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A23663 A discourse of the nature, ends, and difference of the two covenants evincing in special, that faith as justifying, is not opposed to works of evangelical obedience : with an appendix of the nature and difference of saving and ineffectual faith, and the Allen, William, d. 1686.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1673 (1673) Wing A1061; ESTC R5298 108,111 235

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unto thy Fathers to give thee Deut. 11. 21. That your days may be multiplied and the days of your Children as the days of Heaven upon Earth A great variety of outward blessings is promised as the reward of keeping that Covenant And therefore Wisdom under that Dispensation is described as having length of days in her right hand and in her left ha●d Riches and Honour whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths peace Prov. 3. 17. And as this Covenant was National so there were Promises of National Blessings such as was the setting them on high above all the Nations of the Earth making them the Head and not the Tail The giving them victory over ●nemies multiplying the Nation and bestowing on it Health Peace and Plenty Deut. 28. Lev. 26. When it 's said once by Moses thrice by Ezekiel and twice by St. Paul that the Man that doth them shall live in them Lev. 18. 5. Ezek. 20. 11 13 21. Rom. 10. 5. Gal. 3. 12. thereby Epitomizing the first Covenant I conceive that by living is meant a long and prosperous life in this World As on the contrary the condition of one greatly afflicted is in Scripture-Dialect a kind of Death and such an one said to be free among the Dead Psal. 88. 5. And that which inclines me so to think is not only the Reasons already given to prove that no other life was promised in the first Covenant but also the congruity of this sense with other passages in the Writings of Moses As Deut. 30. 15. See I have set before you this day Life and Good Death and Evil. If you would know what is meant by Life here the next verse will inform you That thou mayest live and multiply and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the Land whither thou goest to possess it The contrary whereunto is the death he had set before them saying I denounce unto you this day that ye shall surely perish and that ye shall not prolong your dayes upon the Land c. Deut. 32. 46 47. Set your hearts unto all the words which I testifie among you this day for it is not a vain thing for you because it is your life and through this thing ye shall prolong your dayes in the Land wherein ye go The latter words are exegetical of the former Through this thing ye shall prolong your dayes is the interpretation of those it is your Life And it may be considered also whether this Particle in which if a man do he shall even live in them may not determine the nature and kind of that reward which was promised in the first Covenant as it was a present reward a reward which was received even while the work was doing according to that Psal. 19. 11. In keeping them there is great reward And this is agreeable to what fell out in the event The Lord was with them to prosper them while they were with him but when they forsook him presently troubles overtook them The pouring out of God's fury on them to consume them in the Wilderness being put in Ezek. 20. 13 21. as the direct contrary to those words which if a man do he shall even live in them seems greatly to favour this Nation But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the Wilderness They walked not in my Statutes and they d●spised my Iudgments which if a man do he shall even live in them Then I said I would pour out my fury upon them to consume them in the Wilderness And indeed one main difference between the two Covenants which I would have here observed lies in this to wit the presentness of the reward promised in the first and the futurity of that promised in the second St. Paul in his Allegorical description of the two Covenants Gal. 4. 24 c. represents those that adhered to the first Covenant by the children of Bond-servant to whom Abraham gave gifts in present and sent them away as in Gen. 25. 5. and those that adhered to the second by the Son of the Free-woman Isaac who was Abrahams Heir to whom he gave the whole Inheritance at last And the Adoption of Sons as the Priviledge of the New Covenant is opposed to the condition of Servants under the Old Gal. 4. 7. And what are they adopted to but to an Inheritance for the future for by Adoption they are made Heirs If a Son then an Heir of God through Christ an Heir of what of an Inheritance for the future an Inheritance Incorruptible undefiled and which fadeth not away reserved in Heaven 1 Pet. 1. 4. And therefore they are said to wait for the Adoption to wit the redemption of their Bodies at the resurrection Rom. 8. 