wrong is this by you who pretend and plead for Law Do you not care to offend Mr. Eaton's words are That Proposition that we are both righteous and sinners also in the sight of God falls flat to the ground But he denieth us not to be sinners in our selves or that sin remaineth and dwelleth still in us and that to our sense and feeling How often doth he repeat that And your own words immediately going before do sufficiently clear and acquit him But saith Mr. Eaton those imperfections of our sanctification are left in us to our sense and feeling that they may be healed in our justification Is not this then a palpable and unjust charge And hence followeth your damnable joyning hands between Antinomians and the Councel of Trent in this And thus having condemned the innocent in your next Sermon you needlesly undertake to prove that Justification is not an abolition of sin in its physical indwelling as if that were any opinion of your adversaries In chap. 5. p. 96. of Honey-comb you may read to your conviction and shame Thus it is plain that although God knows the sin that dwells in his sanctified children yet he seeth them abolished out of his own sight Is not here a clear confession of the indwelling of sin But I prosecute no further though you having by this violence got out of the way do hasten and go far 11 Exception Mr. Rutherf Dr. Crisp teacheth that not onely the guilt of sin but sin it self really and inherently was laid upon Christ Again p. 179. I judge it blasphemy saith Mr. Rutherf to say that Christ became when our sins were laid on him as really and truly the person that did all those sins as those persons that did commit them really And p. 142. It must be a lye c. to make Christ intrinsecally the sinner the murtherer c. Repl. This accusation is as false and unjust as the former I muse you blush not nor conscience did not make the hand to tremble when you used it in this horrid charge There are no such words as That sin was inherently laid on Christ or that Christ was the person that really and truly did all these sins or was intrinsecally the sinner The most and which cometh neerest to these blasphemies is where he saith That Christ was really and truly the person that had all these sins when they were laid on him but not that he was the person that did them as you say The Lord charge you not with it And as he urgeth rightly Where doth Scripture say that the guilt of sin and not sin it self was laid on him You grant as much if you understand your self as he asserteth viz. That as Surety he was really and truly the debter or sinner not the formal subject of sin in whom the blot of it was intrinsecally or really inherent you can gather or infer no such thing You adde It was by imputation True but that speaks to the manneer how he was a sinner and not to the reality and truth of it he was truly the sinner or debter in regard of his office or condition or Law-place as you call it 2. So then he was to answer justice And 3. hereupon became he obnoxious to make satisfaction by suffering So that the Doctor reasoneth firmly If he had not been first found to be the sinner in law or debter not actively that ever he committed any evil such blasphemy he denieth and abhorred but passively he being made the debter who must pay God having laid the iniquities of his people upon him and those first laid on him otherwise he had not suffered and satisfied for them You cannot finde any blasphemy save what you made your self by exchanging and putting in your own words and who then standeth guilty of it If any understanding and indifferent minde free from malice and prejudice had heard or read him he would never have so perverted and mis-interpreted as you have done But D. Luther's words if you yet do think him Orthodox may be fully satisfactory on Gal. 2.13 Serio loquitur Propheta c. The Prophet speaketh earnestly that Christ this Lamb of God should bear the sins of us all But what is it to bear sin The Sophisters answer To be punished Well but why is Christ punished Is it not because he hath sin and beareth it Now that Christ hath sin the holy Ghost witnesseth in Psal 40. My sins have taken such hold on me that I am not able to look up they are moe in number then the hairs of my head In this Psalm he speaks in the person of Christ and Psal 41. This testimony is not the voice of an innocent but of a suffering Christ who took upon him to bear the person of all sinners Wherefore Christ was not onely crucified and died but sin also through the Divine love was laid upon him when sin was laid upon him then cometh the Law and saith Every sinner must die c. God sent his Son into the world laid on him the sins of all men saying Be thou Peter the denyer Paul the persecutor blasphemer and cruel oppressor David that adulterer that sinner who ate the apple in Paradise that thief who hanged on the Cross and briefly be thou the person which hath committed the sins of all men see therefore that thou pay and satisfie for them Here now cometh the Law and saith I finde him a sinner and that such a one as hath taken on him the sins of all men c. therefore let him die upon the Cross and so setteth upon him and killeth him Now sin being vanquished and death abolished by this one man God would see nothing else in the whole world if it did believe but a meer cleansing and righteousness And a little before upon the same 13 vers And this no doubt all the Prophets did foresee in spirit that Christ should become the greatest transgressor murtherer adulterer thief rebel and blasphemer that ever was or could be in all the world Again If it be not absurd to confess and believe that Christ was crucified between two thieves then it is not absurd to say also that he was accursed and of all sinners the greatest You may read much more to like purpose but this may let you see your partiality and errour If you can understand and construe the one Doctor aright why not the other also except your minde be sinister or otherwise letted And now if you have any conscience towards God or love to the Truth and your Brethren so much injured by you you will clear them publikely and accuse your self By this I could easily untwist and annul what you have said against us 12 Exception M. Rutherf In all this you shall finde grace turned into wantonness In all his Sermons is much to depress and cry down holiness and walking with God Repl. He was raised up and fitted especially to be a son of consolation in these sad times Yet
for reconciliation and peace or Christ to be a Sanctuary or hiding place or any to flie to him for refuge and salvation It seemeth you would have the law to be preached more mildly then some Antinomians do and with much mitigation of justice and yet you blame others for too little law you are not good to please and few mens Ministery like you so as doth your own But this I dare say he that was never killed was never made alive where the law worketh not to condemnation there the Gospel never brought justification to life And by this meanes the law is subordinate and subservient in making sensible of sin guilt and damnation in suppressing and destroying that pestilent opinion and conceit which every one hath of himself his own strength and righteousness And lastly when a man lyeth in that deplorable and desperate case sighing and lamenting under that burden of fin and wrath in making to desire and seek after help and remedy And in a remote and general sense or accidentally it may be said to have Evangelical purposes in that all hope of righteousness acceptance and life being quite lost and gone by the Law the minde and intent of God hereby is to drive man to believe in JESUS CHRIST But of this you will tell us your minde more fully afterwards as you say LECT XI Gen. 2.17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not cat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye M. B. pa. 105. THe Antinomian cannot by his principles avoid that Christ intentionally dyed and so offereth his grace to all Answ That is Christ intended by his death fulness perfection or sufficiency of salvation for all and that so it should be tendered to all though the elect only can conceive it through faith and that it will prove the judgement and condemnation of others who were invited to be guests but refused to come in as Mat. 22. and had it propounded and offered to them Rom. 10. ult this is a truth as received by the Orthodox Ancient and Modern so consonant also to the Scripture and hence Christ is called the Saviour of the world And there is neither errour nor danger in it You say in another place that God justly requireth faith to the Gospel of all to whom it is preached in that we all had power to believe given in Adam is not then the object of faith or the grace of the Gospel to be propounded to all with command that they believe even for the obedience of Faith Rom. 1.5 This is the commandment of God that men believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ c. how should they receive and apply Christ unto whom he is not preached or offered or how can any be reproved for rejecting of him whom they might not receive or blamed for not coming unto him to have life whenas yet they had no way nor leave given as Joh. 5.40 You will not come unto me that you might have life LECT XIII Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest c. M. B. IN page 124. and 125. For did not God deal thus with Adam If he would obey he should live but if not then be must dye will you say with the Antinomian That this was an unlawful thing and this was to make Adam legal and one that was not affected with the goodness of God to him Answ If you deal candidly you should name your Antinomian and not charge any crime upon the guiltless you think he cannot be wronged too much 2. But if the continuance of Adams felicity was upon condition of his obedience it followeth not that it is so with the Elect in the second ADAM Christ for here they have a far more free and safe estate then was that in time of innocency LECT XIV Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest c. M. B. p. 132. ANother maine question is whether the estate of reparation be more excellent then that in innocency New here we cannot say one is absolutely better then another as the first estate of Adam did far exceed this in the rectitude it had c. Answ Our slate of reparation without all controversie doth far excell that of Adams innocency even as an infinite Good exceedeth a finite yea and in respect of rectitude immortality and felicity your three instances but then we must believe more then we see or feel yea and things centrary to what these our senses are set upon In Christ Jesus there is a new creation old things are past and all things are become new he that by faith putteth on Christ beareth the image of the heavenly whereas the image of Adam was the image of an earthly man As is the earthy such are they that are earthy and as is the heavenly such are they that are heavenly But our life is hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in glory Againe the state of reparation is more excellent then that of innocency in regard of immortality for the life that Christ hath purchased and brought to light can never be extinguished it is an everlasting life without fear danger or possibility of perishing here is no subjection nor propensity to death or mortality but Adams state was not so absolute and happy and though the body dye and outward man perish yet the state is imperishable and unchangeable And saith Christ He that believeth in me shall never see death Joh. 8.51 Lastly unto faith there is no infelicity for all the creatures stand reconciled in Christ unto the believer a firme and inviolable covenant is made for him with the beasts of the field the fowls of heaven and the creeping things of the ground Hos 2.18 Job 5.23 Also crosses afflictions tabulations and death it self not only cannot separate from the love of God in Christ Rom. 8. ult but all are yours saith Paul for your furtherance and hope the world or life or death or things present or things to come 1 Cor. 3.22 And all work together for good to them that love God Rom. 8.28 But this state is not discerned save by the eye of saith yet this is the truth of the Christian condition by the means of the blood of sprinkling which hath slaine and abolished all enmity and sanctified all things unto us and as it standeth and is confirmed in the minde of God and by him is revealed and held forth in the word of atonement he that is truly and effectually called by God is stated in that grace and blessed condition where he is without fear or danger of evil The defects or imperfections which you speak of are not in the state but in our sight and apprehension not in the thing or object but in our little saith The word and ordinances are left us to use for the increasing of our knowledge faith assurance consolation and full contentment
