into 2. Grounds Examined Enervated II. Putting too great a restraint on the New Covenant 1. Limitting it alone to the Regenerate 1. To which something is spoke 1. By way of concession that sundry Divines seeme to speak to that purpose 2. By way of Avoidance from their owne words 2. Contrary asserted 1. In Old Testament-times 1. By confession of the advesarie 2. By Scripture-testimony 36 2. In New Testament times 1. by New Testament Scriptures Mat. 28. 19 Mat. 22. 24 Heb. 10. 29 1 Pet. 2. 9 37 2. By Arguments of sundry sorts ch 38 3. Objections answered ch 39 4. Corollaries drawn 1. Professed Beleevers are under a Covenant of Grace and not a Covenant of Works chap. 40 2. Interest in a Church-state is of equall atiude with the Covenāt c. 41 3. Such Covenant-interest is sufficient to give accesse to and interest in particular visible Churches chap. 42 4. Dogmatical Faith entitles to Baptisme chap. 43 5. Impenitence and unbelief in professed Christians is a breach of Covenant chap. 44 Five Positions concerning particular Churches 1. Where nothing is wanting to the being of a Church yet much may be wanting for the wel-ordering 2. A people in a vicinity ought to associate themselves 3. Professing Christians upon tender ought to be received 4. Reformation of abuses is the work of Christians rather than separation 7. Rules concerning separation 5. Together Churches out of Churches unwarrantable 2. Terminating it onely in the person actually entring excluding the issue in which 1. Question stated as to Abrahams natural issue Chap. 45 2. Arguments concluding the natural issue of Abraham to be in Covenant Chap. 46 3. New-Testament Testimonies evincing it Ibid. 4. Objections from Rom. 9. 6 7 8. answered Chap. 47 5. The extent of it to the issue of Beleevers in New-Testament times 1. Asserted Chap 48 2 Proved 1. By Scripture testimonies Rom. 11. 16. Chap. 49. 50 1 Cor. 7. 14. Chap. 51 Galat. 4. 29 Chap. 52. Matth. 19. 14. Marke 10 14 Luke 18. 16. Chap. 53 2. By several arguments Chap. 54. 6. Corollary for Infant-Eaptisme Chap. 55 1. By Arguments asserted objections answered 2. The reality of connexion between the Covenant and the Seal vindicated Chap 56 3. Sin of Sacriledge upon the repulse charged Ch. 57 4. The title of all infants of professing parents asserted Chap. 58 7. Practical uses concerning parent and issue inserred Ch 60 1. All possible engagements to holinesse of life Ibid. 2. Parents must see that their childrens breeding answer their birth 3. There is great danger in opposing Gods Covenant-people 4. Consolation from this Birth-priviledge 1. In reference to Nations 2. In reference to single persons 1. Themselves 2. Their posterity The Analytical Table being chiefly intended for and suited to learned capacities the vulgar Reader may here see the whole of the following Treatise as it is digested into Chapters and these easily found by the pages opposite to them Chap. 1. AN Introduction into the whole page 1 Chap. 2. The Covenant of God entred with mankinde distinguished page 8 Chap. 3. A Covenant between God and fallen man in the proper nature of it asserted page 10 Chap. 4. The Covenant of grace is between God and man and not between God and Christ page 13 Chap. 5. The Outward and not the Inward Covenant is a Covenant properly so called page 19 Chap. 6. Six positions tending to clear the thing in question page 24 Chap. 7. The Covenant of Grace calls for conditions from man page 33 Chap. 8. A grand Objection against this Doctrine answered page 36 Chap. 9. Further Objectious against the former Doctrine answered page 48 Chap. 10. God in the dayes of the Gospel keeps up the power and authority of his Law The obligation of it is still inforce to bind the consciences of Beleevers page 53 Chap. 11. The Moral Law is a perfect rule of righteousnesse page 62 Chap. 12. The Moral Law bindes as it was delivered by the hand of Moses page 73 Chap. 13. God entring a Covenant of Grace with his people keeps up his Soveraignty in exercise of Discipline in the correction and chastisement of his people for sinne page 77 Chap. 14. 〈…〉 between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace page 86 Chap. 15. Differences between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace page 87 Chap. 16. A further difference between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace page 91 Chap. 17. Works incumbent upon the Mediatour of the Covenant of Grace page 93 Chap. 18. Further differences between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace page 99 Chap. 19. Objections against the former Doctrine answered page 113 Chap. 20. Further differences in the conditions in the Covenant of Works and the conditions in the Covenant of Grace page 115 Chap. 21. Faith is a condition of the Covenant of Grace page 118 Chap. 22. Objections against the conditionality of Faith answered page 130 Chap. 23. Repentance is a condition of the Covenant of Grace page 136 Chap. 24. Objections against the conditionality of repentance answered page 144 Chap. 25. What degree of obedience the Covenant of Grace calls for from Christians page 148 Chap. 26. The necessity of a Ministry to bring men into Covenant with God and to bring them up to the termes of it page 160 Chap. 27. Schooles and Nurseries of learning in order to a gifted Ministry necessary page 173 Chap. 28. An orderly way of admission of men into the Ministerial function necessary page 180 Chap. 29. Ministers of Christ must bring their people up to the termes of the Covenant pressing the necessity of faith and repentance page 188 Chap. 30. A people in Covenant must come up to the termes of the Covenant being engaged to God they must answer their engagements page 190 Chap. 31. The distribution of the Covenant of Grace into the Old and New Covenant with the harmony and agreement that is found between them page 202 Chap. 