office were so distinct And the charging of Israel with all and every of them is grounded still upon this I am thy God therefore was it that his people were to be instructed governed and ordered as he pleased He signified his will and mind in the matters of faith by the ceremoniall Law 2. Touching morality and duty in the morall 3. And what concerned the polity and republique in the judiciall Law I see not but that you may as well reduce the judiciall to the first Commandment or to the second Table as the ceremoniall to the second Commandment and thus confound all making but one Law 3. And I marke another thing viz. That in this you have one eye and respect to
Ministerii sumpla and the express words in the text do make it more then manifest that the Apostles comparison is taken from the very substance of Moses Ministery to wit the Morall Law and not that part onely which is Ceremoniall as you would have it for verse 7. it is called that Ministery that is written and engraven in stones Whence it is easie to gather that Paul speaketh not of the Ceremoniall Impressum insculptum ex hoc locoisacile colligitur Paulum non agere de Ceremoniis sed de ipse Decalego B. but Morall part for it was the Decalogue that was so written and delivered in Tables of Stone 2 Your words imply that there is no difference in truth and strict sence between Law and Gospel so that the Spirit be taken with them both which directly contradicteth the Apostle who calleth one the Ministery of death and condemnation and the other of life and righteousness for the Spirit working by the Law doth kill and condemn and therefore is also called a Spirit of boudage Rom. 8.15 but the Spirit by the Gospel quickneth and giveth life being a Spirit of Adoption and liberty The Spirit is one and the same but the Ministrations be different and so are the effects produced by either You say the difference is because Christ the Author of the Gospel is the fountain of Life But is not Christ the Author of the Law also He is called the law-giver And though Christ be the Author of Life yet you cannot shew wheâ—e the Law is called the Ministery of Life as if Christ did use it to convey and give Life Also to say that the Spirit quickeneth by the Law is to enforce a sense flatly against the Apostle Moreover your expressions do make the place more obscure dark in telling us that the Gospel also without Gods Spirit is the Ministration of death because it is as impossible to believe as to obey the Law Whereas Paul therefore calleth the Gospel the Ministration of righteousness and life in that the Spirit thereby begetteth faith in the hearts of the Elect whereby they come to righteousness and life So Piscator The Law then having the Spirit working by it killeth as we see in Paul Rom. 7. But the Gospel maketh alive justifying all the Elect of God 2. You fail much in your second respect also for 1. as is proved and cleared that the opposition is chiefly between the Morall Law and the Gospel 2 However in a proper and true sense the Law is done away in the kingdom of Christ yet where infidelity is the Law remaineth but where the word of righteousness and life is there can the Ministery of sin and death have no place even no more then the darkness of midnight hath at noon-day but spirituall things are spiritually discerned 3. Paul intends that glory to be of the Law whereas you interpret it to be that accidentall glory which did shine upon Moses A word of these things shall suffice LECT XXIX Matth. 5.17 Whosoever shall break one of these least c. SEe and consider the words of the Prophet Psal 7.14 15 16. This Lecture above all yet sheweth much gall to be in your ink Now your task is neer an end The residue is but to make a grave or ditch for your Antinomian and to describe and delineate the man that all mistake being prevented he may forthwith be sentenced and sent to his appointed place but stay Where or who is he You are in a golden dream Mr. B. When there shall be a reformation and truth break forth c. then those corrupt Teachers who would poyson men should be discovered and be of least that is of no account Answ Seeing this will be when the truth breaketh forth Now Lord send forth thy light and thy truth that all false teachers and doctrines of lies and vanities may be put to shame and confusion And if your dream be true look to your self You fear not perhaps presuming upon your own supposed innocency externall sanctity the present state of our times the reputation you are in the authority and multitude of your combined fraternity c. as being now set upon a mountaine that will never be moved But the Church the Truth and quarrell is Gods He is strong that is Judge to put down the mighty from their seats to scatter the imaginations of the proud and to returne all the intended evill upon the head of the authors and devisers In him the fatherless find mercy he preserveth the simple and meek that trust in him Read Isa 66.5 Hear the word of the Lord ye that tremble at his word Your Brethren that have cast you out for my Names sake said Let the Lord be glorified but he shall appear to your joy and they shall be ashamed and Joh. 16.2.3 Some look for no better from your hands if left unto your will and have already sound the like dealing for the Scripture must be verified Mr. B. They overthrow the law when they hold such principles that will necessarily by way of consequence inferre the abrogation of the Law And thus though some Antinomians do expresly and boldly assert the abolishing of it at least to believers Yet others c. disclaiming it held such assertions as necessarily inferre the abrogation of it Answ You cannot prove and make it appear that any do assert the abolishing of it so it may be taken for a slander and false accusation 2. In way of correction as having overshot your self and would eat some of your Words You say At least to believers Now first What need believers a Law so farre as believers they live by Faith and walke by Faith yea and warre by Faith 2. The Law affordeth nothing to nourish or supply any defect in the Christians Faith 3. Yet you nor none can directly and duely inferre hence that they do abrogate the Law so much now to vindicate them But to returne your words upon your self I think that you do hold such principles that necessarily by way of consequence at least do abrogate the Law yea and make void repentance in great part after Faith is come and bring in carnal security and a false peace into the soul for one principle of yours is That direction and obligation to obedience be the sole essential constitutes of the law So that that which condemneth justifies promiseth and threatneth is not properly the Law but it hath been not onely asserted but proved already that these are as assential to a Law as the former Again What will you call that which doth condemn and promise favour and peace to the good if it be not Law I am sure it is no Gospel have you a third name for it 2. Whence have these power to condemn c. if no Law be in them The Scripture faith The Law doth curse reveal wrath c. I argue thus Whosoever denieth the Law a power to condemn and justifie he destroyeth the Law But Mr. Burg.
