inflicts the Lord 4. His way of dealing as a Father in love and not in vengeance Now turne to Heb. 12. 5 6 7. and there we shall see the Apostle 1. Quoting this Scripture 2. Checking them for not heeding it 3. Commenting upon it Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children My sonne despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth If ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with sonnes for what sonne is he whom the Father chasteneth not These words of the Apostle confirm all the Old Testament proofs before mentioned give a shrewd check to all those that would cast them off and are a full New Testament-proof of the point in hand our aversaries tell us that the children of God in New Testament-times have that great and happy priviledge to be free from all chastisements for sinne The Apostle on the other hand sayes that it is their happinesse to be chastised and would be their sorrow if they were without chastisement For this cause saith the Apostle many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep 1 Cor. 11. 30. There we see judgements inflicted the persons suffering and the cause of suffering assigned The judgements are set out 1. By the quality or kinde such as were visible on the outward man as their sinne was open so was their suffering 2. By their several degrees in which they suffered some weak languishing under infirmities some sick taken with diseases some fallen asleep surprised with death The persons suffering are set out 1. By their multitude many 2. By the application of the stroke Corinthians had sinned and Corinthians suffered The cause is implyed in the illative particle For and exprest in the foregoing words their unworthy addresses unto the Lords Table sinfully eating and drinking they eat and drink their own judgement and though it cannot be said that all were in grace that thus suffered yet there were some at least in grace among them in that the Lord chastened them in the world that they might not be condemned with the world The Lord Christ speaks fully to this in his letter from heaven to Laodicea the Church of Rev. 3. 19. As many as I love I rebuke and chasten As Scripture expresly holds out this truth so it is also clear in reason if God should not hold up his Sovereignty in this way of exercise of discipline upon his children his love could not be continued to them but would be withdrawn from them as we see in Christs words but now mentioned Rev. 3. 19. as also in those words of Solomon and the Apostle Pro. 3. 11. Heb. 12. 5 6 7. The love of God is such to his children and such a league of friendship is past between them say our adversaries that it will not suffer him to strike them We say his love is such that he cannot forbear to strike and will not suffer that they should sinne and carry it with impunity There are indeed some such parents that are so indulgent that children must neither have check nor stroke from them what course soever they take they scarce hear words much lesse do they suffer stripes These call this love but a wiser then they calls it by the name of hatred Prov. 13. 24. He that spareth the rod hateth his sonne but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes Pity will not suffer to make children smart But it is greater pity that the want of smart should bring them to the condemnation of hell Prov. 23. 13 14. With-hold not correction from the childe for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell A childe in sinne must either be beaten or spared Beating will not be his death but sparing tends to his condemnation The similitude is not ours but the Holy Ghosts One of the most terrible texts in all the Bible may be found as one sayes Hoses 4. 14. I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredome nor your spouses when they commit adultery He spares not some that he may for ever spare them chastening them in the world that he may not condemn them with the world He spares some and everlastingly destroys them 2. Otherwise God would be reconciled to the sinne of his people and in league not only with their persons but with their wickednesse which is most abhorrent to his holinesse We read of Gods reconciliation to the world but never to the wickednesse of the world God may be at peace with those that have sinned not imputing their trespasses but he will never be at peace with sin 3. It will not stand with his honour to suffer his to go on in impunity in these ways Their wickednesse will be said to be by his allowance Men in sin are ready to say as the Psalmist observe that God is such a one as themselves Psalme 50. 21. and that because they sinne and he keeps silence And men of the world will say the same if his people go on in sinne and prosper This the Lord sees and takes care this way to prevent Ezek. 39. 23. And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity because they trespassed against me therefore hid I my face from them He will make it appear that he is no patron to them in that which is evil 4. God hath given in charge to Magistrates his vice-gerents for to punish They are revengers to execute wrath upon them that do evil Rom. 13. 4. they are sent of God for the punishment of evil doers 1. Pet. 2. 14. They have no commission to spare upon supposal of any interest in God or grace when they are found in any acts that are wicked What they do God does they acting by his command and by vertue of his commission For further clearing of this point and if it may be to work a right understanding I shall lay down severall Positions 1. God considered in his absolute Sovereignty may inflict sufferings without injustice on his innocent creatures there is no absolute necessity that sinne should go before all manner of trouble Punishment cannot be without a fault that alwayes implies guilt where justice is followed Yet such is Gods Sovereignty that he may lay affliction where there is no transgression We do it upon our fellow-creatures we tread upon wormes that never did offend us God may much more do it upon his creatures yea God does it How much do bruit creatures suffer in the world and unwillingly suffer as the Apostle speaks Rom. 8. 20. and that from Gods hand that hath made them subject to these suffering that which God doth unto one creature he may do unto any creature that which he doth to the meanest he may do to the most noble creature As a potter may
covenant-keeping or punishments in case of covenant-breaking The one the Lord promises The other he threatens I finde no material difference in the conditions on Gods part in these covenants Life is promised in both in case of covenant-keeping and death is threatned in both in case of covenant-breaking Some indeed have endeavoured to finde a great difference in the life promised in the covenant of works and the life that is promised in the covenant of grace as also in the death that is threatned in the one and the other and thereupon move many and indeed inextricable difficulties What life man should have enjoyed in case Adam had not fallen And what death man should have died in case Christ had not been promised From which two endlessely more by way of consectary may be drawn by those that want neither wit nor leisure to debate them In which the best way of satisfaction and avoidance of such puzling mazes is to enquire what Scripture means by Life which is the good in the covenant promised and what by Death which is the evil threatned Now for the first Life containes all whatsoever that conduces to true happinesse to make man blessed in soul and body All good that Christ purchases and heaven enjoys is comprised under it in Gospel-expressions I am come that they might have life and that they may have it more abundantly John 10. 10. He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Sonne hath not life 1 John 5. 12. On the contrary under Death is comprised all that is injurious to man or mankinde that tends to his misery in soul and body The damnation of Hell being called death the uttermost of evils being the separation of soul and body from God John 8. 51. 1 John 3. 14. Sinne which leads to it and is the cause of it is called death in like manner Ephes 2. 1. And the separation of soul from the body being called death sicknesses plagues are so called in like manner Exâ—d 10. 17. Now happinesse being promised to man in covenant only indefinitely under that notion of life without limit to this or that way of happinesse in this or that place God is still at liberty so that he make man happy where or how he pleaseth to continue happinesse to him and is not tied up in his engagement either for earth or heaven And therefore though learned Camero in his Treatise de triplici foedere Thes 9. with others makes this difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace In the covenant of Works which he calls nature life was promised and a most blessed life but an animal life in Paradise in the covenant of Grace a life in Heaven and spiritual And Master Baxter in his Aphoris of Justification page 5. saith that this life premised was only the continuance of that state that Adam was then in Paradise is the opinion of most Divines Yet with submission to better judgements I see not grounds for it seeing Scripture no way determines the way and kinde of this happinesse promised and in case that we take liberty to say that when long life is promised upon earth in many texts of Scripture that the promise is made good though it faile on earth in case it be supplied in heaven life being the marrow of the promise much more then is it made good when it is indefinitely promised without limit to a man whil'st on earth in case it be made good by his translation into heaven And indeed there are strong probabilities heaven being set out by the name of Paradise in Christs speech to the thief on the crosse and in Pauls vision in that rapture 2 Cor. 12. if we may make such a supposition of mans standing now he is fallen that he should not have continued a life of immortality on earth but have been translated into heaven He had that blessing from God as other living creatures to be fruitfull and multiply Gen. 1. 