I will confess though in my judgment I am perswaded that what I have writ is the truth and it is nothing but truth that made me write it yet does my heart a little misgive me that it were better to let pious men alone to such apprehensions as they have imbibed though mingled with much darkness and some errour in such a point as this where so much of their peace and life is bound up then to offer them any unsettlement by cleerer light though I were able indeed to bring it to them I may be allowed to be sorry if I offend any body but I ought to have a care I stumble none who are good men and live godly Neither would I streighten my own soul If there be any thing more therefore in the imputation of Christs righteousness then I have expressed in that paper which I know not I doe not part with my portion in it I protest thus much but will rather renounce all upon the conviction to cleave to it That Christs righteousness does justify us from the Law and so from sin and from condemnation I do hold no less then others but that Christs righteousness does justify us by the Law is an overgrown conception It is certain that no works of man be we never so holy are able to stand before God in his disstrict judgment that is if he should deal with us according to the exact justice of the Law without shewing us any mercy which will be acknowledged by Protestants and Papists who are ready to pray both with David Enter not into judgment with thy servants O Lord for in thy sight shall no flesh living be justified If any Papist then shall think that mans righteousness is made so perfect by Christs merits or any Protestant that Christs righteousness it self is so made ours as that we are justified by the Law upon that account they are both mistaken This is the only true extreamity on both sides for it is not by the Law but by Faith by the Evangelical covenant or by Grace that we are justified We are not under the Law sayes the the Apostle but under grace It is enough for a poor sinner to have a righteousness imputed to him without works and that he is pardoned but to have a righteonsness imputed to him with works is more then we can sind to be allowed him Christs righteousness is such and to have that made ours in it self or so as that in Gods reckoning we must be as righteous as he I must needs say it is not harder perhaps to believe that the bread is turned into Christs body where we have a text for it in the Sacrament then to believe such a conceit for which we have no Scripture at all in the matter of Justification What then Do I deny Imputation No but I explain it It is by the righteousness of Christ not inherent in us our Divines will say Ordinarily but imputed to us that we are justified And what if I thus interpret this for them that is not as if we had done in his person what Christ did but by his righteousness made ours in the effects only So the very Learned Bishop Forbs expresly Hoc est Quoad effectum fructum See Considerationes modestae De justificatione l. 2. c. 2. I will use the same words as they use but I am not bound to the same construction Even as I will speak of mans insufficiency I mentioned before as other Divines do and as the Scriptures do that we can do nothing but I will keep the due interpretation I will say we can and that we cannot without loss of my liberty for I must understand it with its right measures I will say I can in confession of my sin and acknowledging God just I will say I cannot in the sense of my corruption and the imploring his grace Indeed a man can hardly consider the Doctrin of St. James never so little with that of Paul which is one part of my paper but it will lead him to the other which is to see that what our Protestants say ordinarily on this matter does need a favourable exposition It is a jejune thing I count to bring the great dispute that Paul hath with the Jewes about justification to this result only whether we are justified by Faith or the proper Work or Fruits of it It is but a little more satisfactory to bring it only to this whether it be by the observation of Moses Law For though this was the occasion of the dispute and the Apostle therefore does shew them how it was by the Promise and so by Faith that Abraham and the Jewes themselves had life and not by the Law which was but a Schoolmaster to lead them thereunto or unto Christ yet it is manifest that he advances the point higher while he tells them that by Works neither Jew nor Gemile could be justified so that by works he must mean the observation of that Law of works which was common to both and not Moses Law only and the resolution of the dispute in both Apostles comes to this as I have said that it is by the performance of the covenant of Grace and not of the ovenant of works or Law of Moses that a man is to look for life everlasting I must add Nor are they to be heard in a third place who say that the dispute between Paul and the Jewes is neither of these but whether we are justified by our own righteousness or by the righteousness of Christ and so resolve that it is not by any works which we do even Faith it self as a work but by the works Christ hath done for us that is by the obedience of his life and death only For though this be taught ordinarily by our Protestants and is coincident with the first result there is one thing I must say these Divines have not considered which I have offered them in my paper that must bring them to another understanding It is this that the Apostle does indeed stand much upon the Righteousness of God in opposition to works in the business of justification but never opposes our works to the Righteousness of Christ the Righteousness of Christ in their sense being truly a very contrary thing to the Righteousness of God in the sense of the Apostle The righteousness of God according to the A ostle if I may then describe it but as well as I can and as the thing is and a little more fully then I have in my former paper is on Gods part his taking our human frailey or falne nature into that meet consideration as not to deale with us in his district judgment which we cannot beare but according to his Covenant of Mercy the righteousness sacrifice attonement or satisfaction of Christ being supposed as the foundation upon which his Justice does stand good notwithstanding this condescention And consequently on Mans part this righteousness is our imperfect duty performed in sincerity