whose be the errours and mistakes Be thou wise and impartial and if any can in love clear them to be mine he may call for my retractation and have it The Lord keep us in that faith and love which is in Christ Jesus Farewel MONOMACHIA or A single Reply to Mr. Rutherfords book called Christs dying and drawing of Sinners vindicating and clearing onely such positions and passages in the book intituled The Assertion of Grace as are by him palpably mistaken and perverted and so miscalled Antinomian THe first Exception that I find is against this passage in Assert pag. 37. Holy walking and good works can no more be meanes or the way to the kingdom as Mr. Towne and other Antinomians say then motion within the City can be a way to the City in regard the man is in the City before he walk in it Reply If all must be Antinomians who so have held and said in our sense then you will condemn with us all the Orthodox But 2. If you can put a good construction upon their words why will not charity do the like for us will you be partial 3. Where is your confutation or conviction of errour 4. The kingdom of grace and glory is but one in nature and kind as all do assert the difference is in regard of degrees And the entrance into it is by regeneration Joh. 3.5 which is before all works therefore we do rightly teach that a man must first be in the New-Jerusalem the City of God before he can walk in it 5. If you will take the kingdom strictly for the future state of glory and felicity which you know your Antinomians do not in this their position yet even then it is the free gift of God without condition of our works as Rom. 6.23 The free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Neque enim obedientia nostra ant causa est aut conditio propter quam accepti coram Dco As the mean through which it can be received is Christ so faith is the instrument by which as a gift is received and taken by the hand from the giver Lastly There is one in your bosome will tell you that we are not against good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in amongst men onely as you grant them to be improperly conditions of life so we according to the Scriptures and the Orthodox do affirm that opinion to be false and dangerous from which it's most hard to withdraw mens minds and thoughts it is so naturall unto them and in the best construction it doth obscure the free grace of God in Christ Jesus Importing that Christ saveth not without works or faith cannot receive Christ in the promise for both righteousness and life but he is held forth for salvation upon condition and after our good works so that faith also must be kept in suspence and Gods promise too untill the end of our holy walking Mr. Rutherf Neither do these places make justification and regeneration all one as Mr. T. with other Antinomians do for we are not regenerated by faith but that we may believe but we are justified by faith 2. Regeneration putteth in us a new birth the image of the second Adam justification formally is for the imputed righteousness of Christ which is in Christ not in us Reply 1. You may see there pag. 78. that it is brought in as the saying of Melancthon whose words upon Joh. 3. are these Christus justificationem dicit esse regenerationem c. Christ saith that justification is regeneration this is indeed to mortifie the flesh and to be renewed in Spirit True mortification is the sence or feeling of death whereby the flesh is confounded and judged vivification is in that death a sense of life peace joy of heart c. As also of Mr. Fox who saith thus Regeneration is not a being altered into a new bodily substance from what we were but a being turned by reconciliation into a new state of grace so as such who were before dead to God and damnable creatures and children of wrath are now accepted purged justified from the malediction of original and actual sin they who were separated from God are restored again into favour and grace I could adde others of as good judgement and experience as is any adversary Your reasons are invalid for 1. If regeneration be to faith and so be before it then it followeth that either we come not to Christ and become one with him by faith which elsewhere you affirme as do others or else regeneration doth precede our union which is against the noon-light of Scriptures We are in Christ before we become new creatures 2 Cor. 5.17 Joh. 15.1 2. 2. Then regeneration is not the begetting of man again to God as Jam 1.18 but a begetting of new qualities or a renewing of Gods Image in him who as yet is a sinner in the state of nature a Child of wrath c. And so the accident will be before and without its proper subject there being found the likeness of a Sonne without the Sonship it-self Or at least by your opinion one may be regenerated and so the Child of God who is not as yet justified nor in favour and acceptance with God This is clear if regeneration be to faith And then we are to believe that we may be justified reconciled c. 3. Then also either the word is not the seed of our new birth as 1 Pet. 1.23 or else the word is effectual to regenation without and before faith But the word profiteth not without faith Heb. 4.2 And faith is first required to make us Sonnes of God as Joh. 1.12 The power to become the Sonnes of God is given to them that receive Christ or believe in him so Gal. 3.26 Ye are all the Children of God by faith in Christ Jesus If by faith then not before it Our second thoughts may be more satisfactory Mr. Rutherf pag. 257. Mortification and new obedience as Mr. T. and others say is but faith in Christ and not abstinence from wordly lusts that war against the soul Reply 1. Abstinence from worldly lusts cannot be mortification formally and properly so called for it is to kill and crucifie lust Gal. 5.24 that is more then to abstain from it 2. Your accusation is false for I say not so see the place again Mr. Rutherf pag. 272 To repent to mortifie sin is not to condemn all our works as Mr. T. saith Assert pag. 15 16. righteousness and judgement and our best things in us and then by faith to flee to grace nor is it to distrust our own righteousness and to embrace Christ in the promise Because 1. this is faith and we are justified by faith not by repentance and mortification neither receive we Christ by repentance Reply Your wrong is manifold for I confound not faith and repentance but say that they are inseparable in the subject and yet to be
