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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39674	Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and remedies of mental errors written some months since, and now made publick, both for the healing and prevention of the sins and calamities which have broken in this way upon the churches of Christ, to the great scandal of religion, hardening of the wicked, and obstruction of Reformation : whereunto are subjoined by way of appendix : I. Vindiciarum vindex, being a succinct, but full answer to Mr. Philip Cary's weak and impertinent exceptions to my Vindiciæ legis & fæderis, II. a synopsis of ancient and modern Antinomian errors, with scriptural arguments and reasons against them, III. a sermon composed for the preventing and healing of rents and divisions in the churches of Christ / by John Flavell ... ; with an epistle by several divines, relating to Dr. Crisp's works.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1691 (1691)	Wing F1175; ESTC R21865	194,574	498

it is to be kept sound in judgment stedfast and unmovable in the Truths and Ways of Christ. A sound and stedfast Christian is a blessing in his Generation and a glory to his Profession 'T was an high Encomium of Athanasius Sedem maluit mutare quam syllabam He would rather lose his Seat than a syllable of God's Truth Soundness of Judgment must needs be a choice Blessing because the understanding is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that leading-faculty which directs the Will and Conscience of Man and they his whole Life and Practice How often and how earnestly doth Christ pray for his people that they may be kept in the Truth 'T is true Orthodoxy in its self is not sufficient to any man's Salvation but the conjunction of an Orthodox head with an honest sincere heart does always constitute an excellent Christian Phil. 1. 10. Happy is the man that hath an head so hearted and an heart so headed Consectary IV. By this discourse we may further discover one great and special cause and reason of the lamentable decay of the spirit and power of Religion amongst the Professors of the present Age. 'T is a complaint more just than common That we do all fade as a leaf And what may be the Cause Nothing more probable than the wasting of our time and spirits in vain janglings and fruitless controversies which the Apostle tells us Heb. 13. 9. have not profited i. e. they have greatly damnified and injured them that have been occupied therein Many Controversies of these times grow up about Religion as Suckers from the Root and Limbs of a Fruit-tree which spend the vital Sap that should make it fruitful 'T is a great and sad Observation made upon the state of England by some judicious persons That after the greatest increase of Religion both intensively in the power of it and extensively in the number of Converts what a remarkable decay it suffered both ways when about the year Forty-four Controversies and Disputations grew fervent among Professors Since that time our strength and glory have very much abated Consectary V. From this Discourse we may also gather the true Grounds and Reasons of those frequent Persecutions which God lets in upon his Churches and People These rank Weeds call for Snowy and Frosty Weather to subdue and kill them I know the enemies of God's People aim at something else They strike at Profession yea at Religion it self and according to their wicked intention without timely Repentance will their reward be But whatever the intention of the Agents be the issues of Persecution are upon this account greatly beneficial to the Church the Wisdom of God makes them excellently useful both to prevent and cure the mischiefs and dangers of Errors If Enemies were not Friends and Brethren would be injurious to each other Persecution if it kills not yet at least it gives check to the rise and growth of Errors And if it do not perfectly redintigrate and unite the hearts of Christians yet to be sure it cools and allays their sinful heats and that two ways 1. By cutting out for them far better and more necessary work Now instead of racking their Brains about unnecessary Controversies they find it high time to be searching their hearts and examining the foundations of their Faith and Hope with respect to the other World 2. Moreover such times and straights discover the Sincerity Zeal and Constancy of them we were jealous of or prejudiced against before because they followed not us Consectary VI. Lastly Let us learn hence both the Duty and Necessity of Charity and mutual Forbearance We have all our mistakes and errors one way or other and therefore must maintain mutual Charity under dissents in judgment I do not say but an erring Brother must be reduced if possible and that by sharp rebukes too if gentler essays be ineffectual Tit. 1. 13. and the wounds of a Friend have more faithful love in them than the kisses of an Enemy And if God make us instrumental by that or any other method to recover a Brother from the error of his way he will have great cause both to bless God and thank the Instrument who thereby saves a Soul from death and hides a multitude of sins Iam. 5. 