23. Sons and Heirs serve their Father with a free and ingenuous Spirit though they have but little for the present in confidence of what he will do for th●m hereafter in another world when they shall come to age But those under the Old Covenant were like Servants who serve with a servile Spirit because they do it with expectation of present pay The one walk by Faith which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen the other were influenced in their obedience by the expectation of present reward because that was it which the first Covenant promised to the observers of it These Promises now insisted on were promises of reward to the observers of this first Covenant But besides these there was another sort of Promises exhibited in the first Covenant and they were Promises of pardon in many cases when the Laws of that Covenant were broken There were as I have shewed Laws of Indemnity which made many of the breaches of the Laws of duty pardonable upon certain conditions And such were all sins of Ignorance and Inadvertency and some of those also which were committed wittingly But presumptuous sins and such as carried in them a kind of contempt of the Law these were exempted from pardon Heb. 10. 28. He that despised Moses Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses But for the other there were promises of pardon upon certain conditions which conditions were not always the same In some cases the offering of a Sin-offering or Trespass-offering was the Condition In other Cases that with confession of Sin was the Condition And in some other Cases Sacrificing Restitution and Satisfaction were the Condition And afflicting of the Soul as well a the Sacrifice for Atonement on the day of general Expiation was always a Condition of forgiveness These things in the particularities of them you have in the 4 5 6 16 and 23d Chapters of Levit. And then the Condition of the Promises of Purgation of Legal Uncleannesses and the penal effects of them was the observing the Rules prescribed for purifying the Unclean Now the forgiveness promised by these Laws of Indemnity did not free the Conscience from all Obligation to Eternal punishment but only freed the
thus God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause thy Face to shine upon us That thy way may be known on Earth thy saving health unto all Nations Psal. 67. 1 2. and concludes ver 7. that if God should so do his fear would be propagated through the World God shall bless us and all the ends of the Earth shall fear him Deut 4. 6 7 8. Keep therefore and do them for this is your Wisdom and your Vnderstanding in the sight of the Nations who shall hear all these Statutes and say surely this great Nation is a Wise and an Vnderstanding people For what Nation is there so great that hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for And what Nation is there so great that hath Statutes and Iudgments so righteous as all this Law which I set before you this day To them were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. They were committed in trust to them as Feoffees for the World to communicate the knowledge of God and of his Laws to the Nations to carry on further the Reformation of the World begun in their Father Abraham and which was Promised to be more compleatly effected by the Messias in that all Nations of the Earth should be blessed in him And as God's Judgements on the Iews for breaking his Laws was Admonitory to the Nations about them Deut. 29. 24 28. So his famous Deliverances wrought for them upon their Repentance for breaking his Laws made God known abroad to be a great favourer of such as repent of their worshipping and serving other Gods and such a one as could and would save deliver and bless them that turned to him to serve him only Which seems to be his meaning when he saith he will be sanctified before the Heathen when he should gather them from among the people where they were Captives and that the Heathen should know that he was the Lord Ezek. 20. 41. 36. 23. And by this means be brought them to fear worship the God of Israel Psal. 102. 13 15. Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion So the Heathen shall fear the Name of the Lord and all the Kings of the Earth thy glory When the Lord turned again the captivity of Sion they said among the Heathen The Lord hath done great things for them Psal. 126. 1 2. 6. The whole Law was given to be a Political Instrument of governing the Israelites according to that state of their minority as a peculiar Republick of which God himself was the Soveraign Legislator But of this more afterward CHAP. III. Shewing by what Faith and Practice the Iews under the Law were saved I C●me now to shew by what Faith and Practice the Iews under the Law were saved And doubtless what ever it was it became available to that end upon the account of what Christ was to suffer when he should come For as I shewed before that God's Covenant with Abraham and his Seed by virtue of which the faithful then were saved was confirmed in Christ was established with them in reference to what he was to do and suffer as Mediatour afterwards Gal. 3. 