distinguished as Mark 1.15 Repent and believe the Gospel 2. I do not make repentance and to mortifie sin all one as I there speak of repentance 3. Neither say I that to repent and to mortifie sinne is by faith to flye to grace embrace Christ c. The Law is against you as a false witness in all these And you cannot but perceive that I speak of that legal repentance and mortification which you with others so much stand for as requisite before faith Which is when a man is so laid open to himself so effectually convinced and wrought upon by the Law that he seeth acknowledgeth and renounceth all things in him and done by him as sinne and abomination before the Lord whatever esteem he hath had of them formerly or whatever shew they may make Yea and as sinne the sting of death appears and reviveth in all which is the very mortification the wounding and killing of the soul Rom. 7.10 so all these seeming excellencies and good things become mortified within him and his heart that lived and rejoyced in them now dyeth unto them finding nothing but vanity sin and death in all things out of Christ Thus he repenteth and changeth his mind with shame and sorrow that ever he so exalted and established his own righteousness of works as did Paul and those zealous Jews being converted to the faith And because we are necessitated to carry this body of death to the grave and therefore sin and death will ever and unavoidably be in us and all our works and we can by faith in Christ alone finde true righteousness life peace confidence joy and salvation hence Christ is our onely treasure who hath our hearts delight and all else are renounced and accounted as dung and dross Phil. 3.9 You neither may nor can rightly understand my words as spoken of that Evangelical repentance or mortifying of sin in life and conversation by the Spirit of which we read Rom. 8.13 Colos 3.5 Also you know that both in the Scriptures and Authors repentance is somtimes taken largely as comprehending faith also with the effects and fruits of it and so it is divided into mortification and vivification But fince all fulness is in Christ who is made unto us wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption that all our rejoycing should be in him he that liveth by faith in him is the onely mortified man Psal 73.25 Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth desired besides him Mr. Rutherf pag. 273. There be two things in the Law 1. The authority and power to command 2. To punish pag. 275. It s most false that Mr. T. saith To justifie and condemn are as proper and essential to the Law as to command 3. It s false that we are freed from active obedience to the moral Law because Christ came under the active obedience for law requires obedience out of love Reply These two authorities of the Law are repeated and inculcated by you and Mr. Burg. usque ad nanseam Dictator-like you still say It 's false it 's most false c. but where is there any truth or weight in what you say against me I can contemn your vain and reproachfull words and do account your self-coined distinctions as windy without warrant and weight You have a satisfactory answer in my former Reply I may challenge you to produce one syllable for a Law commanding without its condemning power Remember Matth. 5.17 18. 2. That the Law requires obedience out of love its true but we worke from self-love and for self-ends viz. that we may live thereby and not dye The first Adam by his obedience might have preserved himself in that life and state of holiness and happiness he had by creation but now in Christ our life and and felicity is attained and kept by faith we believe that we may live And we love and obey freely for no such ends as not standing and falling by our obedience or disobedience moral Also if our love be changed from legal into evangelical void of selfness Yet that altereth not the cords of the law nor the chaines we were in but Christ hath happily freed us from them The change is in the true Christian and in his estate but you can shew no change in the Law Neither do we destroy the Law as you slander us again but do establish it by faith Rom. 3.31 Where I see that Paul preached the same way that we do in that he was so put to clear and vindicate his Ministery as you do us This also will serve for that exception in pag. 275. where you set the same Coleworts before your Reader It is your constant doctrine that works have reward here and eternall life hereafter and that they be conditions and the way to life and glory how this will consist with faith and Christ let all judge Mr. Rutherf pag. 332. Town in Assertion pag. 56 58. A believer is as well saved already as justified by Christ and in him Divines say Our life and salvation is inchoate but they speak of life as it is in us subjectâ—è Quantum ad nos spectat or in respect of our sense and apprehension here in grace our faith knowledge sanctification is imperfect but in regard of imputation and douation our righteousness is perfect and he that believeth hath life not he shall have it or hath it in hope onely Answ If we have glory really actually perfectly but want it onely in sense we have the resurrection from the dead also actually we want nothing of the reality of heavrn but sense but we are not yet before the throne Therefore holy walking can be no way nor condition nor means of salvation c. therefore no wonder they reject all sanctification as not necessary and teach men to loose the reynes to all fleshly walking Reply Justification puts the soul into a present state of salvation The Scriptures are plain He hath saved us 2 Tim. 1.9 Tit. 3.5 Eph. 2.8 and These things have I written unto you that believe c. that ye may know that ye have eternal life 1 Joh. 5.13 This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in his Son ver 11. and Ephes 2.5 God hath quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus I muse you stumble in so clear light Hence saith Musculus Before God we are all that which he willed and also hath caused us to be Christ is not alone in his eyes but we also are conjoyned to him The Assertion doth present you with testimonyes sufficient you believe so farre as you see and feel If you deny our perfection in Christ our head In whom we are compleat Col. 2.10 deny also our union with him that we have received him have him are now the Sons of God 1 Joh. 3.2 Yea then deny that God hath given us as yet
Christ and life in and with him but all is still kept in suspence and reserved till future So where the Spirit of truth saith God hath given unto us Christ and eternal life in him your Ghost saith nay but he will his promise is de futuro give us them upon condition of our good works and by them as a way we must come to Christ and salvation God hath conveyed and given nothing by promise There is no Christ nor life in reality and substance communicated by the word and Sacrament these are empty shels The just liveth by faith what feedeth he on to nourish and encrease life what on the Wind well you teach that we must live in hope to have all in the end upon condition of our obedience and service And for this reason you call upon men to work and please God But the truth saith Christ hath received all for us and we enjoy all in him You say that because we hold works are no conditions of salvation therefore we loose mens reines to carnal walking It s a Popish cavil or slander And argueth a spirit in the Author too servile and mercenary which will do no good but for lucre and to gain by it and such a spirit must needs accompany your doctrine Mr. Rutherf pag. 463. Mr. T. saith In sanctification as well as in justification we are meer patients and can do nothing at all and pag. 464. The blessedness of man is onely passive not active in his holy walking Reply As this is objected in your other book so you have your answer to it But my words are in Assert pag. 68. What can you do to the sanctifying or changing of your self more then in your justification It s Gods act to sanctifie throughout you cannot make one hair white or black Who would think that Mr. Rutherf would quarrel with this You alter my words to make them capable of your gloss and sense But all men may see that I speak of the act of sanctification and not of the expression and fruits of