to affirm and maintain it and with a smal touch he there passeth it over And here he saith The Law it self converts not No more doth the Gospel it self as he often saith without the spirit This is as if with Mr. Burgess he meanes that either Law of Gospel is the Spirits instrument for conversion and that we may preach either for that end Mr. Rutherford is unwilling to speak out Loquere ut videam 3. If the Spirit by the Gospel conform us to the rule of the Law It s then true that the Law is a passive rule but not active as actuating to effectuate this thus you grant what I asserted and oppose without cause But at last you tell us the Apostle never speaks of our freedom from the Law as it doth regulate direct and lead us Reply Now this overthroweth what you said even now viz. That the Spirit by the Gospel doth direct and lead us in the way of the Law for then the Law doth not actively lead us Mr. T. pag. 9. What freeth a believer from the curse but because he is a new Creature Mr. Rutherf That new creation is sanctification 2 Cor. 5.17 not justification If any be in Christ that is if he be justified he is a new creature that is sanctified or else by the Antinomian gloss the meaning must be If a man be justified in Christ he is justified in Christ Paul speaks not so non-sense Reply This new creature is the man changed in himself and his state Sanctification is not a new creation but a new qualifying of a man It begets him not nor recreates him not to God nor yet delivereth him from under the curse makes him not the child of God restoreth him not into favour nor doth make him Heir Co-heir with Christ c. See your errour 2. To be justified and to be in Christ is not all one as your gloss is they differ as the cause and the effect or as the antecedent and consequent To be in Christ imports union which is before justification Or it is insition that work of the Father Joh. 15.1 that being ingrafted into him he may partake of his righteousness and holiness both imputatively and inherently if I may use the Aristotelian word More sound or probable is their judgement who teach that regeneration includeth both justification and sanctification Mr. Rutherf How shall it follow that Christ hath loosed us from all debt of active obedience because he hath loosed us from a necessity of perfect active obedience but the Law is spiritualized and lustred with the Gospel Law and free-grace and drawn down to a Covenant of free-grace requires not nor exacts upon perfect obedience under pain of losing salvation It requires obedience as the poor man is able to give it by the grace of God that the man may enter in the possession of eternal life Reply I Reply You can shew no text nor reason why Christ looseth not from imperfect as well as perfect obedience and that from active as well as passive Nay if from prefect much more may we argue from imperfect 2. If our state and case be well considered we are spiritually so poor that we are as unable to pay pence as pounds It is all one to a dead man whether life be tendered unto him upon condition of moving his least finger or the removing of a great Mountain and this is our case Again you can produce no Law 1 That requires not perfect obedience 2 That calls not for obedience as a proper condition of life Do and live 3 That threatens not death upon the least failing in any Iota But you let all see your new divinity 1 I must obey but not perfectly 2 The Law is spiritualized c. drawn down to a Covenant of free-grace 3 No more is required of the poor man then he can give c. Vltra posse viri non vult Deus ulla requirt Thus grace is abrogated promise made void and faith is of no effect Mr. Rutherf Paul sheweth what Law we are freed from of sinne and death and saith Christ died for this end Rom. 8 4. That the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us Whence I argue Those that ought to fulfill the righteousness of the Law by walking after the Spirit and mortifying the deeds of the flesh are not freed from the Law as a rule of righteousness Reply The strength of sinne is the Law 1 Cor. 15.56 2 Christ dyed that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us imputatively or grant inherently yet if this be the end and fruit of Christs death as you say then the Law is no active cause of it but the power of Christs death effecteth it And though this righteousness be for matter one with the Law yet still the Law is but a rule passively according to which the believer is conformed and regulated it not actively regulating Also active walking in the Law is but the expression and effect of sanctification and not properly sanctification it self Adam made holy lived accordingly from that inward form his holy life made him not holy Neither is our holy life to procure or preserve peace favour life as the Law propoundeth requireth it for these consist in faith alone which findeth and enjoyeth Christ to be such a true fulness and All-sufficiency to the soul that self by him and with him is satisfied and so needs no ends of its own in working and obeying Joh. 6.35 He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst Mr. Rutherf We are freed from the Law being once justified so the Antinomians whatever we do is not against a Law or rule the law gives a dispensation to do those things being justified which the unjustified cannot do but in doing it they sinne because the unjustified are under the law as a rule of justice which we are not under We have an Antidated dispensation to sinne Reply You straine your wit if not conscience to make quidlibet ex quolibet But I say Take justification in the full latitude and extent of it or consider a Christian still as justified and so he is freed from under the Law but if you speak of or consider him in his active righteousness of works so as you bring him under the Law so he sinneth yea and is judged and condemned by the Law and you must raise him and bring him up to his justified state ere he can be free and secure from the curse Justification extends to all sins at all times throughout the whole life But it s false that I give an Antidated dipensation that is your indirect inference If you put the believer under the Law as he sinneth like the unjustified so the Law threatneth and curseth both equally Though you tell us unwarrantably of your bare word that the Law hath power to rule where it hath no power to condemn then we may live securely in sin or the works
A RE-ASSERTION OF GRACE OR VINDICIAE EVANGELII A Vindication of the Gospell-truths from the unjust censure and undue aspersions of Antinomians In a modest Reply to Mr. Anth Burgesses Vindiciae Legis Mr. Rutherfords Triall and Tryumph of Faith from which also Mr. Geerie and M. Bedford may receive a satisfactory answer By ROBERT TOVVNE AMBR Quia Conscientiae suae luce clarescunt alienis rumoribus sordidentur JOHN 16.2 They will put you out of their Synagogues yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will thinke that he doth God service JOHN 4.4 Ye are of God little children and have overcome them because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world LONDON Printed for the Author and are to be sold at the Angell in Cornhill 1654. The PREFACE THe written Papers of this Booke originally under the Authors owne hand did accidentally fall under my view by meanes of a faithfull friend and brother who first gave me intelligence that there was such a work in hand but not as yet perfected afterward obtaining a sight of it in its primary engrossings he borrowed the same for a time in which he might peruse and reade them over and so in the interim before they were returned to the owner they came to me the which when I had considered I found therein a composure of very excellent matter the Doctrine of the Law of God truly published in its lightening lustre and native purity drawne forth from under the vailing glosses with which it lay covered the meere Inventions of Sathan transformed into an Angell of light and restored to its former integritie and proper use Psal 12. as Silver tryed in a furnace of earth purified seaven times So that Sinah's Thunderclapps or the bolts of Horeb doe here appeare Shot out the cloudes and Pharisaicall expositions darkening the counsell of God by words without knowledge being dissolved and broken thorow Job 38. And moreover that the fainting sinner might not utterly be excluded I found comprized therein the bringing to light of life and immortality through the Gospell the opening of the kingdome of heaven the doores being largely expanded in Christs owne way 2 Tim. 1. and method of preaching which reason and the seede of the Serpent sowen therein the enemie to the simple truth of God hath endeavoured by all subtile workings and secret insinuations either wholly to shut or else to open and but to the halfe by the key of such qualifications that there is no possibility for any heart sensibly discovered by the doore so opened to enter in Onely the hypocrite who lives in a fooles paradise fraighted with a vaine imagination of his owne conditionall goodnesse doth conceitedly seeme to himselfe to enter into the kingdome of heaven Josh 6. by that way which Sathan hath prepared and cast up but the issues thereof are the issues of death leading to Jericho the accursed City so that this he shall have in the end He shall lye down in sorrow Isa 50. John 9. and because he thinks that he seeth therefore his sin remaineth For the end cannot be enjoyed but only in God own way appointed by himselfe which way thou shalt finde most clearely held out John 14. and convincingly proved in these ensuing treatises to be Christ himself by whom the believing heart hath accesse to God and comes with boldnesse to the throne of grace no man comming to the Father but by him John 10. And also that he is the doore ready to entertaine and receive into peaceable habitations and sure dwellings all such as are wounded with the invenomed arrowes of their hidden abhominations and stand trembling under the hand of God fearefull of his fiery wrath and justly deserved indignation which none may abide nor otherwise can avoid John 3. And that he is the truth of the brazen Serpent which is lifted up upon the pole in the wildernesse not for the whole but for the mortally wounded to look unto And the water of life to coole and refresh the withered heart Psal 23. parched with the heat of sin at the which as still waters the weake sheepe may drinke which otherwise were not able to stand in or withstand the boysterous streames and hold its footing in the clashing waves so that out of his belly flows the Rivers of Living Water John 10. And the good Shepheard who fully manageth that relation for the good of his tender ones he feeds his Flock Isa 40. like a Shepheard he gathers the Lambes with his arme John 15. and carries them in his Bosome and gently leads those that are with young The Vine in which the Branches live and in whom his people enjoy their life by faith Gal. 2. being dead in themselves through the Law John 1. Colos 1. Isaiah 6.1 Rev. 1. Eph. 5. Eph. 1. Acts 15. Rom. 8. so that what they have or enjoy doth proceed and issue from that Root so full of moysture of which fulnesse they receive and grace for grace They live but it is in him who is their life They are righteous and that compleatly but it s through his Robes They are cleansed and washed but it is by his Bloud They are accepted but it is in the Beloved They are adopted but it is in the first begotten among many Brethren Their Hearts are purified but it is by the faith of the Son of God They are free from Condemnation but it is because they are in Christ Jesus for to such there is no condemnation Nay reckon up all their participations and we shall finde that they are in and proceed from him who is the head Coloss 1. that in all things he might have the preheminence So that What have they but they have received it And a believing man may say most truely In Christ I have and am all things but out of him I am meerly nothing nay less than nothing and vanity And why should this Doctrine be so impugned but that the strong man armed and keeping his house will not be quiet for feare he should be dispossessed but by all means possible both as Fox and Lyon bestirres himself that he may keep and retain his ancient hold when as it ought rather to be highly extolled and magnified in Heart Press and Pulpit Mic. 4. seeing it lifts up and establisheth the mountaine of the house of the Lord in the top of the mountaines and exalts it above the hills and doth but fulfill that saying of Isaiah where the Prophet speakes in the person of God himselfe Isa 52. Behold my Servant meaning Christ shall deale prudently he shall be exalted extolled and shall be very high though many should be astonished at him because his visage not appearing comely to the eye of fl sh and blood was so marred more than any man and his forme more than the Sons of men But what God in Himselfe or his Word hath most highly exalted that Sathan alwayes an enemy to the truth of God and the seed of the