according to this new Law and so for Christs sake accepted to Salvation In this sense am I apt to understand that everlasting Righteousness which is brought in by the Messiah or by his covenant in Daniel and in this sense do I construe that Title The Lord our Righteousness Only when I have said in my former paper that it is not appropriated to the second Person I desire not to be so taken as if I supposed that by the Branih in the two Texts of Jeremy where we find it Zcrubabble only was meant though a total silence in the new Testament of so pertinent a quotation for Christ if it were spoken of him might well tempt Grotius to that interpretation but that the Divinity of Christ being thereby asserted it is a Title that must belong to him as God and not as Second person For the Son is Lord and the Father is Lord and the Holy Ghost Lord and yet not three Lords but one Lord The Lord our Righteousness There is the uncreated absolute righteousness of God which is the Divine essence it self for as God is Truth in the abstract so is he Righteousness or the created relative righteousness of God that is his righteousness set forth in relation to us which consists in his dealing with us as his Creatures according to our conditions This relative righteousness then is double The Righteousness or Justice of God according to the Covenant of works and the righteousness or equity of God according to the Covenant of grace The one I count to be that our Divines call his Strict the other his Paternal Justice When God made man at first and gave him the Law of his Creation he was to deale with him according to this perfect Law and it was but equal according to his perfect state and this being the original righteousness as I may say of God in relation to us there are none of us but do find some sense of it in our hearts that makes us not so much only to fear as to be afraid of him under that apprehension But there is another righteousness then this which was ever afoot in the world since the promise of the womans seed or else there were no man could have bin Saved though it be said to be now manifested as brought in in Daniels phrase because the reason upon which it is founded that is mans reconciliation to God by Christ is revealed by the Gospel and this is the righteousness of God opposed to works or to his strict Justice which he was bound to exercise according to the Covenant of works that is so magnified by the Apostle And here now is a distinction to be used which I want Termes to express For this righteousness of God must be considered with regard to himself which is his dealing with us according to the Covenant of Faith for Christs sake when he might deale with us according to the Covenant of Nature if he would and with regard to us or to the condition upon which he does so mercifully deale with us As the Love of God is taken in Scripture both for his Love towards us and our Love of him So is the Righteousness of God taken for both these his dealing with us according to this covenant and the condition on our part which he accepts And hence is it that when it is called the Righteousness of God in one place it is called the Righteousness of Faith in another and in a third the Righteousness which is of God by Faith Now when it is our faith our repentance our new obedience which is the Righteousness of God it self taken help me to two Termes whereby we are justified in opposition to the works of the Law which no man can perform to be justified by them and our Divines by works will understand all good works even this faith it self as a work as was said and our Evangelical obedience insomuch as when there is no righteousness but what is without us can be opposed to these it makes them by the Righteousness of God to understand the Righteousness of Christ who is God and by faith the righteousness of Christ apprehended by Faith which are in good earnest conceptions so strained it appeares if I may use those words in humility how being ignorant of the Righteousness of God in the right notion and going about to establish in a contrary vein to the Jews a righteousness which is not their own but anothers in the stead of that which it is not they have not submitted to the truth in this Doctrin of Justification And here in now farther does appeare the ground of reconciliation between the Papists and us upon the point For when the one and the other let their Books be consulted do goe on the supposition that it is by the Law the Law of works that we are justified this Hypothesis being removed the opposition on both sides falls to the ground That no man can bring or plead any such righteousness of his own before God as answers the Law the Protestant must needs be in the right and consequently if it were by the Law that we must stand or fall at his Tribunal there was a necessity for their bringing in the righteousness of Christ made ours by faith as they do to justify us but when indeed it is not so when it is not I say by the Law but by the Covenant of Grace or by the Gospel that we are to be judged it is some wonder to me this plain truth should be no better understood That Gods judging a man to have performed the condition of the covenant of grace is the accounting or declaring him righteous and that Gods accounting a man righteous is his justification Let no man deceive you says St. John he that doth righteousness is righteous That righteousness which makes a man righteous and denominates him righteous is that righteousness which makes God account him righteous But this is the righteousness which he does Note it for it is express And what righteousness is that Why Not the righteousness of works which no man does but the righteousness of the Gospel that is in the stile of the other Apostle a righteousness without works to wit without the works of the Law or perfect works in the sense he sayes also God justifies the ungodly so that it is by Grace while it it by this Righteousness which does and must lean on the merits of Christ no less then we say Faith it self does that we are justified and saved That the end of Christs coming into the world of our redemption and the Covenant of Grace was that we should be holy and righteous is said ordinarily by Divines according to the Scriptures but the right and plain understanding or reason of what they say is not so ordinary He hath chosen up in Christ that we should be holy He hath redeemed us from iniquity that we should be a peculiar People We are his workmanship created unto