28. and how the world could have contained all those individuals at once which to eternity man should propagate cannot be imagined And to conceive that an end in time should be put to propagation when an animal life in the use of the creature should be continued is scarce consistent with reason But a thousand of these God can expedite when we are at a stand He promised life and he could have made it good and we see he limited not himself where or how to conferre it And what I have said of life promised the same I say of death threatned in case man upon sinne be brought into a state of misery Justice is done and the threat takes hold where and howsoever this misery be suffered whether it had been in sorrows and horrours on earth in separation of the soul first for torments and the body to follow or in a speedy dispatch of soul and body to hell Gods way of execution after the sinne committed on those that are not by Christ ransomed does not argue that the penalty in the covenant necessitated him to it might not he at once have poured out the whole of his vengeance on vessels of wrath when yet we know that he takes time for the execution of it A Learned Writer enquiring into this death that was here threatned saith that the same damnation that followed the breach of the second covenant it could not be When I suppose it rather should be said that in substance and kind it can be no other Infidels that were never under any other covenant then that of works and covenant-breaking Christians are in the same condemnation there is not two hells but one and the same for those that know not God and those that obey not the Gospel of Christ 2 Thes 1. 8. Neither is there any Limbus or distinct place for infants in original sinne and out of the covenant of grace Neither can I assent to that speech To say that Adam should have gone quick to hell if Christ had not been promised or sinne pardoned is to contradict the Scriptures that makes death temporal the wages of sinne It were I confesse to presume above Scripture but I cannot see it a contradiction of Scripture A burning Feaver a Consumption Leprosie Pestilence c. are in Scripture made the wages of sinne yet many go to hell and misse those diseases And if it be said Scripture so makes death the wages of sin that all must suffer it I answer Those Scriptures are all of them leges post latae appointed of God as his way upon mans fall neither absolute justice nor yet the penalty threatned necessitating him to that way of proceeding He takes the same way where his justice hath already satisfaction Those that are priviledged from death as the wages of sinne thus die God tied not up his own hands as States do their Judges and ministerial officers to one way of execution and this his way with the unbeleeving is voluntary and
to you on the Sea without a Pilate To you Orphans without a Spirituall Father and first you see what cause there is for our constant expectation and preparation for death Gods own Ministers and servants must dye God needeth no mans labours or parts Moses Joshua Paul Peter must die sola mors non habet fortasse said Austin only Death hath no may be It may be thou mayest be rich it may be thou mayest thrive in thy trading it may be thou mayest have comfort in thy Children and friends but thy death hath no may be Oh! let not the world let not your Shops let not trading take off your hearts from this Meditation but think you hear God speaking to you set not your house but your souls in order for thou must die And secondly here is some comfort though there be cause of much sorrow that though your Faithfull Pastor he dead yet the chief Pastor of your souls is not He that setteth Pastors and Teachers in the Church he that sendeth forth labourers into his harvest he liveth for ever as one in the Ecclesiasticall History when newes was brought him that his father was dead Desine blasphemias loqui saith he pater enim meus immortalis est cease to speak blasphemy for my Father is immortall Thus let this honey fall into your gall this Wine into your water The great and Chief Shepheard of your souls is not dead Lastly now the will of God is done concerning our deceased Brother your duty is to be much in Prayer to God that there may be a Joshua after Moses That God would joyne your hearts together as one man to seek out a Pastor for you which shall feed you according to his holy will The Lord hath made a great breach upon you be sensible of it and seriously consider how all your soul-comforts and advantages are bound up in this matter Ministers are compared to the Sun and Salt nihil sole sale utâ—lius can you be without the Sun in the heavens without bread for your body so neither without this bread of life for your souls or without this light to guide you in the wildernesse of this World to eternall happinesse FINIS A Funerall Oration at the Death of the most desired Mr. Blake By Mr. Samuel Shaw then School-master of the Free-School at Tamworth WIth a face sadder then usuall with an heart sadder then my face but upon an occasion sadder then them both I who was deputed to this work by him to whom I now perform it am here rather to receive the expressions of your sorrow then tell you the resentments of mine own Being sensible of my stupefaction caused not through the want of my affections but the want of their object I desire out of a pious pollicy to supply my drynesse by taking your Tears and putting them into my pump so hoping to revive mine own which yet I judge are rather drowned then dryed up And yet when I have done this I know that all my expressions will fall short of the greatness of my grief as much as my grief does of the greatness of its cause This numerous Company of Pious groaners these so many blacks not made but occasioned to be Mourners badges of profession becomming badges of that grief which for its greatness can be equal'd by nothing but their former happiness which they once enjoyed the universall gloommess of this day represents to me rather the funerall of a Town then a man and the fall of a Church rather then a single pillar and rather induces me to think that ye are come to quench the unmercifull heat of a feaver then only to bedew that which was the subject of one But if it may be hold a little and suffer your eyes a while to a new employment even to see where you are what you are doing whose Obsequies you are solemnizing with so great devotion and take the dimensions of your losse if it be capable of any which indeed is so great that they only can know it who knew not him and they onely can feel who never enjoyâ—d him I speak not to aggravate your loss but the sense of it as for the cause of it it admits of no addition Whilst he lived it was as impossible for him not to love you as it was for you adâ—quately to return his love His care answered his love and if his successe had answered his care we might happily have this day wanted an object of so great sorrow in enjoying him His writing were not read without satisfaction His Sermons were never heard without an approving silence seldom without a following advantage His kindness towards you could â—ot be considered without love his awfull gravity and secretly-commanding presence without reverence Nor his conversation without imitation To see him live was a provocation to a godly life to see him dying might have made any one aweary of living When God restrains him from this place which was alwayes happy in his company but now he made his chamber a Church and his bed a Pulpit in which in my hearing he offered many a hearty prayer for you And his death made him mindfull of you whose life made you unmindfull of him And I did not see that any thing made him so backward to resign up his â—ure soul to God as his unparalell'd care for you and your proficiency in godliness which seemed as little to him in comparison of what he desired as it does great to others in comparison of what they finde so that I sate by him and I only when with as great affluency of Tears as words he prayed Lord with some ingeminations charge not on me the ignorance of this people And indeed your ignorance had not been so remarkable had not his Knowledge and desire still to communicate it been so With what a grace and majesty have you heard him Preaching who is now alas confin'd to a worser wood Could you ever resist the power by which he spake or find in your hearts to contradict any thing that ever he said but when on his sick-bed he said I am a dying man Ah! who would not there have contradicted him if they should not have contradicted Gods Decree His Wisedome Justice and Tenderness were such predominâ—nt Graces in him that it is as much my inability to describe them as my unhappinesse not to imâ—tate them And truly to think to expresse them were infinitely to injure their greatness It is a sad thing that so many resplendent graces should never be so truly nor so fully discovered as by the loss of him that had them and that we should not so justly consider that he had them till we have not them But yet your losse might be the better borne if ye were sure it had nothing of a Judgement in it But I fear that within a short time it will appear as truly that God hath taken him away in anger as now it appears sadly that he hath taken