20. 'T is our Duty if we meet an Enemy's Ox or Ass going astray to bring him back again Exod. 23. 4. much more the Soul of a Friend Indeed we must not make those Errors that are none nor stretch every innocent expression to that purpose nor yet be too hasty in medling with contention till we cannot be both silent and innocent and then whatever the expence be Truth will repay it AN APPENDIX Containing a Full and Modest Reply to Mr. Philip Cary's Rejoinder to my Vindiciae Legis Foederis Manifesting the badness of his Cause in the feebleness and impertinency of his Defence And adding farther light and strength to the Arguments formerly produced in defence of God's gracious Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. and the right of Believers Infants to Baptism grounded thereupon SIR NEXT to the not deserving a Reproof is the due reception and improvement of it You deserve a sharper reprehension for your timerity and obstinacy than I am willing to give you from the Press Yet in love to the Truth and your own Soul reprove you I must and I hope God will enable me to be both mild in the manner and convincingly clear in the matter and cause thereof 'T is better to lose the Smiles than the Souls of men I dare not neglect the duty of a Friend for fear of incurring the suspicion of an Enemy Several Learned and Eminent Divines who have seen what hath publickly passed betwixt you and me have returned me their thanks and think you ought to thank me too for the pains I have taken to set you right hoping you will evidence your self-denial and repentance by an ingenuous retractation of your Errors But how will you deceive their Expectations and unbecome the Character given you by your Friends when they shall find the true measure both of your ability and humility drawn by your own Pen in the following Rejoinder I have throughly considered your Reply in the Manuscript you sent me which I hear is now in the Press and in the following Sheets have given a full and I think a final Answer to whatsoever is material therein And it so falling out that my Discourse of Errors was just going under the Press whilst your Rejoinder was there also I thought it not convenient to delay my Reply any longer but to have my Antidote in as great readiness as might be to meet it One Inconvenience I easily foresee that the Pages of your Manuscript which I follow may not throughout exactly answer to the Print But every intelligent Reader will easily discern and rectify That if my Bookseller save him not that trouble as I have desired him to do As to the Controversy about the

not on the one hand to injure the memory of the Dead and on the other to prevent hurt or danger to the Living Nor do we say thus much of him as if he sought or did need any Letters of Recommendation from us but as counting this Testimony to Truth and this expression of respect to him a Debt to the spontaneous payment whereof nothing more was requisite besides such a fair occasion as the Providence of God hath now laid before us inviting us thereunto John Howe Vin. Alsop Nath. Mather Increase Mather John Turner Rich. Bures Tho. Powel AN EPISTLE TO THE READER Candid Reader CEnsure not this Treatise of ERRORS as an Error in my Prudentials in sending it forth at such an improper time as this I should never spontaneously have awakened sleeping Controversies after God's severe castigation of his people for them and in the most proper and hopeful season for their Redintegration And beside what I have formerly said I think fit here to add That if the attacque had been general and not so immediately and particularly upon that Post or Quarter I was set to defend I should with Elihu have modestly waited till some abler and more skilful hand had undertaken the defence of this Cause If ever I felt a temptation to envy the happiness of my Brethren it hath been whilst I saw them quietly feeding their Flocks and my self forced 〈◊〉 some part of my precious 〈…〉 time devoted to the 〈…〉 combating with unquiet and erring Br●thren But I see I must not be my own chuser Notwithstanding I hope and am in some measure persuaded That publick benefit will redound to the Church from this irks●me Labour of mine And that this strife will spread no further but the Malady be cured by an Antidote growing in the very place where it began And that the Christian Camp will not take a general Alarm from such a ●ingle Duel The Book now in thy hands consisteth of Four parts viz. 1. A general Discourse of the Causes and Cures of Errors very necessary at all times especially at this time for the reduction and establishment of seduced and staggering Christians and nothing of that nature having occurred to my observation among the manifold Polemical Tracts that are extant I thought it might be of some use to the Churches of Christ in such a vertigenous Age as we live in and the blessing of the Lord go forth with it for benefit and establishment 2. Next thou hast here the Controversies moved by my Antagonist first about the Mosaick Law complexly taken which he boldly pronounces to be an Adam's Covenant of works And