good works in or through Christ Jesus When God made man at first and gave him a Law it was that he should live Holy When righteousness then was the end of his Creation and the Law thereof how is this said to be the end of his Redemption I answer Righteousness or holiness as they are one we must know does lye in a conformity to the Law which God gives us There is nothing else and nothing less then this the full performance of a Law given that is Righteousness Upon this account as soon as man once fell and broke the Law of his creation it was impossible he should be righteous any more unless there were a new Law brought in in the performance whereof he might attain to that again which he had lost Now to this end was it that Christ came and died this was the very main business I count of his Redemption even the procuring this new Law or another Law with lower termes which some men performing they do thereby become righteous and so have righteousness according to that Law imputed to them for remission and life eternal Here you see what that righteousness indeed is which Christ is said to bring in and in what sense he hath brought it in or how such Texts as those before do attribute our Holiness to him The obedience of Christs life and death we know was fulfilled on earth and of this he himself hath once said It is finished But the righteousness he is said to bring in is called an Everlasting righteousness And what then can that be but the righteousness of the Gospel which upon the same account also is called the Everlasting Gospel That is because it is by this righteousness in opposition to that of the Law or the righteousness of works that all men from the beginning of the world to the end of it and so is it to be accounted ever of force do obtain everlasting Salvation I know the great difficulty of this Doctrin will lye on the point of remission Our Divines do generally place justification in the remission of Sin so do the Papists with something else and so have I my self after others Nevertheless as I remember St. Augustine in one place does find fault with this in Pelagius so hath the perplexity of it of late lead me into the like thoughts The truth is Pardon of Sin is a benefit unto which the justified person is adjudged as eternal life is but remission of Sin must not be made the formal reason of justification Our Divines may define justification to be an Act of Grace whereby God gives us Eternal Life or a right to it as well as an act of grace whereby he pardons our sins That act that very only act wherein the form of justification does lye is Gods accounting or pronouncing a man righteous and this is a forensical act according to Law the Law or Covenant of grace Which covenant promising Forgivencss and Life upon the performance of its Conditions when a man hath performed them he hath a right to those benefits and when God does declare or account that a man hath performed them which is all one as to judge him righteous these benefits flow to him from that judgment or are confer'd on him by that act as Effects of that cause and consequently cannot be the very act it self which is the cause of them To forgive a mans sin and declare him righteous are two things inconsistent one with another in the same respect and therefore when God pronounces a man just it is according to the Law of Faith and when he pardons his Sin it is in respect to the Law of works And how then can two acts incompatable but in divers respects cùm omne ens sit unum be made to enter one and the same definition It is true as all agree that there are no works that man does or can doe able to make God any amends for our offences so that remission of sin must be attributed altogether to the merits of Christ in regard to the attonement made But we must distinguish of Remission Remission is either Conditional and Universal as it lyes in the Covenant and is the purchase of Christ or Actual as it lyes in the application thereof to particular persons upon performance of the condition When Divines do say we can doe nothing our selves for procuring reconciliation and remission it is to be understood of Conditional universal remission No mortal could do any thing toward the obtaining of that God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their trespasses But as for remission Actual that man must be blind who sees not that God does every where require us to repent beleeve confess our faults forsake them do good works forgive others that we may have pardon and be saved Conditional pardon now is antecedent to a mans justification and contained in our redemption In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of Sins Actual remission is subsequent to justification for we must be supposed first to have performed the condition and be pronounced righteous and then pardoned When there is no remission then but what does either goe before or follow justification it cannot be made the very act it self of our justification There is one Text may be opposed Even as David also described the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without works Saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven It seems that the Righteousness which Paul speaks of without works in the one verse is described by pardon in the other This I my self have alleadged but upon farther consideration I answer The man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works or the blessedness of that man is described but we may suppose not the Righteousness without works The scope of the Apostle is plainly to shew us only that it is not by works of the Law or such works as would make the reward of debt and not of grace as appeares in the immediate verses before which are perfect works that a man is justified And he proves it by this argument because the man is blessed whose sins are forgiven that is as much as to say not he who is without sin but he who hath sin and it is forgiven The man who is blessed is justified But the man who is blessed hath sin to be forgiven Therefore the righteousness which a man hath or is imputed to him is not a righteousness according to the Law of works but according to the Covenant of Grace This I say is the scope of the place Gods imputing Righteousness to a person is indeed a phrase signifying Gods accounting him righteous or justifying him and the Apostle Proves a man is justified without works that is perfect works because he hath sin to be covered I will yet repcate The man to whom righteousness is imputed without works is pardoned but it followes not that this Righteousness without works