grant the Law to be a perpetual and inviolable Rule of Righteousness but that it is a Rule to a Believer quatenus talis he will not grant 2. It is true it hath vim praecepti as well as doctrinae and so it hath vim damnandi a power to curse as he there affirmeth and you neither have nor can refute M. B. What will he say to the Law given to Adam who yet was righteous and innocent and therefore could not be cursing or condemning of him Ans You mean not that the Law had no power to curse and condemn because Adam was innocent for you grant it had that potentially though not actually If then it did not actually curse it was not because the Law wanted that power but in that state of innocency there was no place nor reason actually to curse Henceforth wonder not at the Author for saying the Law hath power to curse which is denyed by Dr Taylor and your self but wonder at your own oversight who while you would oppose and confute your Adversary do grant and affirm all he requireth And yet in your Lect. 6. you deny this power to curse to be any essential part of the Law When Adam had sinned whether did the Law actually condemn or no If yes I demand then whether it were by that authority and power it had before or some new and further power was given it upon the fall Did not the Law say to him yet in innocency What day thou eatest of that tree thou shalt dye Gen. 2. How was it that it threatened death and forbad the eating under such a fearful penalty if it had yet no power to execute and inflict the same You must now yield and cease or fight on with your own shadow M. B. In respect of the Vse of the Law to Believers It hath this Vse 1. To excite and quicken them against all sin and corruption c. because none of the godly are perfectly righteous and there is none but may complain of his dull love and his faint delight in holy things therefore the Law of God by commanding doth quicken him c. Have not Believers Crookedness Hypocrisie Luke-warmness Ans The love of God in Christ revealed and shed abroad in the heart doth quicken but the simple Command of the Moral Law can never effect what you say He that loveth the Lord hateth sin but we love the Lord not by reason of the Law requiring it but because he hath loved us first 1 Ioh. 4.19 and that we be born of God and know God in his Son It 's strange Divinity that the flesh and wickedness of our nature should be cured or weakened by the Law It may discover the malady or disease but not remedy it Put the Law to the old man it will revive and quicken it indeed but not to goodness if we may believe either Scripture or our own experience The strength of sin is the Law 1 Cor. 15.56 And Rom. 7.9 When the Commandment came sin revived and I dyed Such is the poysonful enmity in us by the first Adam that it maketh head against the plaister of the Law being applyed unto it The old man or flesh is enmity to God and all goodness Rom. 8.7 and the more it is stirred and quickened by the Law the more it is enraged But contrarily the Head of the Body that is the Church is Christ from whom it hath nourishment ministred and so increaseth with the encrease of God and by this means the body of sin is weakened and abolished Colos 2.19 Our Sanctification is not begun nor perfected by legal precepts and pressings but by our true and effectual union with Christ Ioh. 15.4 As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except ye abide in me Verse 5. He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing M. B. In the third Use of the Law pag. 9. How absurd then are they that say the preaching of the Law is to make men trust in themselves and to adhere to their own righteousness Ans It may be truly said that too many so preach the Law that they establish mans righteousness for this is in the mouth of divers The Minister saith Do well and have well and we are taught That the way to come to glory in Heaven is to glorifie God on Earth by good works Christ saveth none but holy ones c. If the Law were used to discover sin not to cover it to weaken and destroy not to strengthen and build up to binde and cast out not to loose release and admit if the Vail were taken off Moses face and the glory of God in his fiery and terrible Law did break forth so that all found it to be a Ministration of death and condemnation this would be a mean to kill and overthrow all self-confidence and boasting But who doth make that use of it Not one of twenty and your self cannot receive the Law and digest it under such a terrifying and damning notion M. B. pag. 11. The Antinomian before he speaks any thing against or about the Law must shew in what sence the Apostle useth it Ans Your Antinomian is as good a friend to the Law as your self neither do you nor yet can you make it appear that he speaks one word against the Law You are too bold in saying that the Apostle argueth against the Law in any sence but if you so charge him your Conscience may give way to slander us M. B. 5 Caution pag. 13. To distinguish between a Believer and his personal acts Believers sins are condemned they are guilty of Gods wrath though not their persons Ans This your nice and groundless distinction was Dr Taylors shift as it is yours You might have seen the vanity of it in the Assertion of Grace or at least have considered how to satisfie the Objections against it before you present the world with it afresh 1. The Scripture maketh the guilt and curse to redound upon the person as Gal. 3.10 Cursed is every man that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them 2. In your dayly repentance or confession you make in your prayers do you not judg and condemn your self for your sins whereof Conscience doth accuse you What a strange expression is it that sins are guilty of Gods wrath 3. If no guilt redound upon the person there is no more need of Christs blood to cleanse acquit and justifie and to be a continual propitiation for sin The Promise is vain and Faith of no effect unless you will say that you believe dayly to secure not your person but your sins from wrath 4. And the true reason why the sin guilt and curse redound upon any person is because he is put and placed under the Law which revealeth wrath and why all is kept off the Believer it
answer 1. If Christ died not for such how could such come unto him or believe on him So that there is a sweet harmony yea who else could be saved for what difference is there originally and inwardly though not in outward expressions and out-breakings to the eye of the world the strictest Pharisee is as wicked and unclean as the loosest Libertine God looketh upon the heart But 2. you ask how can an enemy to Christ close with Christ I answer Is it not possible for enemies to be reconciled or for a Rebell convinced of his danger to submit and receive a gracious pardon being offered and when he is receiving it he may rightly and worthily be called a Rebell though afterward he become a true professed Subject 3. Neither the Text alledged nor the Doctor say enemies to Christ but when we were enemies viz. to God his justice and holiness in reference to his law For as God absolutely considered cannot be the object of mans hatred so God in Christ as Mediatour cometh under another Notion as being the onely meanes to slay enmity and reconcile both in himself You say it is more then in some places they allow Ans When you shew some place we may speak to it But how frequently read you in Doctor Crisp these and like expressions If God give thee an heart to come if thou canst believe if now thou have a mind to close with Christ c. which ought to have prevented all these exceptions as annulling the grounds and reasons of them I marvell that any understanding and experienced man should except against his Ministery it tending specially to encourage the poore and troubled soul to come freely and with confidence unto Christ assuring it there is no such force and let as the conscience of sin and his own unworthiness will suggest Oh how hard a thing is it in the feeling and horrour of sin to look up to free-grace and to receive Christ the gift of God without all disputings and reasonings about workes or qualification It is an evill rooted deeply in nature even that opinion which your doctrine maintaineth nourisheth and strengtheneth enough to overthrow the soul in the hour of tentation witness all experience And so the thought and consideration of some conceited goodness doth breed presumption and an unwarrantable perswasion of being the rather accepted If the Doctor had said that Christ is theirs and become their salvation whenas yet they had no heart to receiue or desire him you had some ground of excepting against him M. B. Christ dyed not onely to justifie but to save us Answ 1. Christ hath saved all that are to be saved Tit. 3.5 2. But it followeth not therefore that any can lay hold on salvation without justification or the righteousness of faith although he may so do without the righteousness of works Tit. 3.5 for justification is to life the Antecedent of it Rom. 5.18 M. B. Indeed the grand principle that Christ hath purchased and obtained antecedently to us in their sense will as necessarily infer that a drunkard abiding a drunkard shall be saved as well as justified Answ That Christ hath purchased and obtained all graces as you call them is so clear and fully convincing in the light of the Scripture that you cannot deny the truth of it onely our sense of it is corrupt and erroneous as you say but why do you not tell what our sense is It is out of no love that you conceal it but rather it argueth a minde in you to make the world thinke worse of us then you can make us to appear What you make or how you pervert our sense would be seen but that grand principle will necessarily infer the contrary to the conclusion you make for what Christ purchased for us must necessarily be dispensed and given therefore cannot that grace of Regeneration be withheld from them that are Christs but it cometh to them not in the preceptive way of the Law but through the word of promise which you cannot skill of If any should teach that some graces favour and part of eternal life were left to be purchased and obtained by our obedience and service that doctrine might finde more free passage and better entertainment But I wonder you are so peremptory and unadvised in making such an inference as if justification did leave a man as it found him and there were no vertue efficacy nor health in it nor that pretious faith apprehending it or as if we did teach so as by you we are slandered the contrary still lying under your eyes You need and must be forced to acknowledge that Tot us processus c. the only and whole passage from sin to righteousness from death to life from bondage under wrath and the curse unto liberty and the receiving into favour and felicity is attributed by Scripture and all sound Divines to that article of free justification so that in true and strict sense salvation is inseparable from it Yet that the world may see how the simple intent and sense of Dr. Crisp is misrepresented by you these are his words pag. 66. Christ the only way If a man saith he have a little holiness and righteousness he thinks now that in regard of that he may without presumption close with Christ Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners but it seems a man must be righteous before he have to do with the calling of Christ See now whether this be with or against the Gospel-free-grace therefore even to sinners is it no licentious doctrine nor doth it a jot maintaine the continuance in sin I say therefore that Christ doth belong to a person that closeth with him though he be in his sinfulness Christ indeed doth wash cleanse and adorn a person when he is closed with but there is none clean till Christ himself do enter who makes clean where he doth enter Do not then so misconstrue the Doctor as if his doctrine were inconsistent with the truth All that you can gather and directly conclude from him is that sinners under that very notion and name are called upon in the Gospel to come unto Christ that he is tendered unto them while they are such If God give a heart to a wicked man at this instant willingly to close with Christ he giveth him an absolute and compleat and perfect interest in Christ And these his expressions imply as much as you in truth can require For can there be a heart given to come a real willingness to close with Christ where there is no sight and sense of sin and danger why doth the soul desire Christ believe in him is it not that it may be saved from sin wrath and damnation and obtain righteousness life favor and salvation doth not the hastening unto the City of refuge sufficiently prove the man to be a manslayer so here it argueth a true inward conviction of and a real confession of a guilty estate yea a perswasion that in