secondly about God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17. which he also makes the same with that God made with Adam in Paradise and affirms Circumcision expresly called a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith to be the Seal of the said Covenant of Works first made with Adam 3. Finding my Adversary in the pursuit of his design running into many Antinomian delirations to the reproach and damage of the Cause he contends for I thought it necessary to take the principal Errors of Antinomianism into examination especially at such a time as this when they seem to spring afresh to the hazard of God's Truth and the Churches Peace wherein I have dealt with becoming-modesty and plainness if haply I might be any way instrumental in my plain and home way of Argumentation to detect the falsity and dangerous nature of those notions which some good men have vented and preserve the sounder part of the Church from so dangerous a contagion 4. In the next place I think it necessary to advertise the Reader That whereas in my first Appendix under that head of the Conditionality of the New Covenant I have asserted Faith to be the Condition of it and do acknowledg p. 246. that the word Condition is variously used among Iurists yet I do not use in any sense which implies or insinuates that there is any such condition in the New Covenant as that in Adam's Covenant was consisting in perfect personal and perpetual obedience or any thing in its own nature meritorious of the benefits promised or capable to be performed by us in our own strength but plainly that it be an act of ours tho' done in God's strength which must be necessarily done before we can be actually justified or saved and so there is found in it the true suspending nature of a condition which is the thing I contend for when I affirm Faith is the condition of the New Covenant How many senses soever may be given of this word Condition this is the determinate sense in which I use it throughout this Controversy And whosoever denies the suspending Nature of Faith with respect to actual Justification pleads according to my understanding for the actual Justification of Infidels And thus I find a Condition defined by Navar Iohan. Baptist. Petrus de Perus c. Conditio est Suspensio alicujus dispositionis tantisper dum aliquid futurum fiat And again Conditio est quidam futurus eventus in quem dispositio suspenditur Once more My Reader possibly may be stumbled at my calling Faith sometimes the Instrument and sometimes the Condition of our Justification when there is so great a Controversy depending among Learned Men with respect to the use of both those terms I therefore desire the Reader to take notice That I dive not into that Controversy here much less presume to determine it but finding both those Notions equally opposed by our Antinomians who reject our actual Justification by Faith either way and allow to Faith no other use in our actual Justification but only to manifest to us what was done from Eternity I do therefore use both those terms viz. the Conditionality and Instrumentality of Faith with respect unto our Justification and shew in what sense those terms are useful in this Controversy and are accommodate enough to the design and purpose for which I use them how repugnant soever they are in that particular wherein the Learned contend about the Use and Application of them To be plain when I say Faith justifies us as an Organ or Instrument my only meaning is that it receives or apprehends the Righteousness of Christ by which we are justified and so speaking to the Quomodo or manner of our Justification I say with the general Suffrage of Divines we are justified instrumentally by Faith But in our Controversy with the Antinomians where another different Question is moved about the Quando or time of our actual Justification there I affirm that we are actually justified at the time of our believing and not before and this being the Act upon which our Justification is suspended I call Faith the Condition of our Justification This I desire may be observed lest in my use of both those terms my Reader should think either that I am not aware of the Controversy depending about those terms or that I do herein manifest the vacillancy of

Opinions or Judgments from the perfect Rule of the Divine Law And to this all men by nature are not only liable but inclinable Indeed man by Nature can do nothing else but Err Psal. 58. 