32. Differences assigned between the Old and New Covenant page 205 Chap. 33. Positions tending to clear the first Covenant under Old Testament-dispensations page 210 Chap. 34. The Old Covenant was not made up of meer carnal promises but contained New Govenant-promises that were spiritual and saving page 219 Chap. 35. The Old Covenant was a pure Gospel Covenant and not mixt page 224 Chap. 36. The Covenant of Grace admits Christians in Gospel-times in a state of unregeneration and is not limited in the bounds of it to the elect regenerate page 231 Chap. 37. New Testament-Scriptures asserting the latitude of the Covenant of Grace in Gospel times page 235 Chap. 38. Arguments evincing the Covenant of Grace in Gospel-times in that latitude as before is asserted page 248 Chap. 39. Objections against this latitude of the Covenant answered page 257 Chap. 40. Professed beleevers are under a Covenant of Grace and not a Covenant of Works page 262 Chap. 41. Interest in a Church-state is of equal latitude
love in a graciously disposed soul cleaves to Christ for communion but receives him not for justification These two stand as relatives there is no soul entituled to this righteousnesse but by faith and faith is it that entitles to it the beleeving soul hath interest in it Therefore justification in Scripture is ascribed to faith and denied to works when neither faith nor works can beare us out of themselves before the tribunal of God but faith takes hold and the soul by faith rests on this righteousnesse of grace which the Gospel tenders It is true that faith receives the Spirit as well as it receives the blood of Christ Joh. 7. 39. Gal. 3. 14. But this is for another use for the work of sanctification inherent not justification by righteousnesse imputed And it is also true that faith accepts Christ as a Lord as well as a Saviour But it is the acceptation of him as a Saviour not as a Lord that justifies Christ rules his people as a King teacheth them as a Prophet but makes atonement for them onely as a Priest by giving himself in sacrifice his blood for remission of sins These must be distinguished but not divided Faith hath an eye at all the blood of Christ the command of Christ the Doctrine of Christ but as it eyes and fastens on his blood so it justifies He is set out a propitiation through faith in his blood Romans 3. 24. not through faith in his command It is the blood of Christ that cleanseth all sin and not the Sovereignty of Christ These confusions of the distinct parts of Christs Mediatourship and the several offices of faith may not be suffered Scripture assignes each its particular place and work Sovereignty doth not cleanse us nor doth blood command us faith in his blood not faith yeelding to his Sovereignty doth justifie us There are several acts or fruits of justifying faith Heb. 11. But all are not justifying It is not Abrahams obedience Moses self-denial Gideon or Sampsons valour that was their justification but his blood in which faith alone gives interest who did enable them in these duties by his Spirit Paul went in these duties as high as they living in more clear light and under more abundant grace I doubt not but he out-topt them and yet he was not thereby justified as 1 Cor. 4. 4. James indeed saith that Abraham was justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son on the Altar James 2. 21. But either there we must understand a working faith with Piscator Paraeus Pemble and others and confesse that Paul and James handle two distinct questions The one whether faith alone justifies without works which he concludes in the affirmative The other what faith justifies whether a working faith onely and not a faith that is dead and idle or else I know not how to make sense of the Apostle who streight inferres from Abrahams justification by the offer of his sonne And the Scripture was fulfilled that saith Abraham beleeved God and it was accounted to him for righteousnesse How otherwise do these accord He was justified by works and the Scripture was fulfilled that saith he was justified by faith Neither can I reconcile what he saith if this be denied with the whole current of the Gospel The Rhemists indeed understand those texts of the Apostle where he excludes works from justification to be meant of mans moral works done before faith and conversion The works of the Law done without Christ Annot. in Rom. 3. 20 28. As though the Law did not command those duties unto which Christ through faith strengthens a Christian converted by grace And when the Apostle concludes the impossibility of being justified by the works of the Law his meaning should be unlesse grace assist the Law that it may justifie This could not be the Apostle calls it a righteousnesse of God without the Law not a righteousnesse of the Law with addition of strength from the Gospel All works before or after conversion inherent in us or wrought by us are excluded from justification See Ravanellus in verbum Justificatio Num. 3. page 867. This justification wrought freely by grace through faith Rom. 3. 24. is no way consistent with justification by works And what the Apostle speaks of election we may well apply to justification the same medium equally proves the truth of both If by grace then it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace But if it be of works then it is no more of grace otherwise works were no more works Rom 11. 6. And these things considered I am truly sorry that faith should now be denied to have the office or place of an instrument in our justification nay scarce allowed to be called the instrument of receiving Christ that justifies us because the act of faith which is that which justifies us is our actual receiving Christ and therefore cannot be the instrument of receiving This is too subtile a notion we use to speak otherwise of Faith Faith is the eye of the soul whereby we see Christ and the eye is not sight Faith is the hand of the soul whereby it receives Christ and the hand is not receiving And Scripture speaks otherwise We receive remission of sinnes by Faith and an inheritance among them that are sanctified is received by Faith Acts 18. 