17. And by means of his death there was Redemption for the transgressions that were under the first Testament Heb. 9. 15. And the Sacrifices and Priesthood were a Figure for the time then present of what Christ should afterwards do and suffer and for what end But when I say so I do not say that all that were saved did understand so much For we see the Apostles of Christ though they did believe him to be the Messias which the Iews expected yet they did not understand or expect that he should suffer death as a Sacrifice till he told them so Nay the thing was so far from their thoughts as that they did not understand him when he plainly foretold them of his death Luke 18. 32. And if the Doctrine touching the resemblance that is between the Priesthood of Melchizedech and the Priesthood of Christ was not in the Apostles sense Meat which Babes in Christanity could well digest in their understandings but was Meat for strong Men Heb. 5. 10. 14. we may well guess by that how little the Iews understood the Typical and Spiritual sense of those Types about which they were frequently conversant and wherefore it 's said that the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than Iohn the Baptist though he was so great that there was none greater before him Hence we may see that one Reason why those Iews were all their life time under a spirit of bondage to fear was the great Obscurity of the Declaration of God's purpose of Grace to the World through Christ and the Way and Method of Salvation by him Moses was but a servant for a Testimony of those things which were after to be spoken and so declared afterwards as that the Typical meaning of them might be understood Heb. 3. 5. In the mean while as touching those things they were shut up unto the Faith which should afterwards be revealed Gal. 3. 23. It is said of the Prophets whereof Moses was one that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto us by them that have preached the Gospel to us 1 Pet. 1. 12. Add we to all this Heb. 9. 8. where having spoken in ver 7. of the High Priests entering alone into the Holy of Holi●s with the blood of the Sacrifice in behalf of the people once every year he saith The Holy Ghost this signifying that the way into the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing By the Holiest of all here is meant Heaven signified of Old by the Holy of Holies as appears ver 12 24. And the plain meaning seems to be this That the peoples entring into Heaven by the Sacrifice and Blood and Intercession of Christ was not made manifest while the Tabernacle-Worship continued For Christ is our way into Heaven to the place within the Vail by his Blood shed as a Sacrifice Heb. 10. 19 20. Having therefore Brethren boldness to enter into the Holiest by the Blood of Iesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us th●ough the Vail that is to say his flesh But this way he tells us was not made manifest while the first Tabernacle was standing But as obscure as this way was as to what was to be done and suffered in particular by the Messias yet they had some general Grounds of Faith and Hope that upon their Faith Repentance and sedulous endeavours to walk in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord they should obtain remission of their sins and a future happiness in another World Among which Grounds these were not the least 1. They had the knowledge of the Promise of Blessedness to all Nations in Abrahams Seed and of the Promise of those
the parts of it For it is written Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this Law to do them And all the people shall say Amen Deut. 27. 26. And this extended to Heart-obedience and Heart-sinning as well as to the outward act commanding love to God forbidding to covet as under the Heart-searching Political Soveraign who reserved to himself the final Judgement and Execution even in temporal respects in many cases 2. Laws of Indemnity of which also this Covenant did consist were partly those which ordained Sacrifice and Offerings for the Expiation of many sins made pardonable by those Laws so far as to exempt the Delinquent person from the temporal penalty threatned for breach of those other Laws which for distinction sake I call Laws of Duty for otherwise these also were Laws of Duty as well as of Priviledge There were other Laws of Indemnity likewise for the purification of persons legally unclean which being observed the persons unclean became delivered from the penalties they suffered while their uncleanness was upon them such as was their separation from the Congregation Consider we next the Sanction of these Laws and that did consist in Promises annexed to the observing of them and in a curse denounced against the transgressors of them And for our better understanding the Nature of the Promises of this Covenant we will consider them Negatively and Affirmatively 1. Negatively The Promises of this Political-covenant as such were not Promise of eternal life And when I say so I do not deny but that first the Iews in Moses time and before had Promises of eternal life implyed in the Covenant made with Abraham and his Seed And accordingly the faithful ones among them sought after the Heavenly Countrey and looked for a City which hath Foundations whose builder and maker is God Heb. 11. 