it If you can sanctifie your self in whole or part glory in your freewil and power but that is the greatest arrogancy of Antichrist saith one So I leave you with your absurdity unto the worlds censure you shew neither text or reason against me 2. And that blessedness is passive not active in holy walking you must grant or when you say any thing against it deserving or requiring it you may then expect your answer Blessedness in holy walking is declarative shewing how God hath renewed and enlarged the heart but that phrase is yours not mine Mr. Rutherf Town the Antinomian said Pag. 501. David confessed his sins not according to truth and the confession of faith but from want and weakness of faith c. Reply My words are David prayed that his sins might be pardoned which you grant were pardoned Now then did he thus pray according to truth and the confession of faith or from want or weakness of faith and of the effectual apprehension of forgiveness Is not Mr. Rutherford now the Antinomian who against Law so palpably mistakes his Adversary There is great difference between confessing of sinne and praying for pardon If God my own conscience men yea Satan require that I confess my self a sinner I shall readily do it for this is to justifie God in his Law saying There is none righteous c. And this may well stand with my faith and effectual apprehension of pardon for I confess what I am in my self I believe what I am in Christ through that grace that justifieth the ungodly Thus while your mistakes onely make me erroneous whom otherwise you find not so who is now the Antinomian Is not the Author of the errour so all will returne to your own discredit and disadvantage And what a gross slander is that which followeth viz. Town and all Antinomians teach that it is unbeliefe a worke of the flesh of old Adam c. that justified persons confess or feel sin sorrow or complain of the body of sin as Paul Rom. 7 This is as if the continual dwelling of sinne in us did not trouble us or could not consist with faith in justification by Christ or that now the spiritual estate of the soul being clear and safe made up in Christ sin in no other regard were sorrow or trouble to us But you cannot in this neither make good your charge You care little how falsly you accuse us so that you make your Bill foul and black enough to make us still more odious and vile M. Rutherf pag. 505. M. T. contendeth for a compleat perfection not onely of persons justified but also of performances so that saith he pag. 75. I believe there is no sin malediction or death in the Church of God he will have a perfection not of parts but also of degrees this he proves from Luthers words perverted Reply What perfection I contend for you must yeeld me or else with your heart you believe not that there is a holy Church which is indeed as Luther saith nothing else but I believe that there is no sin no malediction no death in the Church of God but this is in Christ not in our selves by justification not by inherent sanctification for this is imperfect You say I pervert Luther take his words again So mightily saith he worketh faith that he that believeth that Christ hath taken away sin from him he like Christ is void of sin Again Christ will have us to believe that like as in his own person there is now no sin nor death even so there is none in ours there is no defect in the thing it self but in our incredulity Let us see what construction or sense you can make of these words But you pervert my words or meaning as if I meant it that sin dwelleth not still in us a fiction But Luther addeth as you read in the Assertion That to reason its a hard matter to believe these inestimable good things and unspeakable riches Moreover Satan with his fiery darts and his Ministers with their wicked and false doctrine go about to wrest it from us and utterly to deface this doctrine and specially for this Article we sustaine the cruel hatred and persecution of Satan and the world for Satan feeleth the power and fruit of this Article Consider what you Read M. Rutherf pag. 510. When D. Tailer objects as a limb of their fleshly divinity No action of a believer after justification is sin M. T. Answers Nothing but of the way no action is sin the disorder or ataxie of the action is sin But D. T. meaneth that there is no disorder in the action of a justified man by their way c. can this be any but the divinity of the flesh Reply If the Dr. say it you will swear it But my answer is direct to his words yet sith you now help me to know his meaning I say there is disorder in
grant you repentance Amen Mr. Rutherf pag. 575. There is a twofold keeping in of sinners one meerly legal they care not for Mr. T. Gaole Reply The law is not my Gaole but Gods and both they and you may be made to minde it more then either yet doth you speak too contemptibly Mr. Rutherf Mr. T. will have the believer so free so perfect as the law needs not to teach nor direct him in one stop he doth all without a keeper by the free compulsion of a Spirit separated from Scriptures which is right down A believer is neither under law nor Gospel but a Spirit separated from both guides him Reply When I say the Spirit of the Lord is his keeper do I teach then he hath no keeper 2. He receiveth the Spirit that leads him by the Gospel how false then is your charge who speak or dream of a spirit separated from Gospel and not I. And yet the Spirit breatheth and bloweth in the heart and the voice or sound of it is there heard when there is no sillable of outward Law or Gospel but you have sufficient answer before As for your instances of Joseph and David I ask of you whether it was the Spirit within that kept them from offending or the law T. pag. 5 6. I muse you omit to shew what it is to be under Grace Mr. Rutherf Dr. Taylor did not omit to shew what it is if you did not omit to read his words he is clear to any Reply Before you complained you could not see what was plain before you but now you can see what is not extant this is the fruit of partiality Mr. Rutherf But let your exposition stand you are not under the law as teaching directing regulating believers in the way of righteousness but the Gospel giveth power to subdue sin without any teaching or regulating power of the law But what is the power of subduing sin to the Antinomians not sanctification but justification that is a power to believe that Christ hath obeyed law for me we are obliged to no personal sanctification c. then to be inherently holy is unlawful to Antinomians Reply The exposition is not mine verbatim yet even in your owne expression the light of truth is so clear and convincing on our part that you turn your back on it as afraid to meddle And being disposed to take occasion to wrangle you demand what it is to subdue sin whereas it is set before you even the weakening of the power of sin within us that it domineer not over us Indeed the Prophet Micah 7.19 useth the phrase of subduing by justification and that is a true subduing it in the conscience that it there raign not to death condemnation And yet by your confession this must precede and is the proper cause of subduing it in conversation and then that will necessarily follow issuing out of this faith So that in fine this is but a Papistical cavil That to teach justification is the overthrow of holiness and good works Lastly whereas you