this covenant between God and his people which is to be spoken to elsewhere As the being of a covenant is thus plentifully proved by Scripture-testimony so we might as amply prove it by arguments drawn from thence The Churches of Christ are espoused unto Christ Hos 2. 19 20. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever yea I will betroth thee unto me in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulnesse and thou shalt know the Lord. 2 Cor. 11. 2. I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you to Christ and Spouses are in covenant with their Bridegroom The Churches of Christ are married to Christ Isa 54. 5. Thy Maker is thine Husband the Lord of hosts is his Name and thy Redeemer the holy One of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called And wives are in covenant with their husbands Their sinnes against God are branded with the names of Adulteries Whoredomes and these are not barely dis-obedience of a Command or neglect of a favour but breaches of covenant The Churches of Christ are servants of Christ Levit. 25. houshold servants Ephes 2. 19. and servants are their Masters by covenant Their sinnes in this relation are not barely obstinacy stubbornness or ingratitude but they are charged with treachery falsehood dealing falsely in covenant and their hearts being not stedfast in covenant It is above me to conceive how man can be a covenant-breaker not alone respective to man but God as he is frequently charged when there hath past no covenant between God and him They may question whether there were ever any such thing as a covenant in the world that deny this to be a covenant in the proper nature of it some objections raised in their due place will be answered CHAP. IV. The Covenant of Grace is between God and man and not between God and Christ. HAving asserted a covenant in the proper nature of it it is necessary before I proceed further on to give differences between this covenant of Works and the covenant of Grace to speak something by way of Explication covenant being taken in so various and ambiguous senses or at least so many senses put upon it which I take to be a misunderstanding of the Scripture-covenant I shall lay down certaine Explicatory Propositions for clearing of the thing in question And the leading on shall be this The Covenant of grace is between God and man between God and those of fallen mankinde that he pleases to take into covenant God and man are the two parties in the covenant It is not made between God and Christ. This is so plain that a man might think there needed no words about it but that there are some that will have man to be no party in it and that it is entred onely with Christ on behalf of those that God hath chosen in Christ to himself To this I shall speak first by way of concession yeelding to them of this opinion these three things that follow 1. That there is such a covenant of which they speak which was entred between God and Christ containing the transactions which passe between the Father and the Sonne the tenor of which covenant we find laid down by the Prophet Esay 53. 10 c. and commented upon by the Apostle Phil. 2. 6. There we see first the work that Christ by covenant was to undergo To make his soul an offering for sinne that is as elsewhere is exprest to give his life a ransome for many and as he covenanted so he did He became obedient to death even the death of the crosse Phil. 2. 8. and that upon account of this covenant entred Christ himself speaking to it and of his work in it saith John 10. 18. This Commandment have I received of my Father Secondly the reward that he was to receive which is laid down by the Prophet in many words 1. He shall see his seed ver 10. As Isaac being received from the dead in a figure saw a seed had an innumerable posterity so the Lord Christ who was received from the dead in truth hath his seed in like manner beleevers innumerable which are called his seed in resemblance to the seed of man 2. He shall prolong his dayes not the dayes of his seed as some would have it making this one with the former and rendring the words videbit semen longaevum being delivered from death he shall live and reign eternally Revel 1. 18. 3. The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand he shall irresistibly do whatsoever is the Fathers pleasure to be done in the work of mans salvation 4. He shall see the travel of his soul and shall be satisfied upon this work done he fully enjoys the whole of all his desires 5. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoile with the strong He obtains a perfect victory hath a plenary and full conquest over every adversary 2. We yeeld that the whole of these covenant-transactions between God and Christ was on our behalf Making his soul an offering for sinne he offers it for those that are fallen by iniquity All is as is there said for the justification of many Whatsoeve it is that upon the work done redounds to himself yet the reason of undertaking was for us Vnto us he was borne unto us he was given He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities he was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification He endured the mulct and we reap the benefit 3. We confesse that it is the work of Christ that we enjoy a being in covenant as it is his gift that we enjoy the blessing of Ordinances But when all these are yeelded the truth must be asserted that there is a covenant to which Scripture constantly speaks which is entred of God with man and not with Christ which me thinks with much ease might be made to appear 1. There are frequent testimonies of Gods entry of covenant with his people 1. With the leading persons in the covenant which stand as the root of many thousand branches which are their off-spring in covenant He entred covenant with Abraham Gen. 15. 18. Gen. 17. 2. The like he enters with Isaac Gen. 26. 3. with Jacob Gen. 35. 11. and therefore he is so frequently called the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. And the covenant of God is alike known by the name of the covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob. 2. He enters covenant with the whole body of the people of Israel Deut. 5. 1 2. Hear O Israel the statutes and judgements which I speak in your ears this day that ye may learn them and keep them and do them The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb the Lord made not this covenant with our fathers but with us even us who are all of us alive
or at least used in a sense more large then to denote a covenant wheresoever it doth not hold out an agreement of two parties with engagements on both hands So the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whensoever it is used in that sense seemes to be taken improperly Seeing in its received signification according to good Interpreters it doth denote not a covenant but a mans last Will and Testament which never is of force but by the death of the Testator Heb. 9. 16 17. which is not true of a Covenanter his death is not required to make the covenant valid So Ravanellus Testament saith he in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken 1. Properly for the declaration of a mans Will concerning that which he would have done after his death and is ratified by the death of the Testator for it is not of force while the Testator liveth Heb. 9. 16 17. 2. Improperly for a covenant which living men enter among themselves Rivet also Exercit. 103. in Gen. speaking of those words of the Apostle Gal. 4. 24. These are two Testaments Testament there he saith is not to be taken in a proper signification for that which is done by a dying man and ratified by his death but for a covenant-agreement or order as Pererius hath well observed Alsted in his Lexicon Theologicum having spoken to the sense in which translatours of the Bible sometimes use it as the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 resolves We must yeeld somewhat to custome After saith Testament properly signifies a just declaration of a mans Will concerning that which he would have done with his goods after his death The Greeks properly call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Estius is very full setting out the Original denotation of the word together with the received signification of it For though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he if you look to the Etymologie of the word holds out no more then a disposing and with Greek Authours as Budaeus witnesseth in his Commeâ—t on the Greek tongue signifies in general a covenant-agreement or promise yet the common and most received signification is the same as Testamentum in the Latine which is the declaration of a mans Will concerning that whith he would have done after his death The Apostles Application of a Testament properly so called to the covenant of God Heb. 9. 