Christ a distressed and pursued soul may be safe and in peace but nowhere else M. B. Now these speak of Christs death as an universal meritorious cause without any application of Christs death unto this or that soul Therefore you must still carry this along with you that to that grand mercy of justification somthing is requisite as the efficient viz. the grace of God something meritorious viz. Christs sufferings something instrumental viz. faith and one is as necessary as the other Answ The full bent and chief drift of the Doctors ministery is the application of Christ and the benefits of his death unto the soul who so see any thing cannot but so judge I marvel then at this your so palpable accusation 2. Dr. Crisp speaketh of justification as it is Gods alone gracious act in Christ discharging and acquitting all the Elect in him at the time of his passion and resurrection fully and for ever This was done in fore caeli or as others coram judicio Dei As for the instrumentals whether the word to reveal and publish it or faith to apprehend and rest on it they were neither necessary to that Act of God but onely afterward to give evidence and assurance to the several consciences of all those Elect of what was done for them freely by God in Christ upon the cross For there God was in Christ reconciling them to himself 2 Cor. 5.18 M. B. I will but mention one place more Psal 68.18 Thou hast received gifts even for the rebellious also c. adding Is not all this strange Though the Author press sanctification never much in other places yet certainly such principles as these over grow it Answ 1. Why is it that you think this strange viz. That the loathsomness and hatefulness of this rebellion is transacted from the person upon the back of Christ he beareth the sin as well as the shame c. So that God acquitted his Elect and satiffied his justice in Christ their Sure y and by this means it cometh to pass that God can dwell withthose persons Is this any more then what Paul saith in short and plain words viz. Christ was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 and Ephes 2.14 Christ by his Crosse hath slain enmity and made peace Is not Christ the Communis terminus the bond and mean of union and atonement with God by his only sacrifice while we were sinners enemies in our selves we were reconciled in Christ Rom. 5.10 The ground and reason of your opposing is in that you are of opinion that God commeth unto us by or with or because of some inherent graces or qualifications in us which be as a Load-stone to draw and unite his affection and that Christ is but the meritorious cause of this a Papistical conceit God is in Christ and where Christ is there is God present I am in the Father and the Father in me Ioh. 14.10 he that hath the Son hath the Father also and he that hath not the Son hath not the Father He that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me Ioh. 13.20 God then loveth uniteth himself and cometh to the soule only in and through Christ In whom he makes us accepted Eph. 1.6 and that only of his grace If the presence of good works you so contend for in justification were granted you yet God hath no respect to them but beholdeth us as sinful wretches plunged into all confusion and being moved to pity us he considereth our persons and receiveth us alone in our Lord Jesus Christ yea he only beholdeth as our selves so all our good works in that perfection of his Son else they could not be accepted nor liked saith Mr. Calvin And these are the only true and most powerful and operative principles of all right sanctification though your legally-forced sanctity or reformation may grow and arise out of another natural principle and dead root Lastly as for that conversion and change of the most rebellious by the Ministery it is the product or effect of this doctrine I muse that a man of your parts and Religion should so stumble in so clear a light LECTURE IIII. 1 Tim. 1.8 9. Knowing the Law is good if a man use it lawfully M. B. Having confuted some dangerous inferences that the Antinomian makes from that precious Doctrine of justification Answ Egregiam vero laudem spolia ampla refers tu Review now your elaborate work and you will not finde one syllable of real confutation you may learn palmodiam canere I only intend to defend and vindicate the assertions and cause of your later Antinomians as you are pleased to call them as for Islebius Agricola he is none of my acquaintance I never read him If you wrong him God is his Judg and avenger yea and this also I would have the Reader know thāt I am minded to pass by whatever I shall henceforth meet withall whether positive or controversal if it do not directly touch or reflect upon his three named Antinomians lest all the rest in this book be taken for orthodox or I be accounted an approver of it for many things in it besides are to me unsavoury and unsound M. B. sect 2. They tell us not only of a righteousness or justification by imputation but also Saintship and holiness by this obedience of Christ And hence it is that God seeth no sin in believers Answ If they tell you of such perfection that God seeth no sin they withal in the same place tell you if you had the same ears to hear it that this justification or Saintship is by imputation and not by inherent sanctification If Christ be held forth unto you by God himself as one that hath washed you and cleansed you from all sin and withal it be given you so to apprehend and receive it what think you now of your self and condition while you abide in this light In the Creed you say I believe a holy Church yet the Church it self is no exterior or visible thing that the world can discern though the persons be visible and her holiness is invisible onely faith which is of things not seen Heb. 11.11 can behold this purity of the Church not in the Law nor any work or inherent thing but as she is washed and made clean in the blood and righteousness of her Redeemer The Church is all fair saith August for her filthiness is taken away by Christ and he hath made her fair Look upon the Christians life and there thou maist finde many things that thou blamest If he look within himself the work of renovation there wrought it is also imperfect and not pure but as he is beheld in Christ who hath sanctified him he is altogether pure and holy but faith only seeth this Mark but this one saying of Calvin To the intent that God may no more be an enemy and take part against us who are
Answ Here you wrong your adversary he speaks of a power and you of an act The Law may actually condemn where and when it cannot actually justifie as it condemneth every transgressor but can justifie onely the innocent and yet the power for to do both is equally in it as a Law Why do you not answer the ensuing Question viz. Can you put your Conscience under the Mandatory power and yet keep it from under the damnatory The Law bids you love your neighbour though your enemy and presuppose you are obedient thereunto yet do you do it so perfectly that the Law hath no power to reprove and condemn you in that particular If the Law condemn you not away with humiliation Confession Repentance Justification and all living by Faith in Christ For now you can so walk according to the rule of the Law that it cannot subject you to the curse and death you are not reproved and judged in your self for any thing your peace and safety is by your just life the Law being curbed and restrained or rather exauthorized or dis-invested of all power to condemn and your life and comfort is not by your Faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you as Gal. 2.21 There is no condemnation unto you not because you are in Christ as Rom. 8.1 but the reason is in that the Law though a rule yet wanteth power to reign to death We often meet with this groundless and false assertion and now see what is the chief stone that you stumble at Let this now suffice M. B. The same Author again pag. 5. He dare not trust a believer to walk without his keeper c. they are onely kept within compass by the Law but are no keepers of it Answ The word they relates not to believers if you look the place as here you do intimate You onely repeat what we write but confute nothing M. B. The same Author at another time calls it a slander to say they deny the Law who can reconcile such contradictions Answ I see no contradiction nor shew of any you might tell your Reader wherein it lyeth for all are not so quick-sighted as your self But is not this a contradiction in you who say that we grant the Law to be a rule and that a believer is a free keeper of it and yet that we hold and teach the abolition of it Here the task to reconcile is now yours Also that we deny the Law abideth still a slander for which the Law is against you See the the ninth Commandment The Lord layeth it not unto your charge M. B. p. 52. The second interpretation is of the damnatory and cursing power of the Law the Law is not made to a believer so as he should abide under the cursing and condemning power of it Answ You might remember that right now you said The Law a believer is under hath no power to condemn and curse what need he or how can he then be freed from the cursing power See your own instance If the fire had no power to burn what need was there that God should hinder the act You would saign such a fire as is without all power to burn and tell us of such a Law as wanteth power to condemn who will now fear either or rather who can credit such vain words Your sword cuts the throat of the owner for from the removal or restraint of the act or operation the Argument doth not hold for the removal of the thing or the power to condemn but rather on the contrary it strongly and necessarily inferreth and concludeth that there is such a condemning power in the Law in that it is restrained and hindered from the actual doing of it But secondly here is no such miracle wrought upon the Law as was there upon the fire which kept it from burning the three worthies Dan. 3.23 25. though more abundant mercy be shewed for Christ was made under the Law to redeem us from under it Gal. 4.4 Not to take the curse from the Law but to redeem us In what sense and to what end Christ was under as our surety in the same sense are we freed but he was under both the rule and raign of it Yet it will not follow that believers are in no state of subjection and obedience or being enlarged and set at liberty do not run the way of Gods Commandments For they do it though by another efficient from a new principle and for a different end then that of the Law Do and live They are under Christ and moved and led by his Spirit who is the head and husband of his Church But of this more afterwards M. B. Consider some parallel places of Scripture Gal. 5.23 speaking of the fruits of the Spirit Against such there is no Law the Law was not made to these to condemn them Answ And if you refer it to the fruits of the Spirit the Spirit produceth his fruits of himself and of his own accord no outward Law commanding and directing M. B. And if because the godly have an ingenuous free Spirit to do what is good he need not the Law directing or regulating it would follow as well he need not the whole Scripture Answ You would still bear men in hand that we are against the use of the Law which yet we do stand for if lawfully used as your Text requireth and that in all the Authority and Offices of it and this we can and are ready to make good upon occasion yet since this is so often inculcated by you I wish you would give satisfaction in these few things First If the Spirit make the will and affections free to what is good doth it alter and enlighten the understanding also to know what is truth and good and effectually encline move guide and lead aright without the direction and regulating of the Law doth the Spirit which is light and giveth all light and directive power to the Law need the Law in his work 2. You are to prove and cleer better then yet you have done that the Law is instrumental to the Spirit in the works and ways of sanctification 3. Where do you finde that the moral Law doth give help or power unto any jubet non juvat 4. Whereas you say we are flesh and not all spirit c. It may be replyed that by Scripture and all experience sin the wickedness of our nature is rather irritated and strengthened by the Law then weakned and mortified It is such a desperate disease that it makes head more strongly against any legal plaister and application Rom. 7.5 c. M. B. You say it will follow as well that he needed not the Gospel to call upon him to believe Answ Your reason is much unlike for first the Doctrine of the Gospel is not onely the object of Faith but the outward instrument and ordinary means the Spirit useth both to implant faith and to increase it to