3. he goeth astray as soon as born makes not one true step till renewed by Grace and many false ones after his Renovation The Life of the Holiest man is a Book with many Errata's but the whole Edition of a wicked man's Life is but one continued Error he that thinks he cannot Err manifestly Errs in so thinking The Pope's supposed and pretended Infallibility hath made him the great deceiver of the World A good man may Err but is willing to know his Error and will not obstinately maintain it when he once plainly discerns it Error and Heresy among other things differ in this Heresie is accompanied with pertinacy and therefore the Heretick is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sels-condemned his own Conscience condemns him whilst men labour in vain to convince him He doth not formally and in terms Condemn himself but he doth so equivalently whilst he continues to own and maintain Doctrines and Opinions which he finds himself unable to defend against the evidence of Truth Humane frailty may lead a man into the first but Devilish Pride fixes him in the last The word of God which is our rule must therefore be the only Test and Touchstone to try and discover Errors for Regula est index sui obliqui 'T is not enough to convince a man of Error that his Judgment differs from other mens you must bring it to the Word and try how it agrees or disagrees therewith else he that charges another with Error may be found in as great or greater an Error himself None are more disposed easily to receive and tenaciously to defend Errors than those who are the Antesignani Heads or Leaders of Erroneous Sects especially after they have fought in defence of bad Causes and deeply engaged their Reputation The following Discourse justly entitles it self A BLOW AT THE ROOT And though you will here find the Roots of many Errors laid bare and open which comparatively are of far different degrees of Danger and Malignity which I here mention together many of them springing from the same Root Yet I am far from censuring them alike nor would I have any that are concerned in lesser Errors be exasperated because their lesser Mistakes are mentioned with greater and more pernicious ones this Candor I not only intreat but justly challenge from my Reader And because there are many general and very useful Observations about Errors which will not so conveniently come under the Laws of that Method which governs the main part of this Discourse viz. the CAVSES and CVRES of Error I have therefore sorted them by themselves and premised them to the following Part in Twenty Observations next ensuing Twenty general Observations about the rise and increase of the Errors of the times First Observation TRuth is the proper Object the natural and pleasant food of the Understanding Iob 12. 11. Doth not the ear that is the understanding by the ear try words as the mouth tasteth meat Knowledg is the assimilation of the Understanding to the truths received by it Nothing is more natural to man than a desire to know Knowledg never cloys the Mind as food doth the natural Appetite but as the one increaseth the other is proportionably sharpened and provoked The Minds of all that are not wholly immers'd in Sensuality spend their Strength in the laborious search and pursuit of Truth Sometimes climbing up from the Effects to the Causes and then descending again from the Causes to the Effects and all to discover Truth Fervent Prayer sedulous Study fixed Meditations are the labours of inquisitive Souls after Truth All the Objections and Counter-arguments the mind meets in its way are but the pauses and hesitations of a bivious Soul not able to determine whether Truth lies upon this side or upon that Answerable to the sharpness of the Minds appetite is the fine edg of Pleasure and Delight it feels in the discovery and acquisition of Truth When it hath Rack'd and Tortured it self upon knotty Problems and at last discovered the Truth it sought for with what joy doth the Soul dilate it self and run as it were with open arms to clasp and welcome it The Understanding of man at first was perspicacious and clear all Truths lay obvious in their comely order and ravishing beauty before it God made man upright Eccl. 7. 29. this rectitude of his mind consisted in Light and Knowledg as appears by the prescribed method of his Recovery Col. 3. 10. Renewed in knowledg after the Image of him that created him Truth in the Mind or the Minds union with Truth being part of the Divine Image in man discovers to us the Sin and Mischief of Error which is a defacing so far as it prevails of the Image of God No sooner was man created but by the exercise of knowledg he soon discovered God's Image in him a●d by his Ambition after more lost what he had So that now there is an haziness or cloud spread over Truth by Ignorance and Error the sad effects of the Fall Second Observation Of Knowledg there are divers sorts and kinds some is Humane and some Divine some Speculative and some Practical some Ingrafted as the Notions of Morality and some Acquired by painful search and Study But of all knowledg none like that Divine and Supernatural knowledg of saving truths revealed by Christ in the Scriptures from whence ariseth the different degrees both of the Sinfulness and danger of Errors those Errors being always the worst which are committed against the most important Truths revealed in the Gospel These Truths lye infolded either in the plain words or evident and necessary consequences from the words of the Holy Scriptures Scripture-Consequences are of great use for the refutation of Errors it was by a Scripture-consequence that Christ successfully proved the Resurrection against the Sadduces Matth. 