tell of obliging to sanctification I answer we are to believe that God will sanctifie us and that throughout and put his Spirit into us to lead us in his wayes and so in that faith desiring and hungering after it to seek to him as a sick man longing for health unto his Physitian and to wait in the use of his ordinances that he may so perform The new Covenant properly requireth nothing of man but God knowing his spiritual poverty and utter disability calleth upon him to seek to him who worketh both the will and the deed of his owne pleasure Open thy mouth and I will fill it Psal 81. Your slanderous conclusion is both against the rule of Gods law and of all humane arts But such extravagancy becometh or still pleaseth Mr. Rutherford T. Assert pag. 6. I deny not the law to be an eternal and inviolable rule of righteousness yet the Grace of the Gospel doth truly and effectually conform us unto it Mr. Rutherf pag. 578. I ask to whom the law is a rule if to Believers then they must be under it 2. That rule the grace conformeth unto we must be under 3. An inviolable rule of justice cannot be violated without sin Then the Believer cannot violate the law and murder but they must sin and violate the rule c. Reply It s true the law is an inviolable rule but not to him as a Believer or in the things of his Faith but here he departs from it for he doth not the Law to be saved but believeth after the rule of the Gospel 2. If you consider him morally I see not but he may be conformed to the rule of the law and yet not under it but under grace and the rule of the spirit which conformeth him 3. In this your moral or civil conception of him you take him quite out of Christs kingdom where grace reigneth And now grant he doth murder and sin It is death and condemnation by the same rule and law so that he must be totally removed out of the limits of the law before he can be freed and secured from either sin or death You leave faith and fall from grace in all your arguments And they are as forcible to maintain the condemning power of the law to believers as the regulating for where the law regulates it may condemn and so it doth the best Saint here if you bring him and his life under it T. Assert pag. 7. Through faith is bred assured confidence lively hope c. M. Rutherf pag. 579. This is a close perverting of the word of truth the Antinomians faith may here be smelt then whoever once wavereth or doubteth are yet under the law of works A doctrine of despair to broken reeds who cry I believe help my unbelief Reply I must commend to you Jam. 1.6 7. But observe good Reader what is here excepted against viz. Through Faith in Christ is bred assured confidence lively hope pure love towards God invocation of his name without wavering fear or doubting not questioning his good will audience acceptance which would never be effected by all the zeal and conscience towards God according to the law of works And now judge impartially what truth can be current with Mr. Rutherf I aske 1. can assured confidence lively hope c. come or be effected any way else then by faith in Christ If there want light at Noon-day Read Heb. 3.9 where your Bible-Note saith That he calleth that excellent effect of faith whereby we cry Abba Father confidence and to confidence he joyneth hope which is termed a lively hope that God begets unto 1 Pet. 1.3 see also Heb. 10.22 23. Rom. 15.13 and 10.14 How shall they call on him on whom they have not believed But it is like this moveth M. Rutherf that it is said that these cannot be attained by all the zeal according to the law of works yet Paul clears it Eph. 2.18 That
through Christ we have entrance unto the Father and Eph. 3.12 By him we have boldness and entrance with confidence by faith in him If Mr. Rutherf object But these are not in full and absolute perfection where yet true faith may be Who saith so or who but Mr. Rutherf would so closely pervert the truth that I may retort his owne words Being justified by faith we have peace c. In whom believing ye rejoyce c. God hath begotten us againe to a lively hope c. Rom. 5.1 1 Pet. 1.3 8. Nay saith Mr. Rutherf This is a close perverting of the truth for he doubts not but that there are many weak believers of a trembling timerous and troubled spirit whose faith is not yet able to over-master their fears which cause torment and disquietness but I cease And Mr. Rutherf hereby smels our faith Reply Naribus utilis yet no unsavory errour And know it that it is the effect of the law of works upon the natural conscience and the unbelief of the Gospel that keep the soul in bondage through that slavish fear Mr. Rutherf ibid. The covenant of grace commands faith and also good works as witnesses of faith but Mr. T. will have good works in any Notion of an Evangelick command to stand at defiance with the covenant of grace Repl. What contend you for if you grant grace to be the fountain-cause of all holy walking then not the law 2. If it be a lively and free fountain then doth holiness issue out of it as a pleasant stream and how now do good works stand at defiance with the covenant of grace Besides it is said Catachrestiâ—â—s abusively and not properly that the covenant of grace commands faith and good works for it promiseth to give both to them who have power to neither Lastly these works are not done as conditions to obtain eternal life for that is said passim to be by faith without works faith for salvation good works for conversation Mr. Rutherf ibid. The man under the law cannot give himself to be ruled by the law after the minde and will of God as Mr. T. saith except Antinomians be Pelagians Reply It s a palpable wrong I have no such words as that a man under the law can give himself to be ruled by it after the mind and will of God you have a strange conscience that no better bridleth you though your affections be void of love to your Adversary I might more truely reply by your doctrine That a man under the law can do it for you free none from under it or else you are not ruled by it after the mind and will of God And that is most propable who now is the Pelagian But to deal plainly what say you of Paul and many zealous Jews who in earnest applied themselves to do the things of the Law so that Paul saith touching it he was blameless and that before his conversion to the faith To do it after the mind and will of God is your addition Mr. Rutherf Paul speaks of a man under the Law in the flesh and in opposition to that under Grace married to Christ he that is dead to the Law married to Christ and serves God spiritually And it 's clear the Apostle counts it a part of deliverance from the Law and a fruit of our marriage to Christ that we bring forth fruit to God walk holily and serve in newness of spirit Reply Jam convenimus What contend you for all is granted that I desire or said for 1. then Christ and not the Law as a husband makes fruitfull 2. Then there was a serving of God under the Law in the oldness of the letter 3. Where or how then find you me to be against holy walking and according to the rule of righteousness Is not this your false slander Assert How can Christ redeem us from the Law except in the same sense and extent that Christ was under it Mr. Rutherf 1. Christ was under the Law of Ceremonies I hope Gentiles were not under that Reply The question is of the moral and you talk vainly of ceremonial