by him then you canonize him for Orthodox M. B. But they never used such expressions in the Antinomian sense as if hereby we were made not only perfectly righteous but also holy and without sin Answ When the Authors have the same expressions and use the same words yet if you may be the Glossary your sinister mind can make their sense to vary and differ 2. They who say we are persectly righteous do affirme us to be holy also and without sin in the same sense and manner but not inherently for if the law require holiness and righteousness how can we be justified in Christ from what the Law hath against us and yet not be as well holy as righteous in him and so without sin what can be spoken by the Spirit of God more plainly then this Christ hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his blood Rev. 15. See also Col. 1.22 And read Luther on Psal 130. vers 3. who there saith They that put not their trust herein alone that by the death of Christ their sins are taken away and Gods eyes closed that he cannot see their sins must needs perish for this onely do the Scriptures set forth that our life resteth wholly and alonely in the remission of sins and in that the Lord will not see our sins but in mercy cover them c. In the reading of which words the said Author of the Honey-comb was much convinced and sore terrified and troubled as he confessed But your carnal reason can put a lower and strange sense upon all such places and so present them in your own shape that nothing may offend any beyond a carnal sense no truth can be admitted what God speaketh plainly will be received no further then wit conceiveth and letteth us see how it may be true and then we will say we belive it but that is not to give credit unto God in what in his word he propoundeth but to assent unto reason as it comprehendeth LECT XV. Exod. 20.1 And God spake c. M. B. HAppily the Law will be more extolled in its digninity then ever by those opinions which would overthrow it Answ It is impossible for any to extoll the Law above the dignity due and proper to it but what you attempt for that purpose doth neither gaine glory to the Law nor commendation to your self 2. You tell us of opinions overthrowing it yet can let your reader see none more subverting and injurious then your own Indeed you bear the world in hand that the adversaries which you have made or feigned to your self do speak against the use of the Law and preaching of it cry down the Law utterly abolish it c. all which with more such-like interwoven stuff is fasly suggested by you to render them erroneous and odious but you can make no such things appear M. B. page 139. For we may either take the word Law for the whole dispensation of the commandments moral judicial and ceremonial or else more strictly for that part we call the moral law yet with the preface and promises added to it And in both these respects the law was given as a covenant of grace which is to be proved in due time or else most strictly for that which is meer mandative and preceptive without any promise at all Answ It is granted the word Law is capable of the two former significations but that in both those respects it was given as a covenant of grace especially in the later more strict sense for the moral law Is a new-coyned and bold assertion lately come out of the mint having as yet no image or superscription upon it save onely ipse dixit to make it currant If your spirits be grown so wanton and confident by reason of some supposed parts or abilities more eminent in your self that you will not keep tract of the Orthodox but slight and reject all humane authority as falling too short of that height you aime at in your aspiring thoughts yet reason requireth it of you to shew your reader some clear text of Scripture upon which you ground your distinction and positions If the moral law strictly and properly so called was given as a covenant of grace Why is it called a law of works requiring mans righteousness And then Paul argued nothing solidly when he said If it be of works it is no more of grace and if of grace it is no more of works else grace is no more grace To admit the one is to exclude and deny the other so inconsistent they be in this point Rom. 11.6 But you take time to prove it and you have your asking and we wait your leisure In the interim you present us with as uncouth and unwarrantable an assertion viz. that the word Law is taken for that which is meer mandative without any promise at all c. It will prove as difficult as bold an enterprize to undertake the proof and defence of this The Scriptures define the law in these words Do and live and so implyeth the contrary viz. He that doth not shall dye so that the mandative is not without the promise nor threatning When Paul saith They that are of the works of the law are cursed Gal. 3.10 doth he not argue convincingly that the works of the law which we do in obedience to its command cannot be secured and set free from the curse And that the law is ever invested with divine authority to promise and threaten to curse and bless to kill and give life I should be afraid so to limit the Lords Soveraignty and to devest him of so much power in his just and holy law as to make him some petite and under-ruler or commander allowing him in his law onely a jurisdiction to make and impose a law without a full and due reigning power having no more light to clear it then as yet you hold forth unto us And now with this wittily-devised key you can pick out and give us the right sense of all those assertions which the learned have concerning the difference between the Law and the Gospel and putting your sense into their words can make them speak as you please But though you can shew us no text to ascertaine the verity of any thing yet you give us a reason as weak and unsound as is your affirmation viz. M. B. For if you take as for the most part they do all the precepts and threatnings scattered up and down in the Scripture to be properly the law and then all the gracious promises where-ever they are to be the Gospel then it is no marvel if the law have many hard expressions cast upon it Answ This reason seemeth to occasion your forged distinction And 1. You would father this upon the learned but tell us of no Author book nor testimony It would have been to your credit and the justification of your weak and questioned cause to have produced one sentence or sillable sounding that way 2.
to life but by death And when a man hath seen and felt nothing but sin and death in himself the law cannot tell him nor let him know of a righteousness and life ordained for him in another out of himself and therefore here it ceaseth to help He that expecteth conversion by the Law may as well seek light in darkness life in death conversion where confusion terrour and desperation is Who can credit your bare word in this that the law which is found both by Scripture and experience to be the word that revealeth and worketh wrath and death should yet be the ministry also of conversion to the soul I cannot do it M. B. Onely two things must be premised Answ Nay not onely two but a third also viz. that what you say is infallibly true without exception your new divinity must pass for current M. B. First that the law could never work to regeneration were it not for the Gospels promise Answ You mean not that the Gospel-promise should be any ingredient to the ministry of the law and so by the vertue and efficacy of this as some special pearl used amongst other things in themselves of little or no force this cure or work should be effected but you say that vertue should go forth equally and indifferently by law or Gospel and this because God hath promised to give a new heart through Christ as the Medium by and in whom he creates and changes it anew for so you would contradict your self but thus you intend that Gods promise to give this heart is grounded on Christ as the reason of making it but the performance may be by the law But is it your part to make this to appear for truth By regeneration we are become children to God but if this be by the law then are we but like Ishmael children of the bond-woman Well your words want weight and credit too I wonder you should think such private fancies would ever be received having no warrant but your pen. What have you no Text nor Author to produce not one sentence or word from either for confirmation M. B. So that while a Minister preaching of any commandment doth thereby mold and new frame the heart Answ You want a probatum est for it M. B. All this cometh by Christ who therefore dyed and ascended into heaven c. Answ Every word of God is pure add thou not to his word lest he prove thee and thou be found a lyer Prov. 30.5 6. Where is it said that Christ dyed and ascended to give such power and vertue unto the law M. B. So that there never was in the Church meer pure Law nor meer pure Gospel Answ It is a heavy accusation and charge never what not in the Prophets Apostles nor yet Christs time but alway a Miscellaneous or mixt doctrine this seemeth too bold and rash If you shuffle all together it was not alway so the promise in Paradise That the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the Serpent and that to Abraham Gen. 12. That in Christ all the families of the earth shall be blessed was surely pure Gospel without any Law M. B. But they have been subservient to each other in the great work of conversion Answ Subserviency was alway granted and taught but that may be without mixture Christ or the Gospel and the Law cannot be and dwell together and as the dead fly marreth the Ointment in the box so the least thing of the law mingled with the Gospel corrupteth it and wholly destroyeth it saith Luther they are so repugnant and opposite you know the nature and operations of contraries and the doctrine of grace and of works are contrary Rom. 11. If of grace it is no more of works You say you approve of Luther Qui scit inter legem Evang discernere c. sciat se esse theologum but you will not meddle with that now Answ No nor no time else it is needless if they were alway intermingled how can they be otherwise now and if either severally or both joyntly may effect true conversion what need we make a difference or why it is of so great consequence to give an exact difference between them I understand not But in the closure you seem as if you would have eat your own words saying God may make the opening of the moral law instrumentally to concur thereunto you are providing hereby some moor rome aforehand for fear of that strait your former assertion brought you into M. B. The second thing which I premise is this That howsoever the law preached may be blest to conversion yet the matter of it cannot be blest to Justification Adoption or consolation Answ More strange still what conversion is it which is not included in Justification by it the soul is re-united and reconciled to God Totus processus a peccate c. The learned have taught and told us that the whole passage and way from sin wrath and death unto righteousness favour and life is by mean of free justification What is blest to justifie is blest to convert us to God but the Gospel and not the Law you grant is blest to Justification Adoption Consolation When Paul did beseech the Corinthians to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.19 20 or to receive the Atonement was not that to turn to God no God had the heart to eschew evil and do good is not to turne unto God My son give me thy heart and then let thy eyes observe my wayes Christ is the way to God Again is it possible to partake of Adoption whereby we become children by one doctrine and to receive the qualification or divine image or likeness reinstambed on us by another doctrine 3. Is not our Reconciliation or coversion the ground of our hope and consolation The promise of the Gospel giveth no ground of hope or consolation to the unconverted 1 Pet. 1.3 We are begotten again to a lively hope Who can have hope in God or consolation from him but he that is regenerated or converted or is there any ground or reason of either but onely in this that we are called and converted to the faith of the Gospel Blessed be God who hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace 2 Thes 2.16 You put in after Not in any thing he doth as if you made no difference between conversion and mans doing or work which is gross And yet elsewhere you erect much hope and consolation of future good and glory upon mans doing and duty which here you deny see pag. 40. where you say there is a promise made to our works c. M. B. Therefore let us not confound Law and Gospel nor yet make them so contrary in their natures and effects that where one is the other cannot be An. If this your doctrine doth not confound them while you say they were never pure nor distinct in the Church and not telling what is Law