22. The Arrians and other Hereticks rejected consequential proofs and required the express words of Scripture only hoping that way to defend and secure their Errors against the arguments and assaults of the Orthodox Some think that reason and natural light is abundantly sufficient for the direction of life but certainly nothing is more necessary to us for that end than the written Word for though the remains of natural light have their place and use in directing us about natural and earthly things yet they are utterly insufficient to guide us in spiritual and heavenly things 1 Cor. 2. 14. The natural man receiveth not the things of God c. Eph. 5. 8. Once were ye darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now are ye light in the Lord i. e. by a beam of heavenly light shining from the Spirit of Christ through the written Word into you minds or understandings 'T is the written Word which shines upon the path of our Duty

Right of Believers Infant-seed to Baptism you have altogether adventured it the second time with the consent of your Partizans upon the three Hypotheses which if I mistake not I have fully confuted and baffled in my first Answer But if my brevity occasioned any obscurity in that I hope you shall find it sufficiently done here Mean time you have given and I accordingly take it for granted that our Arguments for Infants Baptism stand in their full strength against you 'till you can better discharge and free your dangerous Assertions from the Errors and Absurdities in which they are now more involved and intricated than before The weaker any thing is the more querulous it is If Scripture-Argument and clear Reason will not support the Cause I undertake I am resolved never to call in passionate Invectives and weak Evasions for my Auxiliaries as you have here done The Lord give us all clearer Light tenderer Consciences exemplary Humility and Ingenuity Vindiciarum Vindex OR A REFUTATION OF THE Weak and Impertinent Rejoinder OF Mr. PHILIP CARY Wherein he vainly attempts the defence of his Absurd Thesis to the great abuse and injury of the Laws and Covenants of God AND must I be dipt once more in the Water-Controversy 't is time for me to think of undressing my self and making ready for my approaching Rest and employ those few moments I have to spend in more Practical and Beneficial Studies for my own and the Churches greater advantage And 't is time for Mr. C. to reflect upon his past Follies which have consumed too much of his own and others time without any advantage yea to the apparent loss and injury of the Cause he undertakes to defend When I received these Sheets from him in vindication of his Solemn Call I was at a stand in my own Resolutions whether to let it pass without any Animadversions upon it as a passionate Clamor for a desperate Cause or give a short and full Answer to his confused and impertinent Rejoinder But considering that I had under hand at the same time the foregoing Treatise of the Causes and Cures of Mental Errors and that though my honest Neighbour discovers much weakness in his way of Argumentation yet it was like to meet with some interested Readers to whom for that reason it would be the more suitable and how apt such Persons are to glory in the last word but especially considering that a little time and pains would suffice as the Case stands to end the unseasonable Controversy betwixt● us and both clear and confirm many great and weighty Points of Religion I was upon these Considerations prevailed with against my own Inclination to cast in these few Sheets as a Mantissa to the former seasonable and necessary Discourse of Errors resolving to fill them with what should be worth the Reader 's time and pains As for the rude Insults uncomely Reflections and passionate Expressions of my discontented Friend I shall not throw back the dirt upon him when I wipe it off from my self I can easily forgive and forget them too The best men have their Passions Iam. 5. 17. even Sweet-briers and Holy-Thistles have their offensive Prickles I consider my honest Neighbour under the strength of a Temptation It disquiets him to see the Labours of many years and the raised Expectations of so great a conquest and triumph over men of Renown all frustrated by his Friend and Neighbour who had done his utmost to prevent it and often foretold him of the folly and vanity of his Attempt Every thing will live as long as it can and natura vexat a prodit seipsam But certainly it had been more for Truth 's honour and Mr. C's comfort to have confessed his Follies humbly to God and have laid his hand upon his mouth The things in controversy betwixt us are great and weighty viz. The true nature of the Sinai Laws in their complex body the quality of God's Covenant with Abraham and the dispensation of the New Covenant we are now under These are things of great weight in themselves and their due Resolutions are at this time somewhat the more weighty because my Antagonist hath adventured the whole Controversy of Infants Baptism upon them I have in my Vindiciae Legis c. stated the several Questions clearly and distinctly Shewn Mr. C. what is no part of the Controversy and what is the very hinge upon which it turns desired him if he made any Reply to keep close to the just