confounded As the Law is taken strictly or precisely for the Old Covenant or the Law of Moses with Circumcision its appurtenance that is for all that apart that was added to the promise before-going and abstracted there-from as I have said so are they distinguished and their differences to be owned and maintained In the next place we may understand from this how the Jews were under both conditions of Believing and Doing Of doing this and live and of believing also that they might be saved To wit As the Covenant of Grace was delivered to their fore-Fathers and so on foot before it must needs hold forth life to them on their Faith as well as to Abraham their Progenitour who received Circumcision as a seal of Righteousness thereby or to come thereby and not by the Law which as yet was not given And as the Law was added as the Apostle speaks to this Covenant or Promise it did tye the Jews to a performance of it as a condition of living by it in some sense as neither the Patriarks before nor we since are under and in regard whereof that which is said by a reverend person that the Old Testament-Spirit was a fearing Spirit with the like expressions are not without a truth in them that desires more consideration then One of late does give them Especially when the Apostle is so express that the Jews were under a School-Master and we are not under that School-Master That the Covenant from Sinai engendered to Bondage but where the Spirit of the Lord is or the New Testament is there is Liberty From this yet in the third place we may enlarge our light further to judge of that abrogation of the Law or deliverance from it which Christians have under the Gospel A glorious thing the Apostle counts it that puts us directly into such an estate and condition as the Patriarks and those holy men before Abraham were in to live according to the light and liberty of their Consciences that is according to the Law of Nature which as it is in the hands of Christ and not of Moses to wit as delivered from the Yoke of his Ceremonies and the superstition of Idolaters and administred with Grace and the Spirit with Grace in God's acceptation of our sincerity instead of perfect obedience for the Redeemers sake and with the Spirit in his assistance of us for the performance is both the Universal Religion of Man-kind and the substance of that which is Christian unto this day I should quote Eusebius De praep Evan. See his Ecc. Hist l. 1. c. 5. From whence also we see in the way how the Covenant of Grace which Abraham and all those holy men which went before him or that ever were have had as well as we is yet called the New Covenant and that is it is called New as the lump is called a new lump by the Apostle to the Corinths That Church was leavened by the ill example of vicious Members particularly of the incestuous person they are therefore commanded to cast him out and that they should not mingle themselves or keep company with the seandalous and in so doing they should become as it were a new body or lump though they were still otherwise but the same Community Purge out therefore the old Leaven that you may be a new Lump So is it with the Covenant it was made by God with all man-kind in Christ ever since the beginning of the World and confirmed to the Patriarchs it being impossible else that any should have been saved and yet it is called a New Covenant in relation to us under the Gospel because I say that that which was added to it by Moses to wit all that which properly is the Old Covenant is removed or purged away as the Leaven in the Jews Feast by Christ our Pass-over who hath been Sacrificed and made for us that expurgation And if that which is done away was glorious how much more that which remains That which is done away was the Ministration of death engraven in stone and of the Letter that killeth That which remaineth is the Ministration of the New Testament of the Spirit which giveth Life and of Righteousness That which remaineth I pray note it That cannot be said to remain which was not before extant The Covenant of Grace with the Patriarchs and the New Covenant with us being the very same as I have said but ours only called New or renewed upon the abolishing of that which was super-added as upon this remaining too it self never to wax old and vanish For the latter what kind of Covenant I take this to be I am now in order to tell you The Old Covenant as to me it seemeth was a kind of Political Covenant made with the Nation of the Jews as Princes compacts are with their people when they first set up Government God promises them his Protection that he would lead them to a fruitful Land overcome all their Enemies with the like blessings and they promise him they will be ruled by him To this purpose did God in sundry ways appear to them to Moses to their Elders to them all in the Clouds and Fire and then causes a Tabernacle to be made for him which was a Keeping house among them where the Sacrifices and Offerings was his Provision and the Priests his Servants that lived on him and unto that Tabernacle and Ark might they repair for Counsel and Judgment This People then being peculiarly under a Theocracy which Samuel in two places does expresly signify at least until the time of Saul so that the Church and Common-wealth of the Jews were but one according to the Apostle it is no wonder if Religion be made their Laws and so required of them together with other political Ordinances and Statutes for their happiness or publick peace as a Nation From hence is it that though their Law is not to be judged the Covenant of Works or the Covenant of Grace either of the two themselves yet may we expect that it should represent both the one and the other to them because in the knowledge of both does the business of Religion and the whole of it virtually consist In the delivery of the Moral Law and that with Thunder and Lightning and such Terrour as we read of it they had a representation of the Covenant of Nature which quafaedus is doubtless in our falne Estate a Ministration only of Wrath or Law of sin and death In their Ceremonial Offerings and Priestly appointments though there was a remembrance still of sin and so matter of bondage and sear yet had they types of Christ of remedying Mercy and the Glory to come These Sacrifices were brought directly as Mulcts to their King to deliver them from the danger of present punishment being Redemptions of their lives which else they should have forfeited by his Laws and served I have said to the maintenance of his house the Tabernacle and Temple which he was