not unto themselves but unto us they did Minister the things that are now reported unto you 1 Pet. 1.12 Mr. B. There are two notorious falshoods 1. That God indeed saw sin in believers in the old Testament but not in these of the new Answ To see sin is as an Act of Gods justice in the legall Ministration under which they were in the old Testament but now as is cleared we are not under that Ministration as sometime you yeeld so that it may follow that God might see sin in those and not in these You conceive and think of God without reference to his word and would have sin the object of his eternall and incomprehensible sight in a carnall sense and imagination Can you believe that God remembreth the sinnes of his people no more as his Covenant is Heb. 8.12 And why not then be perswaded of this Mr. B. Was not that place God seeth not iniquity in Jacob spoken of the Church in the old Testament and besides If the Godly were in Christ then doth it necessarily follow by his principles That God must see no sin in them Answ The Authour took that place as I remember to be a Prophesie of a future state 2. Though they were in Christ yet not being adulti but in their time of minority under that legall government God might see and impute sin temporally unto them so there appeareth no absurdity or contradiction but that you love to have your own words Mr. B. The second difference he maketh is that God seeing did therefore punish and afflict for it but he doth not so now So Moses was stricken with death c. Now who seeth not how weak and absurd these Arguments are for doth not the Apostle 1 Cor. 11. speaking of those under the new Testament say That some were sick some did sleep were not Ananias and Sapphira struck dead immediately Answ Your words indeed are that his Arguments are weak and absurd but you make no such thing to appear As for that of 1 Cor. 11. his Answer to it still may suffice for you shew not any invalidity of it nor regard his distinctions there given Besides It will not be granted that those Corinthians nor yet Ananias and Sapphira were believers And so your reason falleth short of the point in question Mr. B. The Arguments of the Antinomians for the greater part do not onely overthrow the use of it to believers but to unbelievers also Answ Their Arguments if rightly conceived of and used do not overthrow the use of the Law to either but then you must keep it within its own proper limits and use it lawfully I grant if you understand those words The Law is a Schoolmaster to Christ historically onely for some make a mysticall and spirituall sence of them also then the meaning is that the same believing Jew who before was under the Law yet since Christ is freed from that servitude and so his state is changed that Pedagogy is no longer yea and believer or unbeliever in the daies of the Gospel we are not to meddle with that administration by Moses but onely to give care to the Gospel which is preached to all for the obedience of faith Rom. 1.2 5. but then it will necessarily follow that he that believeth is actually freed from the yoke of the Law if from the whole occonomy then from every part And he liveth by his faith onely under meer free grace Rom. 6.14 Mr. B. We will grant that to a believer the Law is as it were abrogated in these particulars 1. In respect of justification 2. Condemnation 3. Rigid obedience 4. It s no terrour nor are the godly slavishly compelled to obey 5. It doth not work nor increase sin as in the wicked 6. It is abrogated in many accessaries and circumstances Answ You say you had rather use the word Mitigation then Abrogation as being proper c. And I mislike both as they are used in reference to the Law for both Scripture and experience shew that neither word is incident nor can possibly befall the Law of God for it is inviolable If the Fire burn you not not Sea drown you it s not because they have lost that naturall power to do it but in that you happily are kept out of either such as abide under the Law find no true abrogation or mitigation And if the Law justifie not it 's not because the power of it to do it is lost or lessened for then it could not promise life to the observers saying Do. and live but in that it doth not justifie and give life actually to any that weakness is not in the Law but in man through the flesh Rom. 8.3 for the Law neither can nor ever yet had power to justifie a sinner nor one that failed the least in the observance of it And the like may be said in respect of condemnation The Law curseth and threatneth upon Sinai but cometh not on Mount Sion In Christ we are freed from the Law and so from its Condemnation so the change is in the state of a Christian but no alteration in the Law at all Your own expression cleareth it While the Law by reason of sinne doth pursue me I runne to Christ for refuge and seek to be found in him this I implyeth that the Law hath not lost any of its threatning or cursing power and that my security is not that the Law wanteth power to condemn but that I am in Christ and under his protection Phil. 3.9 As for your third respect of mitigating the rigid obedience as you call it yet I see you are forced to yeeld what D. Tailer and others did not that it cannot be maintained If we fail in the least tittle we are presently gone by the Law And as Christ hath not obtained at Gods hand that the Law should not oblige and tye us to a perfect obedience so you might as truly say he hath not procured that the Law should not justifie us being sinners for this it could not do before But I am glad to have such words from you that all our obedience is accepted not because of any mitigation in Gods justice or for dignity in the duty but onely in and through Christ 1 Pet. 2.5 the best piece of Divinity I find in your Book but then there is no mitigation of rigid obedience in the Law To the fourth To speak properly the Law is therefore no terrour because a believer is not under it for it is a terrour to all that be under it the Christian being under grace is free from terrour And if he be sometime or something afraid that is not because there is not fulness of security in his condition but through the imperfection of faith as children we fear where and when we have no true cause neither doth it argue any less terrour in the Law And you have some strange add unsound expressions in this Section for grant a regenerate and ungenerate part
Father to him so that he will be dutiful and obedient to you now you are not his Father nor he your Child upon this condition though in this way you may manifest and express your affections at your pleasure Now take a view of your six Arguments and let us know what be your second thoughts of them and also your answer to those places so fully meeting and opposing you in this your way as the Angell did Balaam in his way is infirm and nothing satisfactory Mr. B. If that in Gal. 3.18 and Rom. 4.14 be rigidly and universally true then the doctrine of the Socinians would plainly prevail who from these do urge there was no grace nor faith nor nothing of Christ vouchsafed unto the Jews whereas they had the adoption though their state was a state of bondage Answ 1. Truth is to be received in love to it for it self though no errour nor danger a thing impossible should be prevented by it 2. If Socinians do urge those places to inferre that no grace c. come by the Law but by the promise onely made and given long before let us see how you would except against this but both you and the Socinians are wide and deceived though not in the same way 3. They had the adoption indeed but that was by faith in the promised seed and the putting them under that pedagogy of Moses made their state so servile What you say in the rest of this Lecture hath been presented to us before where also the answer and satisfaction is to be found LECT XXV Rom. 3.27 Where is beasting then c. I Cannot cease to muse that you so prosecute your matter in this large acception and sense of the Law knowing that the question is of the morall strictly taken You chuse rather to keep the thickets and bushes then to appear in the open plains we may guess why Yet take notice that the doctrine you raise doth not grow from your text no not in your own exposition for you expound it of the Law of works strictly taken as it is opposed to the Law of faith But your doctrine you so frame and carry as that you tell us The Law as a Covenant of grace given to the Israelites in some sense doth oppose the grace of the Gospel which assertion suppose true yet is no fruit of this tree hath not its rise from your text 2. Being witty to coyne and devise things of your own head without Scripture-ground you say it is for this end viz. To discover the nature of the Law and Gospel a fair pretence and promise without reality of performance for you rather cover and darken then otherwise 3. You bring in Calvin to little purpose who distributes the Law into three kindes and he doth not say that the morall Law differeth only from the Gospel in regard of clearer manifestation but denyeth it to have or contain any grace in it and so in nature and kinde to differ from the Gospel or word of grace and not gradually onely And the like may be said of Pareus 4. You have often received what is thought of your so often sod Coleworts presented here again to the Reader that they under the Law did enjoy grace c. viz. that they had it not by the Law c. Mr. B. That the doctrine of the Law in the more preceptive nature of it may be compared with the doctrine of the Gospel having the grace of God axnexed to it and going along with it now this in some respects is an unequall comparison Answ Why do you now more straiten the Law then did Calvin in that his testimony who takes the Law for that rule of life in which God requireth of us that which is his own giving us no ground of hope unless in every respect we walke according to it And you tell us of the Gospel having the grace of God annexed to it c. as if the Gospel could be separated from that grace which is the subject matter of it for doth the Gospel speak of or hold forth unto us any thing else beside the grace of God is so proper and peculiar to the Gospel that not one word of it is mentioned in the Law for the Law is of works and the Gospel is called the word of his grace But perhaps you will say By grace you mean the spirit of life that reneweth and quickeneth the soul if you do so yet it hath been cleared that although the Spirit do not alway and in all produce and work this work of renovation yet the Gospel is the ordinary instrument that is used for this and not the Law That expression of yours If you take the doctrine or letter of the Gospel without the grace of God is very improper for it is as if you could take the writing without the matter it specifieth and entreateth of Again observe that the difference between the letter of the Gospel and the letter of the Law as you call them is in that the Law is said then to kill when the spirit worketh effectually by it for then sin reviveth in the conscience and so J died saith Paul Rom. 7.9 and so the Commandment was found to be to death ver 10. but the Gospel then killeth and leaveth in death and condemnation when the spirit worketh not in the heart to receive and mingle it by faith Heb. 4.2 Joh. 3.19 2 Cor. 4.4 Your counsel is good to make the parallel equal but this is unequal in you still to make Law and Gospel equally and alike the instrument of grace and life Mr. B. pag. 2 3 4. I come to the Antinomian difference and there I finde such a one that I am confident was never heard of before In Hony Comb God saith he saw sin in believers of the old Testament but not in the new c. Answ Our weakness makes us stumble and to be offended where no cause is sometime and with too much confidence to condemn or reject such pretious truths as are received and justified by the Children of wisdome I have spoken before to this phrase In sobriety of mind ponder this The Scripture doth not say that Christ did actually take and do away sin till he came and shed his blood for that purpose and the object of their faith in the old Testament was the promise of future good things to be done and wrought by Christ when the fulness of time appointed came Gal. 4.4 so that God is said to have patience in bearing with his people till he received full satisfaction Rom. 3.25 and this finished and plenary work of redemption that the Gospel holdeth forth to us was the object of their hope who onely lived in a certain expectation of it according to the promise yet did that faith and hope both sustain save and serve them sufficiently according to that their condition wherein it pleased the Father to place them Their Gospel in brief was That Christ should appear and