Mr. Rutherf If Christ was under the Law as a rule to free us from it why commands he to imitate him Reply Christ was under the Law for life even to obtaine favour and salvation for us so he is in the end of the Law for righteousness to all that believe 2. It is by his spirit and power any imitate him walking as he did and so do keep the Law as he did freely in love not for self-life or self-ends for so did Christ who sought not himself Assert pag. Mr. T. hath a strange evasion The spirit is free why will you controle and rule it by the Law whereas the nature of it is freely to conforme heart and life to the outward rule of the law without the help of the law as a crooked thing is made straight c. Mr. Rutherf To do the will of God meerly as commanded from the power of an outward commandment is legal saith Saltmatsh and Mr. T. saith it is to controul the free spirit Three means saith T. are passive to hear read receive Sacraments are so many restraints laid on the free spirit Reply I say again If the spirit rule you according to the Law then neither Law nor you do rule it but the Law is onely the rule or pattern according to which the Spirit formeth you What can be more plain to him that will see and grant any truth And this makes no contrariety but a sweet harmony between the word and the spirit yea and establisheth the Law by the faith and Spirit of the Gospel And here you would range us among the old Anabaptists Enthusiasts c. and love to expatiate having burst the banks and bounds of charity and truth I am not more strange to you then this is to me That you are of such a spirit 2. Where say I that meanes are passive The Spirit is pleased to blow sweetly by all Evangelical meanes as Preaching Prayer Sacraments c. and we rightly using them do carry our selves passively that the Spirit may thereby breath and give life to our Spirits and that we may have it more abundantly Mr. Rutherf What T. meaneth in saying The spirit freely conformeth the heart to it Reply The sense is easie and plain if your mind were not finister Mr. Rutherf If the meaning be that the Law of it self cannot convert a man to God Antinomians father most falsly such dreames on us but if the Spirit conform us to the outward rule of the Law then must the Law be yet a rule to our obedience Reply When you please you can spell out my meaning But 1. Whether it be your dream or no I leave it Yet you know that your Brethren so hold and teach and may be forced to own this brat or novell-assertion of theirs 2. As if Mr. Rutherf were in a dream he in his other book would seem
of the law and need no more make use of justification nor have Christ for our shadow and protection Mr. Rutherf p. 591. That the Saints are meer patients and blocks in all their holy walking is gross libertinisme Reply But how unjustly do you charge this upon your Adversary who saith onely in the act of sanctification in which the Spirit onely acteth Is not this to pervert what is spoken M. Rutherf No way cryeth to the conscience of the traveller This is the way as the law doth in its directing and ruling power c. Reply The law materially is resembled to the high-way and its true the high-way calleth not to the passenger to keep his way yet the authority of the King doth so call and require so then it is not the law as we consider it and speak of it but God the Author of the law who commandeth to walk in it And if God in so doing convince you of unrighteousness for your going astray Is not his grace in the Gospel your dayly needful refuge and plea or you still are in no danger nor fear because law cannot condemn for God say you is pleased with what the poor man can do or give Thus you live under a law securely which is as weak as your self and will be content with with any thing as you list or can obey Whereas I on the other side say that the law hath lost no power nor part of its perfection Matth. 5.17 18. And therefore it convinceth all of sin and condemneth such as are found under it because in many things we sin all In our best works we are found faulty and judged that we may finde no rest nor safety but in the righteousness of Christ by faith Let the Reader judge who is in the errour But it is no marvel you so mis-call mistake pervert your Adversary and falsly accuse him as you do passion and yet have no check of conscience for it seeing you are so principled that you may transgress and do any thing impure that is Scot-free by your law and are not led by a right-Gospel-Spirit Town pag. 10. The law wrappeth every man in sin for the least transgression Mr. Rutherf pag. 593. Still Antinomians bewray their engine If me say being justified we have no sin we lye 1 John 1.10 then there cannot be a man nyon the earth but he is under the curse of God Antinomians say the justified are freed from the curse then they have no sinne nay they cannot sinne by their Argument for they will have the curse essentially and inseparably to follow sinne which is most false Reply 1. If we be justified from the curse then from the sin which yet we have remaining in us Coram judieio Dei for the cause is taken away before the effect 2. Else by the contrary Christ is not our righteousness in justification which is opposed to sin but onely our blessedness in stead of the curse that was upon us how then is it said he brought in everlasting righteousness Dan. 9.24 And that we are made the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 So there is no man indeed but he is under the curse if the blood of Christ have not washed him from his sinne as Rev. 1.5 He hath loved us and washed us from our sinne 3. In order justification is after sinne and it being extensive to all sinnes past present and to come it must presuppose future sinnes also as done before it abolish either sinne or curse due for sinne 4. You say It s most false that sinne and the curse be inseparable but you neither prove nor can shew any thing to the contrary Indeed a carnally secure heart is apt to separate them and is thereby hardened presuming to sinne without danger or fear Deut 29.19 If you allow of his engine as better suiting with your own you may well mislike ours 5. Here you tell us of an unscripture-like and ungrounded distinction of a twofold misery and guilt and so of deliverance c. But I confess I understand not your meaning and would be loth to mistake or pervert you as you do me Your Simile giveth me most light viz. That as the rising of the Sun is the way to the full noon-day c. I answer but so it is no act of ours but of the Spirit sanctifying us throughout till we be perfected in our selves and so it is not simply our repentance and new-obedience which are consequences effects and expressions of that renovation or sanctification And I demand also Is not that blot it self so taken away ut non imputetur as not reckoned to us by the death of Christ though it abide physically or inherently yet in our accounts it is abolished and blotted out Lastly I must that you will except against that expression in Assert pag. 15. The Law of workes is so inwrapt and entwined together that if a man lay hold on any even the least link he inevitably pulleth the whole chaine upon himself And yet what you say is of no force Your repentance and love of brethren if you understand your self do pull the whole Law upon you as they be your acts You cannot oblige your