is a truth somthing more considerable as I take it than that alone which our Divines contend for against the Sooinian in this matter In the next place when Divines make a difference between the Law and Gospel as to the power of doing that the Law commands to do but the Gospel gives power to do The Law commands the tale of Brick but gives not Straw and the like expressions I doubt not but they have some verity at the bottom which should have nakedly been laid down if he could by this Bright person For the delivery of things after others by roat without disgestion is the great fault which he finds so often in other mens Books The Law and Gospel we know are liable to a diverse acception By the Law most properly I think we are to understand that Law which is written in the heart of man by Nature in Adams and ours the copy whereof is the ten Commandements called the Moral Law and by the Gospel the Law of Christ That which he delivered and his Apostles The matter whereof in both may be considered qua faedus or qua regula to use the terms of others Qua regula the things required in the Law moral and the Gospel or Law of Christ are the same but qua faedus the Law of Nature originally requires these things in perfection to be accepted unto life and the Law of Christ requires them in sincerity only accepting them though imperfect unto life through his Mediation and Redemption This is the only difference that concerns us here between the Law and the Gospel The Law then and Gospel both being considered as the Doctrin of life how does this Author speak that the one gives power and not the other The rule shews what we are to do the power to do is not given by our being shown That which therefore is to be understood by such terms may come to this that that which the Law thus taken that is the Law of our Creation and qua faedus does require of man is not in our power to do and consequently none can attain Salvation by it but that which the Gospel requires we have power to perform and if we be not wanting to God's Grace upon the performance we shall be saved In the third place when he says the Gospel enables us to do with a more willing and chearful mind then the Law if we understand this kind of speech as those Divines do I think ordinarlly that use it in such a sence that Christ having done all our works for us that Righteousness of his which was a most perfect conformity to the Law being imputed or accepted in our behalf for life there are no good works now required of us to do but only as the testification of our thankfulness and belief of this and therefore we perform all we do with gladness joy and love altogether without bondage fear or doubt it being not in order to our Justification though we miscarry in the doing I do apprehend this Learned Man would be one of the first to dislike such Teaching Yet is there thus much here of truth also That when the Law so taken as before does give us no heart at all to do that which through the flesh as the Apostle speaks is indeed impossible to any the Gospel does give us encouragement to do upon the account that what it requires may be performed and by that performance through the assistance of God's Spirit as the condition Man is both justified and saved I know well that St. Augustine does use the like expressions and I think often but he does explain his meaning which comes to this that when the Law of works commands us what is our duty and threatens us if we do it not the Law of Faith he counts directs us to God for his assistance grace or spirit to do what he commands I do not forget neither that God hath promised his spirit and so his grace for the performance of the New Covenant and though it does not follow that if Adam had stood he should not therefore have given man his grace and spirit for performing the perfect obedience of the Old as well as to us for the performing imperfect under the New seeing that Father does speak of grace to Adam as to us and if we should ascribe the obedience he performed during his Innocency to his own strength and not to the adjutory of God's spirit altogether he would not endure it Yet if the Authour or those Divines of ours that speak as he does will chose rather to make good what they say upon the contrary assertion then can I tell how to understand with them When God made Man at first we know he endued him with original righteousness Let us suppose this righteousness alone sufficient to him for the performing the Law unto which he was made so that before the fall there was no need of that we call grace which is properly such help of the spirit as consists in the healing and relief of our falne estate to enable man to do that which he had strength to perform by nature until he did voluntarily deflect from it But when he was fallen and lost that righteousness which was his strength then are we to conceive a need streight both of a new Law to be lowerd brought down or fitted to his weakness that he may be able and also of grace that he may be made willing to perform it And thus shall there be grace the spirit and the promise of it belonging to the Covenant of our Redeemer when there was none nor need of it to belong to the covenant of our Creation However there is this I count most certain and I would have it to be noted that the spirit which is promised or given to man for his obedience to God is promised and given only in respect to this Covenant not for the performance of the Covenant of Nature for then should Adam never have falne nor we have had any need of a Redeemer It is true that there are some Divines are so much with Austin to have Adams standing supposing he had stood to be of grace that they will have mans original righteousness to be a work or habit supernatural from which when Adam fell he returned as they would teach us to his pure naturals and so his Posterity are born But this is a kind of Pelagianisme no ways to be received For what indeed should be a Creatures Nature if that be not which it receives from its Creation Besides if mans original righteousness be not lookt on as natural how shall original sin which consists in the loss of it be defined by the depravation of our nature according to the doctrin of the Church of England as well as the Catechisme of the Assembly Neither is Dr. Taylor here to be heard who cannot abide that that whatsoever he will call it which we contract from Adam without any will of our own