16 17. hath troubled many Interpreters Erasmus on this acount questions the Authors skill in the Hebrew tongue and Cajetan calls into question the authority of the Epistle Most conclude from hence that the Original of the Epistle was Greek in that there is not Hebrew words to hold out such expressions and the Syriack translator was put to it to keep the Greek word and put it into a Syriack Character For the clearing of this doubt it is not enough to say that these words are sometimes promiâ—â—uously used Berith for a Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a Covenant as Camerarius notes out of Aristophanes a Greek Poet as Rivet observes Seeing the Apostle applies a Testament in the proper received sense to that which signifies a mutual agreement For the salving of which Estius reckons up several opinions which he rejects some of which others of good note follow and afterwards acquaints the Reader with his own thoughts in words drawn out to such a length that I shall refer the Reader if he please to the Authour himself Dixon on the words saith The Articles of the covenant also evince it to be a Testament and the promiser bound to make his word good and so to die For Jer. 31. The Lord Christ promiseth to reconcile his people to God to take away their sinnes and to be their God Justice required satisfaction of them before they could be reconciled satisfaction they could not make themselves therefore he who promised to make the reconciliation with God was found to make the satisfaction for them to God and if satisfaction for them then to under-lie the curse of the Law for them and so to die Gomarus says The covenant of the New Testament is both a covenant and a Testament It is a covenant because it is an agreement between God and man concerning salvation promised and faith owing by man And a Testament because it is established upon the promised death of the Son of God and an heavenly inheritance by it so that it may not unworthily be called a Testamentary covenant or a Testament-covenant by reason of the concurrence of both in one And after concludes Simply it is a covenant by reason of the mutual agreement between God and beleevers Respectively a Testament by reason of the way and manner of the chief and most eminent part in the covenant that is the promise of grace whereby God promiseth to be our God propitious to us and to give us everlasting life as an inheritance by the death of his Son Junius in his parallels undertaking to give satisfaction hath a remedy with me worse then the disease though learned Mr. Grayle endeavours his Vindication After a large discourse in what latitude the word Berith is taken The Apostle he saith shewes the limitation of it out of the Types and shadows of the Law in the fifteenth and following verses when he shews that the grace of God was herein more eminent and conspicuous in that he gave unto his not a covenant but a Testament giving in his reasons because a covenant must have contained mutual conditions which if either part did not performe the covenant were void but a Testament is an instrument of liberality and bounty by which men are called and made heirs without eying of any duty that is to be done by them Here by the way we see that in case it be a covenant according to him it hath mutual conditions and therefore he is together with Ravanellus Gomarus Vrsinus before quoted to whom may be added Peter Martyr on Judg. 2. giving the like definition wholly against those who make this inference That it cannot be proved to be of the general nature of covenants that there should be such a convertibility as that both must seal or contract or perform But for his position that God hath not given a covenant to his people I wonder how it slipt from him Such unwary expressions in a seeming tendency to advance grace from pious persons have made way for strange superstructions He might have said that those Types and Shadows of the Law did argue it to be more then a bare and common covenant being ratified by blood which led to the blood of the Mediatour And so Rivet as I understand him answers Paul in his Epistle to the Hebr. saith he chap. 9. doth not argue from the simple signification of the word but from the circumstances of the covenant But his denying it to be a covenant is that which I must oppose He is large indeed to shew in what latitude the word Berith
hath lost its commanding power then it can give sinne no more being yea it hath lost its own being power of command being of the essence of it If the Law Thou shalt not kill have no power of command then I sin not if I kill If that Law Sweare not at all have no power of commanding then our RANTERS high oaths are no more sinnes then our eating of swines flesh or 〈◊〉 not observing the Feast of the Passeover Where there is 〈◊〉 there is no transgression and a Law antiquated and repealed that the power of command is gone as in the Laws before mentioned is no Law If he still prâ—sse that similitude of the Apostle that a dead husband hath now power of command But the Law to a beleever is a dead husband First I say if he will be pleased to informe me how a dead husband rips up his wives faults how he curbs and keeps her in which he confesses is the Laws office to a beleever then I shall speedily give an account how this dead husband retaines power of command The Argument is as well of force The dead husband hath no power to discover his wives faults to restraine curb or keep her in But the Law is a dead husband to beleevers Therefore the Law hath no such power It lies upon him to answer this argument to free himself from self-contradiction And I would faine see this answered and the other maintained Secondly for more full satisfaction I say that some learned Expositors make the husband in that similitude not to be the Law but sinne which hath its power from the Law So Diodati in his Notes upon the place Man signifieth sinne which hath power from the Law the woman is our humane nature and of these two are begotten the depraved errours of sinne So also Doctor Reynolds in his Treatise of Divorce page 37. setting out the scope of this similitude thus expresseth it As a wife her husband being dead doth lawfully take another and is not an adulteresse in having his company to bring forth fruit of her body to him so regenerate persons their natural corruption provoked by the Law to sin and flesh being mortified and joyned to Christ as to a second husband Master Burges Vindiciae Degis page 218. saith Sinne which by the Law doth irritate and provoke our corruption that is the former husband the soul had and lusts they are the children thereof and this the rather is to be received because the Apostle in his reddition doth not say the Law is dead but we are dead But if he will still contend that the Law is the husband in that place which by reason of corruption hath so much power for irritation and condemnation over an unregenerate man I shall onely give him that advice which Doctor Reynolds in the place quoted gives Bellarmine upon occasion of his interpretation of this similitude Let Bellarmine acknowledge that similitudes must 〈◊〉 be set on the rack nor the drift thereof be streched in such sort 〈◊〉 â—f they ought just in length breadth and depth to match and sit that whereunto they are â—â—â—â—mbled And when he confesseth power in the Law notwithstanding this death to performe diverse offices in the souls of beleever◠〈◊〉 cannot affirme that the law is wholly dead nor deny but that it may have this office of command likewise The power which the Law loseth is that which corruption gave it which is irritation and condemnation Corruption never gave command to the Law and the death of corruption through the Spirit can never exempt the soul from obedience or take the power of command from it Let it be granted that the Law is the husband here mentioned the similitude is this That as the Law through our corruption was fruitful in mans nature to the bringing forth of sinne and condemnation So Christ by the Spirit is to be fruitful in our nature to bring forth works of grace to salvation and so the death of the Law is meerly in respect of irritation or inflaming to sinne and binding over to condemnation not in respect of command That this is the full and clear scope of this similitude beyond which it must not be stretched plainly appeares verse 5. For when we were in the flesh the motions of sinnes which were by the Law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death So that here is nothing against the commanding power of the Law God still keeps up his Sovereignty and by this Law he rules the regenerate I wish our Authour would sadly reflect upon that reason of his The Law is not authorized by Christ to reigne and rule in the consciences of his people For his Fathers peace his own righteousnesse and his Spirits joy There is none that speaks of the reigne of the Law in the consciences of the people of God but God in Christ reigns and by his Moral Law rules for all these reasons So farre are these from excluding his rule by his Law in his peoples hearts If this rule of the Law be destructive to Christs righteousnesse then Christs coming for righteousnesse must needs be to destroy the Law which Christ disclaimes And the rule of the peace of God in our hearts is so farre from excluding his rule by his Law that without it it can never be attained Great peace have they that love thy Law and nothing shall offend them Psalme 119. 165. This is the confidence that we have in God that whatsoever we ask according to his will we shall receive because we keep his commandments 1 John 3. 22. A Commandment hath a commandâ—â—â— power and only they that keep them have this peace ruling in their hearts The Spirits joy and the power of the Law to command are so farre from opposing one the other that the Spirit gives testimony of Gods abode in no other but such as confesse and yeeld to this power He that keepeth his Commandments dwelleth in him and he in him and hereby we know that be abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 John 3. 24. And of like nature is that which he further hath Though the Law the former husband be dead to a beleever yet a beleever is no widow much lesse an harlot for he is married to Christ and is under the Law of Christ which is love If the moral Law respective to the power of command be dead then love is dead with it Jesus Christ reduces the ten Commandments into two Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self If then the Law be dead this love from the heart is dead and so a beleever is either a widow or an harlot Master Burges Vindiciae Legis page 12. shews at large that to do a thing out of obedience to the Law and yet by love and delight do not oppose one another which if the Reader consult with his enlargement of it he