and necessary Rules of Disputation by distinguishing limiting or denying any of my Propositions that the matters in Controversy might be put to a fair and speedy issue But instead of that I meet with a flood of words rolling sometimes to this part and then to another part of my Answer and so back again without the steddy direction of Art or Reason There may for ought I know be some things of weight in Mr. Cary's Reply if a man could fee them for words but without scoff or vanity I must say of the rational part of it as the Poet said of the overdressed Woman Pars minima est ipsa Puella sui 't is the least part of it To follow him in his irregular and extravagant way of writing were to make my self guilty of the same folly I blame him for I am therefore necessitated to perstringe them and reduce all I have to say under three general Heads I. I shall clearly evince to the World That Mr. Cary hath not been able to discharge and free his own Theses from the horrid Consequents and gross Absurdities which I laid to their charge in my first Reply but instead thereof in this feeble and unsuccessful attempt to free the former he hath entangled himself in more and greater ones II. That he hath left my Arguments standing in their full strength against him III. And then I shall confirm and strengthen my three Positions which destroy the Cause he manages by some further Additions of Scripture Reason and Authorities which I hope will fully end this matter betwixt us But before I touch the Particulars two things must be premised for the Reader 's due information 1. That the Controversie about the true nature of the Sinai Laws both Moral and Ceremonial complexly considered is not that very Hinge upon which the Right of Believers Infants to Baptism depends that stands as it did before be the Sinai Laws what they will We do not derive the Right of Infants from any other Law or Covenant but that gracious Covenant which God made with Abraham which was in being 430 years before Moses his Law and was no way injured much less disannulled by the addition of it If Abraham's Covenant be the same Covenant of Grace we are now under the Right of Believers Infants to Baptism is secured whatever the Sinai Convenant prove to be Which I speak not out of the least jealousie that Mr. Cary hath or ever shall be able to prove it to be

a pure Adam's Covenant of Works but to prevent Mistakes in the Reader 2. It must be heedfully observed also that how free gracious and absolute soever the New Covenant be for God forbid that I should go about to eclipse the glory of Free-grace on which my Soul depends for Salvation yet that will never prove Abraham's Covenant to be an abolished Adam's Covenant of Works unless two things more be proved which I never expect to see viz. First That Abraham and his believing Posterity were bound by the very nature and act of Circumcision to keep the whole Law in their own persons in order to their Justification and Salvation as perfectly and perpetually and under the same penalty for the least failure as Adam was to keep the Law in Paradise Secondly It must be further proved That Abraham and all his believing Off-spring who stood with him under that Covenant whereof Circumcision was the initiating Sign were all saved in a different way from that in which Believers are now saved under the Gospel for so it must be if the addition of Circumcision made it unto them an Adam's Covenant of Works But this would be a direct contradiction to the words of the Apostle speaking of them who were under the Covenant of Circumcision Acts 15. 11. But we believe that through the grace of our Lord Iesus Christ we shall be saved even as they If he say they stood indeed under that Covenant as a pure Covenant of Works but were saved by another Covenant and so for many Ages the Church of God stood absolutely under the Covenant of Works and at the same time under the pure Covenant of Grace the one altogether absolute and free the other wholly conditional and though these two be in their own natures inconsistent and destructive of each other yet so it was that all the Saints for many Ages were absolutely under the one and yet purely under the other shall I be then censured for saying he speaks pure contradiction Possibly my Reader will be tempted to think I abuse him and that no man of common sense can be guilty of such an horrid Absurdity I must whatever respect I have for Mr. C. once more tell him before the World that this is not only his own Doctrine but that very Doctrine upon which he hath adventured the whole Cause and Controversie of Infants Baptism which I therefore say is hereby become a desperate Cause And this brings me to my first general Head viz. I. First That Mr. Cary hath not been able to free his Thesis from this borrid absurdity but by strugling to do it hath according to the nature of Errors entangled himself in more and greater ones Mr. Cary in p. 174 175. of his Solemn Call was by me reduced to this Absurdity which he there owns in express words That Moses and the whole body of the People of Israel were absolutely under without the exception of any the severest penalties