should be held to be sin or so much as damnable though it should be granted him through Christ's redemption actually to damn no body It may be the want of a plainer consideration what the immediate benefit of Christ's redemption to the world is made that excellent person think this so grievous It is not grievous I hope that God should give a Law to his Creature according to his nature and that therefore having made man righteous he should require of him to continue in that righteousness and walk up according to it It necessarily follows without any thing else that this Law being made in Innocency must condemne all man-kind in whom this righteousness and perfection is no longer to be found so that by nature or according to this Covenant of mans nature we are and must be all the Children of wrath as the Apostle speaks It would now be indeed a grievous thing if God should deal with any in that justice as he might according to this Covenant and therefore it hath pleased him according to a Righteousness of his declared in the Gospel in opposition to the righteousness of this Covenant of works to give us his Son who by the work of his Mediation for man-kind should prepare a remedying Law or universal conditional remission against that condemnation As for Children then if they are Baptized we are to account they do perform this Covenant or new Law by the Faith of their Parents bringing them to Baptisme This is my Covenant you shall keep every man-child shall be Circumcised If they be not Baptised we are yet to look on them as such who have not broken this new Law or never refused and rejected their remedy and so long as by the Redemption of Christ they are delivered over with all the world from the Covenant of works to the new Law to be judged I will not be the man that shall condemn one Infant to Hell or unto torments although if there be any that will make a difference of place or state in the future life for Children proportionable only to the difference there is between performing the condition and not being guilty of any breach at all of it I will not gain-say them nor determine any thing in a matter so lubricous and above what is written To return By the Law and the Gospel it may be thought perhaps by some that we are to understand the state of the Old and New Testament and so must this Authour mentioned be made to conceive that David and the like holy men had not the same spirit or power or not so much to enable them to observe God's precepts as we have now when he uses these expressions That the spirit was given under the Gospel as to his miraculous gists in another measure then under the Law I believe and that such Texts as the spirit was not yet given because Christ was not yet lorified and that they had not yet heard that there was a Holy Ghost with the like may be happily so understood I believe But to think that the Spirit as to sanctification of the heart and inclining it to a ready service of God was not given under the Old Testament as well as under the the New is a conceit I will not fasten on any To say it is given more to us now than to David Samuel Jeremy and such persons in respect to this end will yet require explanation and proof if that be intended wholly by these speeches Before I pass there is one passage of this apt Writer I cannot but note with much approbation It is Grace that accepts of our Repentance and Obedience after we have sinned This passage contains more in it then the most are like to be aware of The Scripture tells us in several Texts that by Grace we are saved freely justified and not by Works By Works we are to understand the works of the Law and that quâ faedas as before and no body is justified or saved by these works they being above the ability of any to perform By Grace I will understand with him this accepting our sincere though imperfect obedience for life through Christ as if it were perfect righteousness Not unto him that worketh that is unto him that hath not performed the works of the Law which if they were perfect he should live by them but unto him that believeth on him that justifies the ungodly that is but is ungodly in reference to these works or is one that his Conscience tells him hath sinned and does sin or is imperfect and falls short of these works yet believes that God is gracious and merciful for all that and will pardon these sins and failings if he repent and walk sincerely though imperfectly his Fath is imputed for Righteousness his Faith that is such a believing this as produces that repentance and sincere walking is imputed to him for Righteousness that is is made to stand him in that stead as a perfect righteousness would do so that through grace or this gracious acceptance he shall live by it There are works if I may still say over what hath been somwhere also said before that would make life to be of debt according to God's Covenant of Nature if any could perform them and so there are none justified or saved by works for all have sinned and fall short under this sence of the glory of God Or there are works that cannot be accepted or imputed unto life but through grace and so is it that by grace only or gratis that the Scripture teaches us we are justified and saved Nay the acceptance of our imperfect sincere obedience for righteousness or that we should live by it is that very grace it self that saves us So well am I pleased with this Note from that Authour If this seem to savour too much of inculcation you must pardon me I do apprehend that the Doctrin of grace and justification whereof I have been and therefore am still the longer hath been the occasion of several apprehensions in good men that instead of being conducive to have proved but hinderances of true sober practical Godliness There are two of these mentioned by the same understanding person ☞ The one is a conceit that a Christian may not avoyd sin and do good for fear of Hell and to obtain Heaven that is for the sake of Reward This the Mentioner hath confuted with plain text that it needs not a second hand Onely that it may not needlesly disquiet any I will advance this contrary truth that whatsoever person out of any principle fear or hope or love does or shall in the prevalent intentions of his Soul and endeavour as to the constant tenour of his life prefer his Eternal Salvation before his Flesh-pleasing in this world is surely in a good Estate the Converted man or the Godly man that shall be saved He that does Righteousness is born of God I will suppose him a Christian and one that acts according