make vessels some to honour and some to dishonour so God having more transcendent Sovereignty may make some creatures ever blessed and others during pleasure to remaine in misery 2. It stands not yet with Gods ordinate justice to strike his people where there is no fault The termes of the covenant being pre-supposed none can suffer that have not offended every one upon engagement from God must be happy that is innocent This is plainly implyed in those words In the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die sinne not and suffer not and more explicitely held out in those words do this and live under death is comprized all evil from which man upon covenant is free that doth not sinne Under life is comprised all blisse which upon covenant all are to enjoy that yeeld full obedience So that the inlet of suffering is from sinne Rom. 5. 12. God having as I may say tyed himself not out of Sovereignty to afflict when man hath not offended 3. When way is made by sinne to divine justice to bring evil upon man yet the reason why this or that evil is inflicted on this or that man is not alwayes mans provocation by sinne All afflictions are not punishments nor yet corrections or chastisements There are often other ends and motives Sometimes God looks solely at himselfe alone at his own glory in his strokes of this we have many instances John 9. 1 2. John 11. 4. The same we may say of the viper upon Pauls hand Acts 28. 4 5. Sometimes he looks at his people in the sufferings that he inflicts 1. The patients themselves laying afflictions upon them not as corrections respecting by-past faults but tryals for discovery of their graces That which God laid upon Job was not for his sinne but to make it appeare that Satan had formed a false charge against him that his whole service of God was upon by-ends and base accounts and that sufferings God appearing against him in contrary providences would presently draw him into all wickednesses It was a sore affliction to Abraham to leave his countrey and his fathers house to offer up his sonne Isaac yet these were no corrections or chastisements that we know but temptations 2. He looks upon others that are no sufferers to bring about mercy to one by the sufferings of another so it was in Josephs sufferings Gen. 50. 20. 4. The corrections that God lays upon the godly are far different from those that he layes upon the wicked His hand upon his own children differs much from his hand upon his enemies God deales otherwise with a Nation that is a stranger to him then he deals with a people that are his own Jerem. 30. 11. Though I make a full end of all Nations whither I have scattered thee yet will I not make a full end of thee but I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished Though both suffer yet they do not equally and alike suffer So it is with the Elect and reprobate both suffer from the hand of God but there is great difference in their sufferings 1. They differ in the cause from whence their sufferings respectively do arise The sufferings of the wicked are out of pure wrath wicked men being under a state of wrath The sufferings of the people of God are out of present displeasure but yet out of love Prov. 13. 11. Heb. 12. 6 7. 2. They differ in the end of their sufferings A piece of silver is trode upon with the feet to scoure and brighten it but a worme or spider to crush or spoile it 3. They differ in the respective improvement that either make of them the godly are are bettered by their afflictions their sufferings are their purges and purifications Psalme 119. 67. Their eares are thereby opened for discipline Job 36. 10. the wicked are more and more hardened by them and grow more and more wicked under them Esay 1. 5. 2 Chron. 28. 22. The Sunne hardens the earth but softens the butter and the wax The sufferings of the people of God many times proceed from as high displeasure in God as can stand with love and the more high the sinne is the greater and sorer is his displeasure They work in God as great a dislike as can stand with his purpose not utterly to leave and cast them off When David had sinned in that high manner as he did the Text saith The thing that David did displeased the Lord 2 Sam. 11. ult Few men have had more of Gods heart then he yet we see his heart rises in sore displeasure against his wickednesse We may see how he takes him up for it we can scarce see in all the Scriptures a man so chidden The Prophet reckons up the courtesies and high favours that he had received from God I anointed thee King over Israel and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul and I gave thee thy Masters house and thy Masters wives into thy bosome and gâ—ve thee the house of Israel and of Judah and if that had been too little I would more-over have given thee such and such things And as he had before aggravated his wickednesse in a parable so in expresse termes he further layes it open Wherefore hast thou despised the Commandment of the Lord in doing evil in his sight thou hast killed Vriah the Hittite with the sword and hast taken his wife to be thy wife Then he falls to threatnings three great evils as we may there see follow upon this evil yet all this while that the Lord thus chides him that he thus threatens and beats him he doth not cease to love him as appears in Nathans words verse 13. The Lord hath put away thy sinne some will have love and anger to be inconsistent hatred and wrath inseparable God is angry as they say with none but those that he hates and when anger appears love is no more But all know that this is false among men a father is many times angry with his child that he would be loath to hate It is as false with God he was wrath with Moses but he never hated Moses he owns his with much love when he manifests much dislike and distaste of their present actions 6. These sufferings of the godly must by no means be accounted satisfactions of divine justice as coming from vindicative wrath nor any part of the curse that is due from vindicative justice for sin Having a tendency not to harme but to reforme not to destroy but amend they are only fatherly corrections and chastisements not properly at least as some rigidly understand the word punishments satisfaction was the work of Christ and the whole of the curse was divolved upon him Gal. 3. 13. Papists do distinguish between the friendship that is lost by sinne and the justice that is deserved The friendship that is lost is made up again as they confesse of free grace but the justice deserved must by the offender
the argument seems of force We vindicate Gods justice in commanding works though to us now impossible seeing once we had power to reach the highest of his precepts and his command is no rule of our empaired strength but of our duty But if men never had that power and the Law never required it it is injustice according to all parties to exact it Answ Let those that fall to the Arminians in this tenent that they may make the Law an imperfect rule and an insufficient direction see how they can avoid it how they can vindicate Gods justice thus impeached But the Orthodox party have still maintained that Adam had in his integrity that faith that doth justifie though then it performed not that office of justification as he had that faculty whereby we see dead bodies though then there was no possibility of such sight there being no dead bodies to be seen And that faith in Christ is commanded in the first precept of the Law is manifest There we are commanded to have God for our God no Interpreter will deny that the affirmative is contained in that negative Thou shalt have none other gods but me Now God is the God of beleevers Heb. 11. 16. No man can have any communion with God but by faith in Christ And so consequently this faith is there required what Expositor of the Law doth not put trust and affiance in God within the affirmative part of the first commandment as well as fear love and obedience And without Christ there can be no affiance or trust If we conceive the moral Law to reach no farther then the duties expressely there named or the evils forbidden we shall make it very scant and narrow we shall see small reason of that of the Psalmist Thy Commandment is exceeding broad Psalme 119. 96. But in case we take in all that by necessary consequence may be inferred according to the approved rules of interpretation then scarce any duty is more clearly laid down then this of faith in Christ And whereas one faith A man cannot preach Faith in Christ out of the Moral Law I say a man out of the Moral Law may evince the necessity of Faith in Christ unto every one that lives in Gospel-light to whom Christ is tendred The Law requires the duty and the Gospel discovers the object no man out of the Law could have evinced Abraham that he must offer his sonne nor that he must have left his countrey but when Gods minde was made known to him the Moral Law did binde him to obedience and he had sinned against the Moral Law in case he had refused There is no command given of God to any man at any time of an nature whatsoever but the Moral Law ties him to the observation of it not immediately explicitely but upon supposition of such a command intervening Therefore ye shall observe all my Statutes and all my judgements and do them I am the Lord Levit. 19. 37. Faith in Christ being commanded of God I John 3. 