distinguished as Mark 1.15 Repent and believe the Gospel 2. I do not make repentance and to mortifie sin all one as I there speak of repentance 3. Neither say I that to repent and to mortifie sinne is by faith to flye to grace embrace Christ c. The Law is against you as a false witness in all these And you cannot but perceive that I speak of that legal repentance and mortification which you with others so much stand for as requisite before faith Which is when a man is so laid open to himself so effectually convinced and wrought upon by the Law that he seeth acknowledgeth and renounceth all things in him and done by him as sinne and abomination before the Lord whatever esteem he hath had of them formerly or whatever shew they may make Yea and as sinne the sting of death appears and reviveth in all which is the very mortification the wounding and killing of the soul Rom. 7.10 so all these seeming excellencies and good things become mortified within him and his heart that lived and rejoyced in them now dyeth unto them finding nothing but vanity sin and death in all things out of Christ Thus he repenteth and changeth his mind with shame and sorrow that ever he so exalted and established his own righteousness of works as did Paul and those zealous Jews being converted to the faith And because we are necessitated to carry this body of death to the grave and therefore sin and death will ever and unavoidably be in us and all our works and we can by faith in Christ alone finde true righteousness life peace confidence joy and salvation hence Christ is our onely treasure who hath our hearts delight and all else are renounced and accounted as dung and dross Phil. 3.9 You neither may nor can rightly understand my words as spoken of that Evangelical repentance or mortifying of sin in life and conversation by the Spirit of which we read Rom. 8.13 Colos 3.5 Also you know that both in the Scriptures and Authors repentance is somtimes taken largely as comprehending faith also with the effects and fruits of it and so it is divided into mortification and vivification But fince all fulness is in Christ who is made unto us wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption that all our rejoycing should be in him he that liveth by faith in him is the onely mortified man Psal 73.25 Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth desired besides him Mr. Rutherf pag. 273. There be two things in the Law 1. The authority and power to command 2. To punish pag. 275. It s most false that Mr. T. saith To justifie and condemn are as proper and essential to the Law as to command 3. It s false that we are freed from active obedience to the moral Law because Christ came under the active obedience for law requires obedience out of love Reply These two authorities of the Law are repeated and inculcated by you and Mr. Burg. usque ad nanseam Dictator-like you still say It 's false it 's most false c. but where is there any truth or weight in what you say against me I can contemn your vain and reproachfull words and do account your self-coined distinctions as windy without warrant and weight You have a satisfactory answer in my former Reply I may challenge you to produce one syllable for a Law commanding without its condemning power Remember Matth. 5.17 18. 2. That the Law requires obedience out of love its true but we worke from self-love and for self-ends viz. that we may live thereby and not dye The first Adam by his obedience might have preserved himself in that life and state of holiness and happiness he had by creation but now in Christ our life and and felicity is attained and kept by faith we believe that we may live And we love and obey freely for no such ends as not standing and falling by our obedience or disobedience moral Also if our love be changed from legal into evangelical void of selfness Yet that altereth not the cords of the law nor the chaines we were in but Christ hath happily freed us from them The change is in the true Christian and in his estate but you can shew no change in the Law Neither do we destroy the Law as you slander us again but do establish it by faith Rom. 3.31 Where I see that Paul preached the same way that we do in that he was so put to clear and vindicate his Ministery as you do us This also will serve for that exception in pag. 275. where you set the same Coleworts before your Reader It is your constant doctrine that works have reward here and eternall life hereafter and that they be conditions and the way to life and glory how this will consist with faith and Christ let all judge Mr. Rutherf pag. 332. Town in Assertion pag. 56 58. A believer is as well saved already as justified by Christ and in him Divines say Our life and salvation is inchoate but they speak of life as it is in us subjectâ—è Quantum ad nos spectat or in respect of our sense and apprehension here in grace our faith knowledge sanctification is imperfect but in regard of imputation and douation our righteousness is perfect and he that believeth hath life not he shall have it or hath it in hope onely Answ If we have glory really actually perfectly but want it onely in sense we have the resurrection from the dead also actually we want nothing of the reality of heavrn but sense but we are not yet before the throne Therefore holy walking can be no way nor condition nor means of salvation c. therefore no wonder they reject all sanctification as not necessary and teach men to loose the reynes to all fleshly walking Reply Justification puts the soul into a present state of salvation The Scriptures are plain He hath saved us 2 Tim. 1.9 Tit. 3.5 Eph. 2.8 and These things have I written unto you that believe c. that ye may know that ye have eternal life 1 Joh. 5.13 This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in his Son ver 11. and Ephes 2.5 God hath quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus I muse you stumble in so clear light Hence saith Musculus Before God we are all that which he willed and also hath caused us to be Christ is not alone in his eyes but we also are conjoyned to him The Assertion doth present you with testimonyes sufficient you believe so farre as you see and feel If you deny our perfection in Christ our head In whom we are compleat Col. 2.10 deny also our union with him that we have received him have him are now the Sons of God 1 Joh. 3.2 Yea then deny that God hath given us as yet
Christ and life in and with him but all is still kept in suspence and reserved till future So where the Spirit of truth saith God hath given unto us Christ and eternal life in him your Ghost saith nay but he will his promise is de futuro give us them upon condition of our good works and by them as a way we must come to Christ and salvation God hath conveyed and given nothing by promise There is no Christ nor life in reality and substance communicated by the word and Sacrament these are empty shels The just liveth by faith what feedeth he on to nourish and encrease life what on the Wind well you teach that we must live in hope to have all in the end upon condition of our obedience and service And for this reason you call upon men to work and please God But the truth saith Christ hath received all for us and we enjoy all in him You say that because we hold works are no conditions of salvation therefore we loose mens reines to carnal walking It s a Popish cavil or slander And argueth a spirit in the Author too servile and mercenary which will do no good but for lucre and to gain by it and such a spirit must needs accompany your doctrine Mr. Rutherf pag. 463. Mr. T. saith In sanctification as well as in justification we are meer patients and can do nothing at all and pag. 464. The blessedness of man is onely passive not active in his holy walking Reply As this is objected in your other book so you have your answer to it But my words are in Assert pag. 68. What can you do to the sanctifying or changing of your self more then in your justification It s Gods act to sanctifie throughout you cannot make one hair white or black Who would think that Mr. Rutherf would quarrel with this You alter my words to make them capable of your gloss and sense But all men may see that I speak of the act of sanctification and not of the expression and fruits of it If you can sanctifie your self in whole or part glory in your freewil and power but that is the greatest arrogancy of Antichrist saith one So I leave you with your absurdity unto the worlds censure you shew neither text or reason against me 2. And that blessedness is passive not active in holy walking you must grant or when you say any thing against it deserving or requiring it you may then expect your answer Blessedness in holy walking is declarative shewing how God hath renewed and enlarged the heart but that phrase is yours not mine Mr. Rutherf Town the Antinomian said Pag. 501. David confessed his sins not according to truth and the confession of faith but from want and weakness of faith c. Reply My words are David prayed that his sins might be pardoned which you grant were pardoned Now then did he thus pray according to truth and the confession of faith or from want or weakness of faith and of the effectual apprehension of forgiveness Is not Mr. Rutherford now the Antinomian who against Law so palpably mistakes his Adversary There is great difference between confessing of sinne and praying for pardon If God my own conscience men yea Satan require that I confess my self a sinner I shall readily do it for this is to justifie God in his Law saying There is none righteous c. And this may well stand with my faith and effectual apprehension of pardon for I confess what I am in my self I believe what I am in Christ through that grace that justifieth the ungodly Thus while your mistakes onely make me erroneous whom otherwise you find not so who is now the Antinomian Is not the Author of the errour so all will returne to your own discredit and disadvantage And what a gross slander is that which followeth viz. Town and all Antinomians teach that it is unbeliefe a worke of the flesh of old Adam c. that justified persons confess or feel sin sorrow or complain of the body of sin as Paul Rom. 7 This is as if the continual dwelling of sinne in us did not trouble us or could not consist with faith in justification by Christ or that now the spiritual estate of the soul being clear and safe made up in Christ sin in no other regard were sorrow or trouble to us But you cannot in this neither make good your charge You care little how falsly you accuse us so that you make your Bill foul and black enough to make us still more odious and vile M. Rutherf pag. 505. M. T. contendeth for a compleat perfection not onely of persons justified but also of performances so that saith he pag. 75. I believe there is no sin malediction or death in the Church of God he will have a perfection not of parts but also of degrees this he proves from Luthers words perverted Reply What perfection I contend for you must yeeld me or else with your heart you believe not that there is a holy Church which is indeed as Luther saith nothing else but I believe that there is no sin no malediction no death in the Church of God but this is in Christ not in our selves by justification not by inherent sanctification for this is imperfect You say I pervert Luther take his words again So mightily saith he worketh faith that he that believeth that Christ hath taken away sin from him he like Christ is void of sin Again Christ will have us to believe that like as in his own person there is now no sin nor death even so there is none in ours there is no defect in the thing it self but in our incredulity Let us see what construction or sense you can make of these words But you pervert my words or meaning as if I meant it that sin dwelleth not still in us a fiction But Luther addeth as you read in the Assertion That to reason its a hard matter to believe these inestimable good things and unspeakable riches Moreover Satan with his fiery darts and his Ministers with their wicked and false doctrine go about to wrest it from us and utterly to deface this doctrine and specially for this Article we sustaine the cruel hatred and persecution of Satan and the world for Satan feeleth the power and fruit of this Article Consider what you Read M. Rutherf pag. 510. When D. Tailer objects as a limb of their fleshly divinity No action of a believer after justification is sin M. T. Answers Nothing but of the way no action is sin the disorder or ataxie of the action is sin But D. T. meaneth that there is no disorder in the action of a justified man by their way c. can this be any but the divinity of the flesh Reply If the Dr. say it you will swear it But my answer is direct to his words yet sith you now help me to know his meaning I say there is disorder in