10 14 16. Nor secondly will I deny but that there are some passages in the Law of Moses if you take the Law of Moses in a large sense which look somewhat like a renewall of the antient Covenant with Abraham to his Seed As when for instance God made a conditional Promise to the Israelites in Moses his time to be their God and that they should be his people as in Levit 26. 12. Deut. 29. 13. Which form of words is interpreted sometimes to imply a future happiness in another World Heb. 11. 16. Matth. 21. 31 32. And I do not deny but the Iews had by Moses as express a Promise of the Messias as Abraham had Deut. 18. 15. 19. But St. Paul doth not speak of the Law in this large sense when he opposeth the Law and the Promise the Law and Faith one to another But if we understand by the Law of Mo●es the Law as Political the Law of the Common-wealth so the Promises of it were not Promises of Eternal Life For Promises of this nature did pertain to another Covenant to wit th●t made with Abraham and his Spiritual Seed as such First Therefore St. Paul doth down-rightly deny that the Promise of the Inheritance which in Heb. 9. 15. is called the Eternal Inheritance was by the Law which yet it would have been if by Law he had meant the Law in that large sense in which the Law and Promise to Abraham are conjoyned and not in that strict sense by which he means the Political Law distinctly And if the Inheritance had been promised upon the same terms as temporal Blessings were in the temporal Covenant the Inheritance might have been obtained by the Law as well as temporal Blessings were Rom. 4. 13. For the Promise that he should be Heir of the World was not through the Law but through the Righteousness of Faith Secondly St. Paul evinceth the badness of that Opinion to think that Eternal Life was Promised upon the Law-terms from the absurd consequence of it shewing that if it were that then it would make void the Promise of God to Abraham and the way of saving men by Faith in that Promise of none effect Gal. 3. 18. For if the inheritance be of the Law it is no more of Promise But God gave it to Abraham by Promise Rom. 4. 14. For if they which are of the Law be Heirs Faith is made void and the Promise made of none effect It was altogether unreasonable to think that the Inheritance should be promised upon such distant and inconsistent terms as are Faith in the Promise and by Works of the Law Thirdly The Law saith the Apostle is not of Faith but the man that doth them shall live in them Gal. 3. 12. meaning that what the Law promised it did not promise it upon condition of believing but upon condition of doing And Eternal Life is not since the fall promised upon condition of doing without Faith but upon condition of believing For the Iust shall live by Faith Vers. 11. and therefore Eternal Life is not promised by the Law Fourthly Wherefore else are the Promises of that better Covenant Heb. 8. 6. said to be better Promises But because they are Promises of better things than were promised in the first Covenant which yet they could not be if Eternal Life had been promised in that Covenant because that is the best of all Promises To say they are better only in respect of Administration and clearness of Revelation would not satisfie such as should well consider That if the betterness of the Covenant and Promises lay only in that the difference would not be so great as to denominate them two Covenants and two so vastly distant as the Scripture represents them to be The difference then would be but only gradual as that is which is found in the same Covenant of Grace in the several Editions of it to Adam to Abraham to David and now to all Nations since Christ's coming and not Essential as that between the two Covenants seem to be as it is represented in Gal. 4. 24. Besides St. Paul represents the Administration of the two Covenants to differ as much as Righteousness and Condemnation Life and Death differ which sure is more than a gradual difference The one is the Ministration of Death and Condemnation the other the Ministration of Righteousness and Life 2 Cor. 3. 6 7 8 9. The Law made nothing perfect but the bringing in of a better hope did Heb. 7. 19. By which it appears again that the hope of the Gospel in which the things hoped for upon the Promises of the Gospel are not the least is better than what the Law promised the observers of it This is the Promise which he hath promised us even Eternal Life 1 John 2. 25. 2. And Affirmatively It was then a long and Prosperous life in the Land of Canaan that was promised in the first Covenant Deut. 28. 11. The Lord shall make thee plenteous in Goods in the fruit of thy Body and in the fruit of thy Cattel and in the fruit of thy Ground in the Land which the Lord sware