23. the Moral Law obliges to obedience of it See Molin Anatom Arminianis cap. 11. Respons Wallaei ad Censuram Johannis Arnol. Corvini cap. 11. Ball on the covenant page 105. Burges Vindiciae legis page 117. A farther difficulty here offers it selfe Obj. and an obstruction laid against that which in this Treatise is after intended If the covenant or second covenant as opposite to that of works be in Christ and grounded on the work of reconciliation then it is commensurate with it and of no greater latitude and only the elect and chosen in Christ the called according to Gods purpose being reconciled only these are in covenant when the Scripture as shall be God willing made good confines not this covenant within the limits of the invisible Church known only to God But it is as large as the Church visible To this I answer Answ that the Prophetical office of Christ as Shepherd and Bishop of our souls and so much of his Kingly office as consists in a legislative power hath its foundation as well as the covenant in this work of reconciliation Had not this been undertaken by Christ for mankinde man had never enjoyed that light man had never had an Oracle or an Ordinance as the fruit of his Prophetick office yet these Ordinances are not commensurate with reconciliation nor of equal latitude with election So neither is the covenant but either of both in order towards it As Ordinances therefore are Christs gift from heaven as the fruit of his death and resurrection when yet all that partake of these Ordinances do not yet die or rise with Christ So is the covenant when yet all in covenant are not stedfast in it nor obtaine the graces of it Therefore I know not how to admit that which a Divine singularly eminent hath laid down That all the effects of Christs death are spiritual distinguishing and saving Seeing gifts of Christ from his Fathers right hand are fruits of his death yet not spiritual distinguishing and saving That they are in some sort spiritual I dare grant that is in ordine ad spiritualia if I may so speak they have a tendency to a spiritual work That they are distinguishing from the world as it is taken in opposition to the Church visible I yeeld for I do not enlarge the fruit of Christs death to all man-kinde assenting to Master Owen and Master Stalham in the grounds that they lay of Gods respite of the execution of the whole penalty on man with the continuance of outward favours not to be upon the account of Christ but for other reasons yet I know not how to affirme that Ordinances which yet are fruits of his death are all saving spiritual and distinguishing seeing they neither conferre salvation nor saving grace on all that partake of them So that Christ is a Mediatour of this covenant and yet those enter into it that have not reconciliation by Christ Jesus The Ephesians that were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ Ephes 2. 13. that is brought into a visible Church-state in the fruition of Ordinances made free of that city whose name is The Lord is here Ezek. 48. 35. CHAP. XVIII Farther differences between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace A Farther difference of importance between these covenants is in the conditions annext unto either of them and here the difference is brought to the height This alone so diversifies them that they are not barely in circumstance and way of administration but in substance two distinct covenants The least difference in conditions diversifies bargains and agreements on what part soever the difference is Conditions of the covenant between God and man are of two sorts either such in which God engages himselfe or in which man is engaged either the stipulation on Gods part or else the restipulation on the part of man The former unto which God is engaged are either rewards in case of
not necessitated Upon these grounds it is that I finde no reason to widen the differences between these promises and priviledges in either covenants The identity of conditions in the covenant of Works and Grace on Gods part we have seen The great diversity in the conditions called for from man comes to be spoken to And in the first place this difference offers it self The conditions of the covenant of Works were in mans power being left to the freedom of his will he had abilities in himself without seeking out for further assistance then a meer general concurrence to perform them This ability in man to answer whatsoever was called for at his hands from God appears First in the integrity of his nature Being made like God his principles must needs carry him to a conformity with God and these principles were connatural to man in his first being and beginning Man being made of God to contemplate his glory and to enjoy communion with himself he made him not defective in any of those noble qualifications that serve for it or have a tendency to it Papists indeed will have this to be a supernaturall gift of grace and above the glory of mans first creation Bellarmine compares it to a bridle given to curb that lust which riseth against reason in us That rebellion of lusts in man they conceit would have been if man had not fallen which as it layes a high charge upon God in such an aspersion of his pure work drawn after such a patterne so it makes way for other opinions that the first motions without consent are no sins and that lust in the regenerate is not sin But as the bottom is rotten so also the building that is raised upon it is ruinous There was an happy agreement in man as well with himself as with his Creatour The fall brought in a necessity of support and supply of Grace Secondly this appears from the equity which must be granted to be in the command of God which requires that the work given in charge be not above his abilities that is charged with it The Arminian argument from a command to abilities to keep the command from a threat to conclude a power to keep off from the thing threatned is of force as long as the person under command keeps himself in the same station and strength as when the command was given But applying this to man in his fallen estate who had sinned away his abilities the strength of it is wholly lost The command of God retains its perfection when we are under the power of corruption The Law is nothing abated though we be weakened 3. It appears in the work it self which was charged upon man upon performance of which he was to expect happinesse There is no more explicitely mentioned then that negative precert Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die This all may yeeld might easily have been kept if the command had been heeded or the menace observed The Jews at their worst could observe the commands of non-licet meats and this was a command of like nature yet this was not all unto which man was tied Being made in the image of God he had clear light to discern good from evil and as all yet retaine darkly and obseurely so he had the Law written in his heart clearly Adultery Murder though no otherwise condemned then by that light which he had by creation in that estate had been sin The former positive Law was evil because forbidden take away the prohibition and there had been no sin in eating These are forbidden because evil The Law imprinted by creation being presupposed there needed no further Law to make them sinful They that never had the written Law are condemned for these practices by that Law which by nature is written in their hearts But against these there was in nature an Antipathy Mans pure nature had them in abhorrency As now there needs no Law more then nature doth suggest to forbid the eating of poyson feeding on dust or carrion So then there needed no more Law to condemne these practices so that obedience in that state was in mans power must necessarily be yeelded The conditions of the covenant of Grace are not performed but by special grace a power from God must concurre for their work in man Man hath no abilities in himself to answer what God requires and if he rise not up to the terms of this covenant till he raise himselfe he will for ever fall short of it As the covenant was vouchsafed of grace so grace must make us meet to partake of the benefits of it This appears 1. In the state and condition in which God findes man when he first enters covenant with him yea after covenant entred till a change be wrought and abilities conferred to answer that which God in covenant requires This state of man the Apostle expresses Ephes 2. 1. Dead in trespasses and sins alive and in power for nothing at all but sinne This was the condition of Heathens never in covenant and so of the Jews who were a people in actual covenant and owned of God as his inheritance as God willing shall be shewn Their conversation was the same as the Apostle there confesseth Among whom we also had our conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the minde and were by nature the children of wrath as well as others This in abundant other expressions in Scripture is discovered holding forth the same thing Rom. 5. 6. For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly That infant Ezek. 16. 4 5. had no more possibilities of life then is to be found even in the state of death Reas 2. It appears in that power which is exercised by God in the change of those in covenant with him whom he fits for himself for Eternity This power in Scripture is set out in several expressions First Creation Ephes 2. 10. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works All ability to good is from the frame into which grace puts us As there is a power out of man which gives him Being So also there is an answerable power for his new Being He that is begotten of God keepeth himself and the evil one toucheth him not 1 John 5. 18. Secondly Quickning The dead have not power to raise themselves without a further power for their Resurrection Neither is it in the power of man Who is dead in trespasses and sinnes Eph. 2. 1. Thirdly Taking away the heart of stone and giving an heart of flesh Ezek. 36. 26. To change the nature of things which is here done is the work of an Omnipotence which was Satans argument not denied by Christ If thou be the Son of God command these stones to be made bread Mat. 4. 3. Fourthly Causing