of a dreadful Curse and that the Sinai Covenant could be no other than a Covenant of Works a ministration of death and condemnation and yet at the same time both Moses and all the Elect were under a pure Covenant of Gospel-grace And if these were two contrary Covenants in themselves and just opposite the one to the other as indeed they were we have nothing to say but with the Apostle O the depth c. This Reader is the Position which must be made good by Mr. Cary or his Cause is lost Deformed Issues do not look as if they had beautiful Truth for their Mother No false or absurd Conclusion can regularly follow from true Premisses But hence naturally and necessarily follows this Absurdity I. That Abraham Moses and all the Believers under the Old Testament by standing absolutely under Adam's Covenant of Works as a ministration of death and condemnation and at the same time purely under the Covenant of Grace as Mr. C. affirms they did must necessarily during their lives hang mid-way betwixt Life and Death Justification and Condemnation and after death midway betwixt Heaven and Hell During life they could neither be justified nor condemned Justified they could not be for Justification is the Soul 's passing from death to life 1 Iohn 3. 14. Iohn 5. 24. Upon a man's justification his Covenant and State are changed but the Covenant and State of no man can be so changed as long as he remains absolutely under the severest Penalties and condemnation of the Law as Mr. C. affirms they did Again Condemned they could not be seeing all that are under the pure Covenant of Grace as he saith they were at the same time are certainly in Christ and to such there is no condemnation Rom. 8. 1. nor ever shall be Ioh. 5. 24. He that believeth shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life What remains then but that during life they could neither be perfectly justified nor perfectly condemned and yet being absolutely under the severest Penalties of Adam's Covenant they were perfectly condemned and again being under the pure Covenant of Grace they must be perfectly justified And then after death they must neither go to Heaven nor Hell but either be annihilated or stick mid-way in Limbo Patrum as the Papists fancy betwixt both No condemned Person goes to Heaven nor any justified Person to Hell His Position therefore which necessarily infers this gross Absurdity is justly renounced and detested by Learned and Orthodox Divines The Learned and Acute Turrettine the late famous Professor of Divinity at Geneva proving that the Sinai Law could not be a pure Covenant of Works brings this very Medium to prove it as a known truth allowed by all men The Israelites saith he with whom God covenanted were already under Abraham's Covenant which was a Covenant of Grace and were saved in Christ by it therefore they could not be under the Legal Covenant Nemo enim simul potest duo●us foederibus totâ specie distinctis subesse because no man can be under two Covenants specifically different at the same time as these two are That Great and Renowned Divine Mr. William Strong gives four irrefragable Arguments to prove that no man can stand under both these Covenants at the same time which in co-ordination actually destroy and make void each other If the First Covenant stand there is no place for the Second and if the Second stand the first is made void And this saith he will fully appear if we consider the direct contrariety in the terms of those two Covenants For 1. the Righteousness of the first Covenant is in our selves but the Righteousness of the Second is the Righteousness of another 1 Ioh. 5. 11. 12. 2. In the Covenant of Works acceptation is first of the Works and afterwards of the Person Gen. 4. 7. but in the Covenant of Grace the acceptation is first of the Person and then of the Work Gen. 4. 4. 3. The First Covenant was a Covenant

account to confute and destroy this Fancy and much more may be rationally urged against it Let the following Particulars be weighed in the Balance of Reason 1. Can we rationally suppose that Pardon and Acceptance can be affirmed or predicated of that which is not Reason tells us Non entis nulla sunt accidentia That which is not can neither be condemned nor justified But before the Creation or before a Man's particular Conception he was not and therefore could not in his own Person be the Subject of Justification Where there is no Law there is no Sin Where there is no Sin there is no Punishment Where there is neither Sin nor Punishment there can be no Guilt for Guilt is an Obligation to Punishment And where there 's neither Law nor Sin nor Obligation to Punishment there can be no Justification He that is not capable of a Charge is not capable of a Discharge What remains then but that either the Elect must exist from Eternity or be justified in time 'T is true future Beings may be considered as in the purpose and decree of God from Eternity or as in the Intention of Christ who died intentionally for the Sins of the Elect and rose again for their Justification But neither the Decree of God nor the Death of Christ takes place upon any Man for his actual Justification until he personally exist For the Object of Justification is a Sinner actually ungodly Rom. 4. 