pleased to keep up among them Nevertheless that does not hinder but God Almighty might make use thereof farther for types and representations of other things that is to say Spiritual and so the Law be a Paedagogy under a temporal dispensation leading many to Heaven This is certain that the Covenants of Nature Grace being made with Man-kind are not matters of concernment only to the Jews but to the whole world as well as to them for everlasting life and death and it is not to be conceived therefore that either of them should receive any detriment by the Covenant made with that particular Nation This I say that the Covenant confirmed before of God in Christ the Law which was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disannul that it should make the Promise of no effect The Covenant of God in Christ is the covenant of grace and that we see a-foot in the world before the Law and before Abraham for when it was confirmed to Abraham it must be in being before on necessity and ever was since the Fall or else none after could be saved And if this be not disannul'd then cannot that whatsoever it be which is given by this covenant come to the Jews by the Law For as the Apostle argues If there had been a Law given that could have given life verily Righteousness should have been by the Law If the Law of Nature could be kept by man there would be no need of a covenant of Grace by Christ So do I argue if Righteousness unto justification of life was to come by the Law the Promise or Covenant of Grace as soon as that was given might be spared But for-as-much as eternal life and justification does come only by the covenant of grace it follows that the covenant made with the Jews must needs be a covenant which concern'd their outward state or political welfare as I have said and that neither Salvation nor Condemnation as to the life to come was the primary intention or the direct and proper effect of it If Salvation or Condemnation was the proper issue of the Law then could neither any of those holy men as the Patriarchs nor any of the wicked world who were before the Law as the men of Sodom and Gomorah be condemned at the day of Judgment For where no Law is there is no Transgression and so no Condemnation And indeed if this covenant was conceived any other than some such thing as I make it how could it be that the most substantial part or body of the Jews Nation should be Sadduces in Christ's time The Covenant of Nature is that which lays all the world guilty before God so that He who believes not is Condemned already he is condemned by the Law of his Creation writ in his heart he needs no outward Law to condemne him Whatsoever things the Law saith it saith to them who are under the Law If there were no Curse nor Death but that which the Jews Law doth speak then were there none but the Jew should suffer Condemnation If a man on the contrary side does believe and repent he needs no other Law than that of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus to set him free from this Law of Sin and Death So long as he does not believe he abides under that Wrath and it is not for want of Faith as the cause of his Condemnation to justify God in not giving all men that alike but for want of it N B as that which should be the remedy that he perishes Salvation then and Condemnation which is Eternall does proceed from the covenants of grace and works and it is not to be imagined that God should deal otherwise with the Jews than with the rest of the world as to the terms of a future life I have set before you Life and Death says Moses And Cursed be he that continueth not in all the Law to do it But what this Life and Death these Blessings and Curses are we see express in Deuteronomy and in the fifth Commandement The Laws which God did give the Jews were about Religion and about Civil matters Religion concern'd their Eternal civil things their Temporal good Yet whether they are commanded the observation of the one or the other the sanction of both does lye in the threats and promises of Temporal blessings and judgments Even as in the Laws of our Realm Rellgion and the Service of God is required under a civil forfeiture when it is the Gospel it self must threaten farther Vengeance to the Transgressor In short herein will lye the mistery and sum of all The Law as it was in the hand of Moses and given to the peculiar Nation of the Jews must be no other than a temporal covenant yet did this temporal covenant contain in it patterns of things as the Apostle speaks in the Heavens And as the ten Commandements particularly written in stone are a transcript of the Moral Law written by Nature in our hearts I do take the Law to represent the covenant of works and by vertue of that representation alone or of that it represents does it operate to future judgment and is the ministration of condemnation The Law indeed taken at large for all that is contained in the whole books of the Old Testament may be supposed to hold forth whatsoever is in the covenant of works and grace but the Law taken separately from both as a third covenant cannot hold forth any other than the external government of God with propriety over the Jews and that consisting in these two things to wit a hard task of burdensome dutyes under the danger of temporal judgments and a redress from them by Sacrifices the one typifying our estate according to the Law of works and the other the grace which comes to us by Christ Jesus What use may be made of this I leave to minds which are searching I am never out of my way I count so long as I meet with any such Only there is one in a late Book who seems to fall a little too hard on a grave Preacher for making the dispensation of the Old Testament in some Sermons of his to be more terrible than ours under the New For doing which he hath thus much the more reason indeed if as I say that life and death which is Eternal comes not from the Law but from the Covenants of Works and Grace which were before it and cannot be made voyd by it There is therefore the Believing Penitent Sinner and the Vnbelieving and Impenitent For the man that sins and repents not it is true that he hath no less reason to fear under the Gospel than under the Law but rather the more in regard that the threatnings of the Law were directly I take it only of temporal punishments but the Gospel does manifestly threaten Eternal Of how much sorer punnishment says the Scripture worthy he is But for the Penitent and Believing the case is otherwise and the