Exod. 34. 7. when he sets out his name in several particulars this is one by no means clearing the guilty Some indeed have said conceiting with themselves thereby to promote free grace that God justifies sinners as sinners which as it must needs if true bring in the salvation of all à quatenus ad omne valet argumentum then a man need no more but sinne to conclude his salvation and the more sinne the stronger evidence so it is utterly destructive to the Gospel and overthrows the whole work of Christs merit as the Apostle saith If righteousnesse be by the Law then Christ is dead in vaine Galatians 2. 21. So we may safely say If a man be justified as a sinner without a righteousnesse So that the truth is God justifies as righteous what he esteems as an abomination in man that he doth not himself but this in man is an abomination to him He that justifieth the wicked and condemneth the just even they both are an abomination to the Lord Proverbs 17. 15. Secondly Man hath no righteousnesse of his owne to bring in plea for his justification in which he can appeare before God in judgment This will be plaine if we consider the wayes of acquital where proceedings are just and legal This must be either as innocent when a man can plead not guilty to that which is given in charge So did David when Cush the Benjamite did traduce him Psalm 7. 3. If I have done this if there be iniquity in my hands And so did Paul to the charge of Tertullus Acts 24. 13. Upon this account Pilate was willing to have acquitted Christ I finde no fault in this man Luke 23. 4. Or else by way of satisfaction or discharge of the penalty which the Law imposeth so in all penal Lawes when the penalty is borne the delinquent is discharged Man cannot be acquitted as innocent his guilt is too palpable There is no men that sinneth nâ—t saith Solomon 1 Kings 8. 4 6. The Scripture hath concluded all under sinne Gal. 3. 22. The Law speaks that language that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God Rom. 3. 19. Man is under that guilt that he is wholly silenced which renders the way of salvation by works impossible Neither can he be acquitted by way of satisfaction where the way of pure justice is held the debtor under charge can never come out till he hath paid the uttermost farthing Mat. 5. 26. Which here amounts to such an heighth that man may be ever paying but never able to satisfie Our guilt is according to the majesty of him whose Law is transgressed and wrath incurred This is seen in Devils and damned souls who bear in their own persons the reward due to their sinnes That man that must suffer it in his own person may well say with Cain My punishment is greater then I can bear Gen. 4. 13. Thirdly Man in this sad and perplexed estate hath yet a righteousnesse of grace tendered him a righteousnesse without the Law but witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Rom. 3. 21. And this is by way of discharge of his guilt by anothers suffering Our name was in the Obligation in case of sinne to suffer death Christ was pleased by consent and covenant with the Father to put in his and as he was thus obliged so he suffered the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God 1 Pet. 3. 18. We brake the Law and he bore the penalty whether idem or tantundem the same in specie or the same in value is scarce worth dispute So that it be yeelded that justice was answered and the Father satisfied and that we come out not on our own but our sureties account And this as I yet conceive is by Christs passive obedience His suffering in the flesh is our freedom his death is our ransome There needs no more than innocency not to die and when guilt is taken away we stand as innocent no crime then can be charged upon us But to reign in life as the Apostle speaks to inherit a crown there is farther expected which we not reaching Christs active obedience imputed to us not adding to ours but being in it self compleat is accounted ours and we are discharged And whereas some say Object that being freed from death upon that very account we reigne in life and therefore in case his sufferings deliver us from death they necessarily confer upon us life there is not nor can there be conceived any medium between them I answer Answ It is true of our natural life and death A man not dead is alive But taking death in Scripture-sense for the wages of sin which comprizes as we have heard all misery and life for an immarcessible crown of glory there may be a medium conceived between them and is not onely conceived but assigned by Papists in their Limbus infantum Neither will it serve to say that Christs active obedience served onely for a qualification to fit him for the work of suffering none but innocent man free from sin could be a sacrifice for sinne seeing Christ had been innocent though he had never come under the Law to have yeelded that obedience His person had not been as ours under the Law unlesse of his own accord he had been made under the Law Gal. 4. 4. Somewhat might be said for the subjection of the humane nature in Christ the manhood of Christ which was a creature but the person of Christ God-man seemes to be above subjection Much may be said for the subjection of the Sonne of David so considered he may say with David I am thy servant and the sonne of thy handmaid but not so of the Lord of David had he not for our sakes made himself a servant We know the mortality of the humane nature yet Christ had never died unlesse he had made himself obedient unto death neither needed he to have served unlesse he had humbled himself Phil. 2. to take upon him the forme of a servant See the confession of Faith agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines chap. 8. sect 5. and Dr. Featlies speeches upon it Fourthly This righteousnesse of Christ whether passive or active or both passive and active is made ours by faith This is our way of interest and appropriation of it to our selves Faith and no other grace this grace and no other Gospel-work gives us title and therefore as it is called the righteousnesse of God so also the righteousnesse of faith These two are promiscuously used and taken for one another Rom. 10. 3 4. Phil 3. 8. Called the righteousnesse of God being the free gift of God wrought by Christ who is God denied to be our own righteousnesse being neither wrought by us or inherent in us called the righteousnesse of faith not of works not of love not of patience or meekness It is alone faith and none of these graces that puts out it selfe to receive it
change out of it and they instance in our conceptions of and resolutions about things Kekâ—rman p. 107. A transient act is not terminated within the subject but hath its effect and is terminated upon some other object Now if by way of analogy we may apply these to God for we otherwise can reach none of his actions it is easie to conclude that justification of a sinner is a transient and no immanent act It works man from a state of wrath to a state of friendship and love of a vessel of wrath brings man into favour and esteeme which though it work no Physical change in man yet the whole effect is terminated in him That act of Pharaoh had as real an effect upon Joseph and was terminated in him in his advancement out of prison for rule in Egypt as though a Physician in case of sicknesse had wrought a cure upon him Though I were not able to hold it our that justification were a transient act but according to our conception of the actions of man it should rather appear to be an action immanent in God so in him that it had no effect out of him yet I must follow the Scriptures that make justification an act in time not from eternity Paul having mentioned a state of sinne under which the Corinthians were saith such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified 1. Corinth 6. 11. Once they were not but now they are in a state of justification It hath its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which it is acted a season in which it is vouchsafed It is affixed to faith Acts 13. 38. Now faith is not from eternity it comes by hearing A Ministery is continually employed for reconciliation and pardon of sinne 1 Cor. 5. 19. John 20. Which were in vain if justification were as election from before the foundation of the world They work them not to election but only call upon them to make their calling and election sure There are seniors and juniors in this priviledge one obtains it before another Andronicus and Jâ—nia were in Christ before the Apostle Rom. 16. 7. These evident proofs would take with my faith above a thousand such subtilties But herein the Schools in their application of these acts to God speak according as to the point in hand to the minde of Scriptures Fourthly Object It is farther objected that Christ is the Lamb slaine from the beginning of the world His death hath been of efficacy in the Church through all ages And he bore our sinnes in his body 1 Pet. 2. 24. All our sinnes did meet in him Isa 53. 