self in part and in some degrees onely as you please Wo to that life most commendably passed over if the grace of the Gospel be not to pardon all imperfections All our righteousnesses are as filthy ragges Isa 64.6 Therefore durst not Paul be found in his own righteousness Phil. 3.9 Mr. Rutherf pag. 595. Our obedience is not full and perfect onely it 's so counted and accepted in Christ Reply If this were all your meaning that our obedience or works as proceeding from us or as we perform them are imperfect yet are accepted as perfect in Christ I could receive it But you explain your self otherwise 1. You say It is not so and yet it is accounted perfec doth not God account it rightly as it is 2. You are against all sound Protestant Divines if you hold of acceptance with God of any work because of any proper formal inherent dignity in it or if you do not make Christ the alone ground reason and cause of all acceptance whether of persons or performances 3. It is true God accounts not us non-sinners in our selves and free from all indwelling sinne for that were an untruth but he both justifieth us by faith in Christ and makes us pure and free from all spot of sinne before his Judgement seat Col. 1.22 1 Joh. 1.7 The blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sinne Now you are pleased to expatiate and to amplifie your self needlesly and wilfully to wrest our words as if â— we did not hold the good works of the regenerate to be faulty in themselves 2 As if we meant by the removal as you call it or abolition of finne such an annihilation of sinne in its essence root and branch that it should not dwell in us here whereas you know and read the
are onely of force for that and during Christ time 2 Exception 2 Against what is said to 1 Cor. 11. Mr. Rutherf saith Faith doth no more hinder a justified person to receive unworthily the Lords Supper then it doth hinder him to commit Adultery Reply It 's true faith is not alway effectual in all to hinder the doing of both these But what then Is it not for want of the exercise of faith in vigour life and perfection that these or any other sins are not prevented So if faith do not hinder what then can hinder what purifieth the heart and rightly principleth and disposeth the soul to all good actions but faith but not faith as a dead quality or habit lying still and idle within but as it 's lively and operative according to its nature and property 2. What else doth the Soul in eating and drinking the Lords Supper imploy or set on work but faith Nay is the act of eating and drinking formally any other thing but to believe So that if faith be not to be put forth and exercised and then where is justification there may be a bodily action in using the visible Elements which is unworthy indeed and not befitting a Christian but no spiritual eating as the Ordinance requireth You make your self sport saying Mr. T 's sense seemeth to carry That a justified person cannot sinne nor eat and drink unworthily because faith makes him worthy and if so the way is a wanton merry way Reply My words speak no such thing if you lift to spell them aright but if your ill-will suffer you not The Lord forgive and amend it Faith includeth all It presupposeth hunger and thirst before eating 2. a true and spiritual receiving 3. inward refreshing and satisfaction thereby whence 4. followeth love rejoycing with thanksgiving so that he who eateth and drinketh in faith cannot eat and drink unworthily The ground out of which all your seven Arguments grow and receive their supposed strength is that mixt-justice or that Mosaical-Government which we do not now live under And therefore that failing they will all totter and fall It needs then your second hand and labour to uphold and confirm it Moreover to the seventh and last requiring some more particular answer I say 1. That all afflictions are subservient to the Law and signes of wrath is no errour or position of ours neither is our assertion founded upon it 2. Yet as afflictions come from justice offended and provoked to inflict them for sinne so they are appendices of the Law and you cannot disprove it 3. You adde as a thing that we hold That as believers are freed from the ruling power of the Law so are they also from the Rod. Whereas 1. your doctrine by a direct and necessary consequence doth free the believer from the ruling power of the Law while you place him under a mixt-Government of justice and mercy for the Law is pure justice without mixture and a strict and exact rule without mitigation 2. It is false that we free believers from the Rod as your own eyes may witness while you read our positions for we do not cry down all Crosses and secure the justified from all affliction In this our way we have had and still expect many a scratch and prick from you and others and yet not for any desert or errour that all your diligence can finde and prove Your other pretended errour is cleared before Lastly though Christ paid for sins before yet the Law acquits them not nor conscience apperehends it not before actual justification 3 Exception is against the Covenant Mr. Rutherf Some teach this Covenant hath no condition so Dr. Crisp and other Libertines Reply We must have your lash and unworthy brand also You may sin and we are made to suffer but unless you bring in Free-will this Covenant of Grace will prove absolute no part of it lying on us for that presupposeth some power and goodness where is none for this Covenant is with man being fallen and so having lost all therefore it behoveth that it should be sutable to his broken state requiring neither promising no good conditionally where nothing could be first given by him 2. It is granted by all that all was transacted between God the Father and the Sonne from eternity and that the Covenant as it cometh and is commended to us is as the breaking up of that great seal the opening and manifestation of those secrets concluded upon so farre as they concern the raising of the Elect of God out of their sinful dust unto everlasting blessedness so that what is in the decree of heaven concerning them the same is contained in the Covenant then as God purposed to give repentance faith holiness so he hath included and promised all in the Covenant and these are truely parts and branches of it and not properly conditions Now we see that as there were thoughts of peace in God for us when we were in our lowest and worst condition and in what way and after what manner his mind is to recover our souls from their lost Estates and restore and give life favour and glory unto them so by this Covenant also he hath laid cleared to us a firm ground upon which we may with comfort and considence expect and wait for faith and all things to be given freely unto us This agreeth to the expressions of Zanchie Calvin Parous c. Indeed God observeth his due and set order in giving and working one thing before and another after so as a prius and a posterius is granted but the first suppose repentance or faith is not a condition of what followeth except with us and according to these Authors you will call it a condition of state that is Conditio statuâ— God bringeth the soul unto such a state or case as he humbleth it and then giveth Grace c. Thus many promises are with an if If ye repent if ye believe then thus it shall be unto you and denote onely order and consequence as Calvin saith not condition As a Husbandman soweth not his land till it be plowed and fitted if he be asked why he doth not commit his seed to it he will answer it must be prepared first but one part of his worke is not the condition of the other when the whole lyeth on him Again if the promise to give faith and repentance be not in the Covenant where is it to be found Is there any thing to be looked for not mentioned in the Covenant 3. You call it a Covenant of Grace now if it be of Grace then works are excluded yea repentance and faith as our acts and if it be free that necessarily fighteth against all conditions it cannot be free and conditional The more freely the riches of Gods Grace is held forth the more glorious and admirable is it in our eyes Besides it is your expression That Christ is a party contracting or a Covenanter undertaking for