to the Sripture but if he be a Heathen and acts herein but fully up to his light I dare not deny the same of him And indeed what is that pure love of God out of which you will say alone a man must act If you love me says Christ who knows best keep my Commandements The love of God and keeping his Commandments are the same The commands of God are to be kept that we may inherit Eternal Life Christ tells the Ruler in the Gospel express I have noted before and consequently we may love God to that end If man could do any good to God by his duties or any hurt by his sins then should I believe there was some other end of our duty than man's Salvation You may say this appears selfish or self-love only I answer that that man then who does but love himself so as to seek the Salvation of his Soul above his flesh this world and any thing therein is the man he should be in the sight of God If you stick at it consider what is Salvation A loving God a delighting in him a conformity to him I love God in keeping his Commandements in this life that I may be conformed to him and have complacency in him to all Eternity I will adde our Orthodox Divines say not and are not to be so understood that good works may not be done with respect to the reward but with respect to the reward as due to them ex condigno For to expect that God should accept of what we do in bearing with our failings and rewarding us out of Grace when we walk sincerely before him is but to act our Faith on or putting our trust in his declared goodness Christs Merits and the promises of the Gospel The other Apprehension is that a Christian must not live on his own Purse or Earnings A pretty sound of somthing which as I suppose does signify that which other Divines intend by Resting in Dutys There is therefore a resting in Duty I may say and a resting on God in Duty I doubt not but a Christian is to trust to God for whatsoever he seeks of him upon the performance of his duty when it were but presumption to do so without that performance It is true that no man by any thing he can do seeing when he hath done all he is but an unprofitable Servant can deserve or merit any thing from God's hand and much less his saving Grace which is most free so as it may be properly said to be earned as wages is due unto work or to make his blessings of debt yet is a Christian by his prayers and the like duty said to get or obtain from God whasoever he hath from him and as a man does live on his Estate which he gets so may a Christian be said to live his spiritual life upon the riches of God's grace which he gets by his duty The want of trusting to duty therefore in a right sense is indeed I doubt me more reprovable in our Protestants ordinarily than their resting in duty And I am seriously troubled very often at what I have observed in some of our special practical Divines about this point of resting in duties I will particularly name Mr. Shepheards sincere Convert which is enough to bring any man Religiously melancholly for the more pious his Soul is in the case the more liable it must be to such stroaks into desperation I will therefore say thus much in zeal against that danger Let a man be but careful of two things about resting in duty and trouble himself henceforth no more but about the doing of it The first is Let him take heed of making any duty a pillow to lay his head on to rest in sin Thus it is dangerous indeed to rest in duty and this may be either when a man thinks he may sin and go on in it because he Prays gives Almes or the like as if that would bear him out Or chiefly when a man shall sit down short of sincere Conversion by doing of some duty that is by taking up in leaving some sins and doing many things he did not before he shall content himself and not come up to that universal unreserved giving up himself to Christ as is required of him to that sincerity of life which is the condition of Salvation This is the most deadly dangerous resting in duty that I will admonish every Soul of And then for the second I will say only Let him be a Protestant which I count he is and I doubt not but his opinion alone against merit and that he is justified through Christ will secure him for the rest of this business Provided though he remembers still that humility and the like qualification of Soul when he hath done all he can do is also his duty And now after I have spoken of these Heads if any be otherwise minded in whatsoever I have hitherto said and are resolved to keep to that only which they count the soundest Calvinisme in them all I will be so candid as to lay down their doctrin for them to the best advantage God hath Elected some to Salvation Christ dyed only for them That which he hath Purchased by his Death is not only the benefit conditionally but Faith it self the condition Faith is the perswasion of a man that Christ hath died particularly for him and so his sins are forgiven This perswasion or apprehension of Christ makes Christ ones own and so justifies instrumentally without works either Legal or Evangelical and how also to serve this turn I have set down in my paper of Justification page 15. No man can be ever in good earnest thus perswaded but the Elect for whom alone this Faith is purchased When a Minister then declares the Gospel and requires of all in God's name to Believe to wit to believe particularly that Christ hath dyed for their sins as knowing not for his part who the Elect by name be there is no fear of hurt unto any seeing no person on earth shall be able to be perswaded hereof indeed that perswasion with Calvin and Luther being true Faith but the Elect only Besides as soon as this perswasion once is but wrought it does so possess the Soul with love and gratitude to the Redeemer that it constrains it to Christian duty so that unfained Conversion Self-denyal a Crucifixion with Christ to the world and the flesh and the life of God and that with perseverance to the end do follow as naturally to wit according to the new Nature as the Fig-tree brings forth Figgs or the Olive Olives without all possibility of separation from it This Doctrin if any will so concatenate the parts does seem to me to carry a kind of mysterious authority in it that I find some awe for it at my heart although really I am convinced both of the danger of it and also excepting only in the first proposition that it is untrue So far am I from despising of those against whom the spirit of that Authour in the book intimated seems so much over-sharpened when yet I do encline in my own sentiments to hang things together much rather after his fashion than theirs who would look upon me as more Evangelical in such a Determination Deo Gloria mihi Condonatio J. H. ERRATA PAge 16. l. 21. for desires read deserves p. 18. l. 7. for Clouds read Cloud