6. and therefore from the beginning we were justified I answer Answ it profited all those and only those in each age to whom it was revealed and by whom it was applied and not those that have no interest in him Over and above the Decree of God for mans salvation there was a necessity of the death of Christ for our redemption which Christ in the fulnesse of time paid on the Crosse And over and above the death of Christ there is a like necessary of the application of it to our soules for life The work of redemption was finished on the Crosse when Christ triumphed over principalities and powers But much of the work of our salvation was behinde Election did not overthrow Christs redemption but did establish it Redemption doth not overthrow our application but doth establish it likewise There is a farther work of Christs to be done his intercession in heaven being one part of his Priest-hood which he is gone to discharge as the High Priest into the holiest of holies A farther work to be done by man through believing Not to have interest in Christs death is all one as though he had not died He that beleeves in him shall not perish See Baxter of Justification Aphorisme 15. Davenant de morte Christi cap. 5. p. 58 c. Lastly it is said by another If Faith be a condition of the Covenant of Grace Object then it can be no instrument of our justification If it be a condition in this Covenant it justifies as a condition and then it cannot justifie as an instrument and so I pul down what I build and run upon contradictions I answer Answ I should rather judge on the contrary that because it is a condition of the covenant in the way as it is before exprest that it is therefore an instrument in our justification God tenders the gift of righteousnesse to be received by Faith He covenants for this Faith for acceptation of this righteousnesse By beleeving then we keep covenant and receive Christ for justification We as well do what God requires as receive what he tenders We do our duty and take Gods gift and thereby keep covenant and receive life and so Faith is both a condition and an instrument Here I might by way of just corollary infer that a justified man reconciled to God in Christ is a man fitted for every duty unto which God calls which he is pleased to require Faith is his justification the instrumental work of his reconciliation to God and all things are possible to him that beleeveth Mark 9. 23. There is not a duty commanded but a beleeving man through Christ is strengthned for it The Word works effectually in thâ—se that believe as 1 Thes 2. 13. We see the great works that were atchieved by those of ancient time both in doing and suffering Heb. 11. and all of those are ascribed to Faith what Christ can do as in reference to duty that they can do to acceptation They can do all things through Christ that strengthens them Phil. 4. 13. Christ overcomes the world John 16 33. And this is their victory whereby they overcome the world 1 John 5. 4. Christ treads down Satan Rom. 16 20. And they resist him strong in the Faith 1 Pet. 5. 9. A man of Faith is for universal obedience He is a man for dependance on God for the fruition of all promises A word from God is enough for Faith He knows how to rest upon him for the good things of the earth he is above anxious thoughts what he should eate what he should drink or wherewith he should he clothed knowing that godlinesse hath the promise of this life 1 Tim. 4. 8. and therefore Though the fig-tree shall not blossome neither shall fruit be in the Vines the labour of the Olive shall faile and the fields shall yeeld no meat the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no heard in the stalls yet he will rejoyce in the Lord he will joy in the God of his salvation Hab 3. 17 18. he knows how to rest upon him for spiritual priviledges for adoption of sonnes for evelasting salvation He rests upon this that he that liveth and beleeveth in Christ shall not die for ever He knows how to manage all states and conditions he knows how to
emolument that is attractive of him There must be a desire to please God and not men as Paul saith Gal. 1. for so a man cannot be a servant of Christ This fear to displease men whereby we do not reprove sin so Zealously so Cordially and Faithfully as we should hath eclipsed the comfort of some godly Ministers at their death It is too true that the Wise man saith The fear of a man is his snare Prov. 29. 25. The Camelion for fear saith Aristotle turneth into the likeness of every object it meeteth with These are the special qualifications of a Godly Minister whereby he will be able to say with Paul I have fought a good fight 1 Tim. 4. 7. Yea with CHRIST I have finished the worke thou gavest me to do John 17. 3. To all which must be added diligence and labour all the names they have denote labour more then glory office more then dignitie now in all these things there is one particular which doth much quicken and that is temptation one of those three things Luther said made a Divine we are not to desire temptations but God for the most part doth prepare those Ministers whom he intends to be serviceable by such exercises This is the sawing and the polishing of the stone by this he is brought into the deep waters and seeth the wonderfull works of God by this he is able to understand the depths of Satan and by this he is adapted to be a most speciall Instrument to comfort and refresh others when they shall see theirs is not a singular condition they must not think none are tempted like them for they shall find that even Pauls have had the buffetings of Satan and that by these soule temptations they have learned more then all Books or authors could teach them And thus I leave the first Doctrine and proceed to the second which is That a Godly People cannot but affectionately mourn under the losse of their faithfull Ministers You see here what these Ephesians did with what affection they were moved because they should never see Pauls face more Grace doth not lie in extinguishing but regulating affections Christ wept and they argued from thence behold how he loved him Joh. 11. 35 36. So that Nazianzens commendation of his Mother Nonna that she never wept under the many troubles she underwent submitting all to Gods hand was rather Stoicisme then Christianitie It is said of Ambrose when he heard of the death of any good Minister he could not forbeare weeping how then can a people forbeare when their own Minister their own Pastor is taken away should not the Congregation be a valley of tears or a place of mourners now there are these grounds for it 1. Because of that experimentall soul-good and spirituall advantage the Godly have reapt thereby Oh! when thou shalt remember what quicknings what meltings what warning of heart thou hast had this will cause grief to think they are gone Carnall naturall men never are affected with the losse of a Minister they never got any good by their Preaching it was no converting Ministry no inlightning no comforting Ministry to them and therefore the loss is no more troublesome 2. They must needs mourn because they have just cause to fear their sinnes have caused God to deprive them of such helps your unthankfulness your contempt and low thoughts of the means of grace your unprofitableness and negligence may make you mourn for if God upon the abuse of naturall Creatures will take away his Wine his Bread his flaxe will he not much more remove the candlestick for unfruitfulness under spiritual mercies mourne then lest thy sinnes thy unfaithfulness thy deadness and dulness of heart have provoked God to take such guides away yea in the third place may not some mourn who by their Disobedience and unwillingnesse to submit to Christs yoak and opposition to his way have so filled the Ministers heart with grief and sadness as thereby to hasten his death making his life the more uncomfortable and causing him to mourn in secret for your stubbornness and disobedience Thus your sinnes not only meritoriously but efficiently may concurre to the removing of him by death Consider that place Heb. 13. 17. Obey them that rule over you c. that they may give their account with joy and not with grief some make this particular to relate to the former that they may watch over your souls with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you A grieved Minister a discouraged Minister cannot do his duty so powerfully it will be unprofitable unto you you will find it in his study in his sermons A dull people are apt to make a dull Minister 4. There is cause to mourn because of the excellencie of the relation between a Pastor and a People in some respects it is above all naturall relations They are spirituall Fathers your souls receive good by them They are Instrumentall to bring you unto eternal glory and therefore there is more cause of Mourning in this respect then when God breaketh naturall relations no Father or Mother or friend happily hath done that for thee which his Ministery hath done 5. There is cause to mourn because it is a sign of Gods anger and displeasure to a people you are not so much to look upon it as the losse of a man as a token of Gods anger to the congregation The righteous man perisheth and none layeth it to heart Isaiah 57. 1. Who knoweth what soul-Judgements what bodily Judgements may hereafter come vpon you and therefore it is for a people to be sensible and mourn when the desire of your eies so I may call the Minister as well as the Wife is taken away The desire of your eies you long to see him in the Pulpit again and the desire of your eares you long to heare him again 6. There is cause to Mourn because of the sad consequents that many times falls upon the death of a faithfull Pastor sometimes the learning and soundness of a Minister keepeth a People from licentious errors and corrupt opinions His Gravitie and Pietie hath a speciall influence upon many but upon his removall then the weeds of a mans heart growes up After my departure saith Paul Wolves will arise from among your selves Acts 20. 29. Pauls presence was a great means to hinder them 2. What good Foundation is laid in Faith what Godly Order may be begun there is danger that all these will die when a Faithfull Minister dieth I wonder that you are so soon removed saith Paul Gal. 1. Alas that which the Ministers of God have with many years diligence many Prayers and much opposition brought about when the Minister is dead may quickly be destroyed so that we may wonder how such a Town such a place should be over-run with Bryars and Thornes immediately 3. Another sad consequent is sometimes divisions and breaches among the People while a Godly Minister is alive he is like