5. but so no Man is or can be from Eternity In Election men are considered without respect to Good or Evil done by them Rom. 9. 11. not so in actual Justification 2. In Justification there is a Change made upon the state of the Person Rom. 5. 8 9. 1 Cor. 6. 9 10 11. By Justification men pass from a state of Death to a state of Life Ioh. 5. 24. But the Decree or Purpose of God in it self makes no such actual change upon the state of any person It hath indeed the nature of an Universal Cause but an Universal Cause produceth nothing without particulars If our state be changed it is not by an immanent act of God Hence no such thing doth transire A mere velle non punire or intention to justify us in due time and order makes no change on our state till that time come and the particular Causes have wrought A Prince may have a purpose or intention to pardon a Law-condemned Traitor and free him from that Condemnation in due time but whilst the Law that condemned him stands in its full force and power against him he is not justified or acquitted notwithstanding that gracious intention but stands still condemned So is it with us till by Faith we are implanted into Christ. 'T is true Christ is a surety for all his and hath satisfied the debt He is a common Head to all his as Adam was to all his Children Rom. 5. 19. But as the Sin of Adam condemns none but those that are in him so the Righteousness of Christ actually justifies none but those that are in him and none are actually in him but Believers Therefore till we believe no actual change passeth or can pass upon our state So that this Hypothesis is contrary to Reason As this Opinion is Irrational so it is Unscriptural For 1. The Scripture frequently speaks of Remission or Justification as a future act and therefore not from Eternity Rom. 4. 23 24. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him c. And Gal. 3. 8. The Scriptures foreseeing that God would justify the Heathen through faith preached before the Gospel unto Abraham The Gospel was preached many years before the Gentiles were justified but if they were justified from Eternity how was the Gospel preached before their Justification 2. The Scripture leaves all Unbelievers without distinction under condemnation and wrath The Curse of the Law lies upon them till they believe Iohn 3. 18. He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already And Eph. 2. 3 12 13. The very Elect themselves were by nature the Children of wrath even as others They were at that time or during that state of nature which takes in all that whole space betwixt their conception and conversion without Christ without hope without God in the World But if this Opinion be true that the Elect were justified from Eternity or from the time of Christ's death then it cannot be true that the Elect by nature are Children of Wrath without Christ without Hope without God in the World except these two may consist together which is absolutely impossible that Children of Wrath without God Christ or Hope are actually discharged from their Sins and Dangers by a free and gracious act of Justification But doth not the Scripture say Rom. 8. 33. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect If none can charge the Elect then God hath discharged them God hath not actually discharged them as they are Elect but as they are justified Elect for so runs that Text and clears it self in the very next words It is God that justifieth When God hath actually justified an Elect Person none can charge him 3. 'T is cross to the Scripture-order of Justification which places it not only after Christ's death in the place last cited Rom. 8. 33. but also after our actual vocation as is plain vers 30. Moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified Is it absurd to place Vocation before Predestination or Glorification before Justification sure then it must be absurd also to place Justification before Vocation the one as well as the other confounds and breaks the Scripture-order You may as well say men shall be glorified that were never justified as say they may be justified before they believed or existed So that you see the notion of Justification from Eternity or before our actual existence and effectual Vocation is a notion as repugnant to sacred Scripture as it is to sound Reason And as it is found repugnant to Reason and Scripture so it is highly injurious to Jesus Christ and the Souls of Men. 1. It greatly injures the Lord Jesus Christ and robs him of the glory of being our Saviour For if the Elect be justified from Eternity Christ cannot be the Saviour of the Elect as most assuredly he is for if Christ save them he must save them as persons subject to perishing either de facto or de jure But if the Elect were justified from Eternity they could in neither respect be subject to perishing for he that was eternally justified was never condemned nor capable of condemnation and he that never was or could be condemned could never be subject to perishing and he that never was nor could be subject