tendering Christ to thieves c. whoso upon that ground or tender receiveth him in so doing doth confess himself a thief and if he were not self-convicted and condemned he would never believe or receive Christ for the end of the action is it that putteth him upon the action he believeth in Christ or receiveth him that he may be saved therefore he seeth he is lost and cannot otherwise be saved This is clear But that expression is most strange when you say that sinners remaining in that damnable state do believe For 1. Can they possibly be out of that damnable state before they believe or any other way but by faith in Christ 2. Again if they believe in Christ can you imagine that they shall remain in statu quo prius What a false myst is this or vile dust that you cast before the eyes of people but you are in the net and your end is perceived But what preparations would you desire more then that God should give a heart to such sinners to come to Christ a heart sensible of sin apprehensive of danger desirous to be in a secure condition and that is resolved that peace and safety is onely in Christ and by Christ else the soul cometh not to Christ and if it come not to him it hath no encouragement by Dr. Crisp's Ministery Do not condemn the innocent You often speak of a lazie dead faith If yours were truely operative we should finde you more in the way of truth and charity Faith worketh by love Gal. 5.6 I end commending to your second thoughts your own words pag. 128. Though thou were upon the borders of hell yet the Gospel though it except thee from all actual mercy yet not from the duty of believing and coming to Christ Those that sin against the holy Ghost are condemned for unbelief Be reconciled first to your self and so to the Doctor 8 Exception against Mr. Town Mr. Rutherf Mr. Town saith All our obedience as it is the work of the Spirit is passive Reply Here I observe a twofold failing 1. In that the occasion of these words and unto which they relate is concealed Dr. Tailer said God looketh not on their obedience as theirs but as it is his own work in them Now then I grant it in a sort to be his own work but so it is passive to us and so it must be unless you put no difference between what the Spirit worketh in and upon us and what we work by the same Spirit for here we act And your dealing is not fair in that you leave out the words in them for so Mr. T. saith What the Spirit worketh is passive to them But 2. see how you pervert this and so infer as you please That now it is sacriledge for us to be holy and to adde any of our active holiness to Christs active obedience Repl. The former Clause ariseth not from my premises as you cannot but see unless this be the meaning to make our selves holy which is Gods work alone not ours at all And if you will adde our active holiness to Christs it is no other then sacriledge though Mr. T. hath no such words for you steal and take from Christ what you put to your own obedience M. Rutherf page 121. Use Antinomians cry down duties This is not the way of grace Repl. You take it to be your duty and part unjustly to charge your brethren 2. Duties are to be cried and chased out of the way of Free-grace if you rightly conceive and take it as Eph. 2.8 9. Tit. 3.5 Rom. 11.6 But they are not to be denied in practice and conversation Mr. Rutherf p. 126. Often that which troubleth is subtil and invisible pride he will not believe for want of self-worthiness as I dare not rest on Christ nor apply promises because of my sinful unworthiness I am not good enough for Christ Then you adde Right and saving humiliation conjoyned with faith c. Repl. First you principle your hearers by your doctrine for such temptations and thoughts telling them that sinners as sinners have nothing to do with Christ they must be better qualified bring saving humiliation repentance and faith and now you chide and reprove them for such conceits of their wants and unworthiness as to be thereby letted and deterred for coming to Christ This is your inconstancie And if now you apprehend this to be the ordinary and usual temptation of a troubled dejected sinner desirous of Christ and would clear it that self-unworthiness is no bar why are you so invective against Dr. Crisp Oh consider and be better advised But it is improper and unscripture-like to call humiliation saving as also inconsistent with self-unworthiness 9 Exception Dr. Crisp We cannot gather assurance of a spiritual state from holy walking Mr. Rutherf Holy walking is performed by that efficacious grace promised in the Covenant as an argument on which we may build our peace as a grace threeded upon the free promise Repl. He that believeth is onely in a safe and sure state Joh. 3.36 2. The question will be Whether the holy walking be performed by that efficacious grace of the Covenant You must know it as an effect of such a cause for all walking in a Legal way will not argue it as we see in Paul while a Pharisee Phil. 3.8 First the soul must be in the covenant of Grace and be certain of that else it cannot say This is the performance of the promise nor That holiness of mine is threeded upon the promise A servant may be obedient as well as a childe but that will neither make nor prove him free in Christ by adoption It was not Abel's sacrifice that did witness his faith for Cain sacrificed also but his faith proved his offering to be good and acceptable Heb. 11.4 But I must that any experienced man should say that there is no more light of evidencing a good estate nor more certain ground of peace and comfort in a true justifying faith then is in holy walking and sincerity or should oppose Dr. Crisp seeing his doctrine is not onely true but so very necessary especially considering how Some of you grant that many do seek and gather all their peace and comfort in a meer Legal way and by their reformation and performances in whom the Law never wrought to death and condemnation that all their life and hope might be the faith of Christ their righteousness He that was sensibly dead knoweth how he was quickned and restored to life and he that knoweth in himself what death and life is If then he need and can do it he may use his after-holiness and obedience as Adminicula fidei but so ut alibi statuat solidura firmamentum Calv. See more in answer to Mr. Burgess if need require 10 Exception Mr. Rutherf Mr. Eaton brings divers Reasons to prove that we are not both righteous in the sight of God and yet sinners in our selves Repl. What an open