tendering Christ to thieves c. whoso upon that ground or tender receiveth him in so doing doth confess himself a thief and if he were not self-convicted and condemned he would never believe or receive Christ for the end of the action is it that putteth him upon the action he believeth in Christ or receiveth him that he may be saved therefore he seeth he is lost and cannot otherwise be saved This is clear But that expression is most strange when you say that sinners remaining in that damnable state do believe For 1. Can they possibly be out of that damnable state before they believe or any other way but by faith in Christ 2. Again if they believe in Christ can you imagine that they shall remain in statu quo prius What a false myst is this or vile dust that you cast before the eyes of people but you are in the net and your end is perceived But what preparations would you desire more then that God should give a heart to such sinners to come to Christ a heart sensible of sin apprehensive of danger desirous to be in a secure condition and that is resolved that peace and safety is onely in Christ and by Christ else the soul cometh not to Christ and if it come not to him it hath no encouragement by Dr. Crisp's Ministery Do not condemn the innocent You often speak of a lazie dead faith If yours were truely operative we should finde you more in the way of truth and charity Faith worketh by love Gal. 5.6 I end commending to your second thoughts your own words pag. 128. Though thou were upon the borders of hell yet the Gospel though it except thee from all actual mercy yet not from the duty of believing and coming to Christ Those that sin against the holy Ghost are condemned for unbelief Be reconciled first to your self and so to the Doctor 8 Exception against Mr. Town Mr. Rutherf Mr. Town saith All our obedience as it is the work of the Spirit is passive Reply Here I observe a twofold failing 1. In that the occasion of these words and unto which they relate is concealed Dr. Tailer said God looketh not on their obedience as theirs but as it is his own work in them Now then I grant it in a sort to be his own work but so it is passive to us and so it must be unless you put no difference between what the Spirit worketh in and upon us and what we work by the same Spirit for here we act And your dealing is not fair in that you leave out the words in them for so Mr. T. saith What the Spirit worketh is passive to them But 2. see how you pervert this and so infer as you please That now it is sacriledge for us to be holy and to adde any of our active holiness to Christs active obedience Repl. The former Clause ariseth not from my premises as you cannot but see unless this be the meaning to make our selves holy which is Gods work alone not ours at all And if you will adde our active holiness to Christs it is no other then sacriledge though Mr. T. hath no such words for you steal and take from Christ what you put to your own obedience M. Rutherf page 121. Use Antinomians cry down duties This is not the way of grace Repl. You take it to be your duty and part unjustly to charge your brethren 2. Duties are to be cried and chased out of the way of Free-grace if you rightly conceive and take it as Eph. 2.8 9. Tit. 3.5 Rom. 11.6 But they are not to be denied in practice and conversation Mr. Rutherf p. 126. Often that which troubleth is subtil and invisible pride he will not believe for want of self-worthiness as I dare not rest on Christ nor apply promises because of my sinful unworthiness I am not good enough for Christ Then you adde Right and saving humiliation conjoyned with faith c. Repl. First you principle your hearers by your doctrine for such temptations and thoughts telling them that sinners as sinners have nothing to do with Christ they must be better qualified bring saving humiliation repentance and faith and now you chide and reprove them for such conceits of their wants and unworthiness as to be thereby letted and deterred for coming to Christ This is your inconstancie And if now you apprehend this to be the ordinary and usual temptation of a troubled dejected sinner desirous of Christ and would clear it that self-unworthiness is no bar why are you so invective against Dr. Crisp Oh consider and be better advised But it is improper and unscripture-like to call humiliation saving as also inconsistent with self-unworthiness 9 Exception Dr. Crisp We cannot gather assurance of a spiritual state from holy walking Mr. Rutherf Holy walking is performed by that efficacious grace promised in the Covenant as an argument on which we may build our peace as a grace threeded upon the free promise Repl. He that believeth is onely in a safe and sure state Joh. 3.36 2. The question will be Whether the holy walking be performed by that efficacious grace of the Covenant You must know it as an effect of such a cause for all walking in a Legal way will not argue it as we see in Paul while a Pharisee Phil. 3.8 First the soul must be in the covenant of Grace and be certain of that else it cannot say This is the performance of the promise nor That holiness of mine is threeded upon the promise A servant may be obedient as well as a childe but that will neither make nor prove him free in Christ by adoption It was not Abel's sacrifice that did witness his faith for Cain sacrificed also but his faith proved his offering to be good and acceptable Heb. 11.4 But I must that any experienced man should say that there is no more light of evidencing a good estate nor more certain ground of peace and comfort in a true justifying faith then is in holy walking and sincerity or should oppose Dr. Crisp seeing his doctrine is not onely true but so very necessary especially considering how Some of you grant that many do seek and gather all their peace and comfort in a meer Legal way and by their reformation and performances in whom the Law never wrought to death and condemnation that all their life and hope might be the faith of Christ their righteousness He that was sensibly dead knoweth how he was quickned and restored to life and he that knoweth in himself what death and life is If then he need and can do it he may use his after-holiness and obedience as Adminicula fidei but so ut alibi statuat solidura firmamentum Calv. See more in answer to Mr. Burgess if need require 10 Exception Mr. Rutherf Mr. Eaton brings divers Reasons to prove that we are not both righteous in the sight of God and yet sinners in our selves Repl. What an open
and trust in any goodness of his owne and to make him to seek out and to hearken after Christ the true and onely right door set open in the Gospel that by him the soul may have entrance being found in him not having its owne righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through faith in Christ The righteousness which is of God by faith Phil. 3.9 It is a vain and a strange conceit that the soul should convert to God by the preaching of the Law sith it can onely turne and come unto him by faith which nothing doth so much cross and hinder as the Law and it putteth the soul upon a contrary way 3. But if by conversion you mean as happily you do the change of the disposition and frame of the soul It is as certain also and clear that God doth not this by the law but by Gospel thus Act. 15.9 God purifieth the heart by faith and Acts 26.18 they sanctified by faith This is the special commendation that Paul giveth of the Gospel that therein we all with open face behold the glory of the Lord as in a glass and are changed into the same image from glory to glory even by the Spirit of the Lord. Againe can mans nature be changed till he be united and ingrafted into Christ the true vine and doth not vertue come by that insition or union And was it ever taught or read that the law should be that ministery by which this is wrought If the law do not set this object Christ before the soul nor is no mean to bring and joyn it to him how can it be an instrument to give and communicate the Spirit of Christ Indeed a legal spirit or power it hath which hath been effectual to work a great deal of reformation and legal strictness having a specious and deceitful shew and lustre as we see in the Pharisees who therefore were admired in their age O Sir if you would set before your own and the eyes of your people duely and daily that exceeding kindness of God and sweetness of his so surpassing love in Christ in so infinite expressions of it and seek to affect both your own and their hearts with it you would finde what an incredible force and vertue is in it far beyond any power in a legal Ministery to melt gaine and leaven the soul transforming it into its own nature and image which is love and mercy and so disposing you to do all things of the law freely and willingly which are but the offices and duties of love And the law was given not to beget this love but that by requiring it of us either love or enmity as it is in us might be bewrayed and made manifest In a word no sounder further nor better conversion can be wrought by the law then was in Paul before he received the Faith who in that his zeal of God was a blood-sucker and butcher of Christians Christs silly and harmless sheep for he was inwardly in the gall of bitterness c. and so are too many this day as we see finde and feel who might be metamorphozed by the Gospel and of wolves become lambs like Priest like People according to their pasture they feed in viz. as the nature of the doctrine is they receive so they are where much law is there hardness of heart cruelty self-love c. but want of meekness humbleness and mercy And it will ever be true that a legal zeal is persecuting 4. If lastly you hold this last sort of conversion to be by the law viz. to make a loose and profane man strict and religious in his course of life which is properly no souls conversion for both he may be in statu quo prius no changling in his state and his nature was principled for this way this may be granted you but alas who seeth not that this is hypocritical feigned unsound Luther saith The law can but make hypocrites if there be no further work but what is by it This I ingenuously profess what ever you may think of it that my desire is not to know or think of God out of Christ but to confine all the powers and workings of my soul unto that so pleasant and amiable object God reconciled in his Son And so to set him before me gracious propitious loving c. in all the events occurences and conditions of this life And this is the true and onely office and exercise of faith And thus I deal with God even as he also dealeth with me according to Luthers expression without the Law in his Covenant of meer grace the more I can do so the greater confidence I have towards him the better every thing he doeth pleaseth me the more welcome is the Cross and the more apt and able I am to bear and digest it the more is my heart and affections lively and sweetly stirred up and enlarged to love God and to delight my self in him by this mean the soul is made merry and kept joyful in the Lord and like an Instrument in good tune it is ready for use upon any occasion And the inward appearing and manifestation of God unto the soul in love and tender mercy doth melt it and effectually change and overcome the enmity and maliciousness of my naughty heart and nature And this light I endeavour to hold out to all and to walk in this way of loving kindness long-suffering and compassion towards every one in doctrine and life holding it the wisest most direct effectual and Gospel-like course and way thus to overcome the frowardness and evil that is in man with lenity and goodness even as God in this way prevented and overcame me The more I can look into that gentleness aimableness and those fatherly affections in God through Christ Jesus towards me and that secreet bosome of divine love is so laid open the more are all fears banished discontentments swallowed up and I am heartned to go on chearfully in a Christian course as best becometh that holy and heavenly calling And the more abundantly Gods thoughts of peace are discovered unto me the more peace and rest I thereby finde bred and preserved in my thoughts You may account it a licentious doctrine or otherwise asperse it with indignities because you have little skill of it and may bridle your self and disciples by another mean and kinde of woful doctrine but when you have done I wish you might feel how your owne pulses do beat But I proceed You deny the Law to work onely preparatorily in conversion And I thinke he never had experience of convesion that is of your mind you would make men believe you sit downe with a legal reformation as is the case of too many instead of a Gospels-conversion or that the law had never as yet its due and perfect work upon you for then you would sing another song When the commandment came sin revived and I dyed Rom. 7. Did ever any come