26. Why else is this righteousnesse sometimes called the righteousnesse of Faith and sometimes the righteousnesse of God which is by Faith but that it is a righteousnesse which Faith receives Christ dwells in us by Faith Ephes 3. 17. By Faith we take him in and give him entertaintment We receive the promise of the Spirit through Faith Gal. 3. 14. These Scriptures speak of Faith as the souls instrument to receive Christ Jesus to receive the Spirit from Christ Jesus The instrumentality of it in the work of justification is denied because the nature of an instrument as considered in Physical operations doth not exactly belong to it which if it must be alwayes rigidly followed will often put us to a stand in the assignation of causes of any kind in Moral actions The material and formal causes in justification are scarce agreed upon and no marvel then in case men mind to contend about it that some question is raised about the instrument But in case we shall consider the nature and kinde of this work about which Faith is implied and examine the reason and ground upon which Faith is disabled from the office of an instrument in our justification and withall look into that which is brought in as an instrument in this work in the stead of it I do not doubt but it will easily appear that those Divines that with a concurrent judgment without almost a dissenting voice have made Faith an instrument in this work speak most aptly and most agreeably to the nature of an instrument The work about which Faith is implied is not an absolute but a relative
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
the fruits of it upon such and such conditions to be by us fulfilled It will be worth our labour to enquire what is meant by the conditional engagement unto which he says some winde up the merit of Christ as affecting God with it doth he mean such conditions that as causes or impulsive motives take with God to enter such engagement If this be the meaning I shall freely yeeld that there is no such conditional covenant that there is no such condition in any Covenant of God with man In this sense Master Culverwell in his Treatise of Faith page 143. takes it Having mentioned several conditional promises in which faith is expressely required and such wherein it is necessarily understood he saith In all which faith is necessarily understood for the obtaining of the benefit promised But yet in all these faith is no condition properly so called moving God to promise life But taking it in this restrained sense as moving God to promise life he much mistakes himself where he saith That it confounds the Law and the Gospel taking away a chief difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace page 141. Seeing there was no condition thus understood in the covenant of works There was not any such good accruing to God by any thing that Adam was to do that upon it or for it God should make the promise of life God hath no motives out of himself to confer his rewards Conditions taken in such a sense will make the covenant of grace and the covenant of works all unconditional But taking the word condition in the sense as it is in ordinary use and as it properly signifies for duty in covenant indented agreed upon and assented to on performance or neglect of which the promise stands or falls it is plain that there are such conditions in both covenants equally in one as the other The necessity of the concurrence of grace to the work of faith will as soon make it no duty as no condition and many denying the one have learnt to deny either of both as well duties as conditions Mr. Culverwel therefore consesseth that faith in some sort may be called a condition because the promise of life is made to persons qualified with faith page 143. and this conditional promise well understood saith he page 141. may be born And if understood with such a restraint as the word will not suffer we confesse Christians must not acknowledge it This being premised let us look into the reasons brought to back the former assertion First All such conditions if spiritual blessings are part of the purchase of the death of Christ and if not are no way fit to be conditions of such an attainment Answ They are so parts of his purchase that they are also our act The act of man by the power of God God gives faith and gives repentance yet we beleeve and we repent we may as easily reconcile Christs purchase with the nature of a condition as Gods free gift of grace with our duty If the gift were of grace and no duty required then there were force in the argument This ridgidly followed will disingage man from all obedience to God seeing all power to obey is part of the purchase of Christ Secondly It cannot be made apparent how any such conditional stipulation can be ascribed to God Answ We finde such a one in Scripture ascribed to God no condition can in more plain terms be held our In case we cannot see how it can be it were safer to lay our hands on our mouths and acknowledge our weaknesse then to withstand so clear evidence He is pleased to give his Reasons First saith he It leaves no proper place for he merit of Christ Answ This reason I can by no means reach Christ may merit and upon what terms he pleases confer what he hath merited Duty in us excludes merit in Christ as well as conditions imposed upon uâ— See Ball on the covenant page 133. Secondly It is very improperly ascribed to God c. Stipulation or engagements upon conditions that are properly so do suppose him that makes the engagement to be altogether uncertain of the event thereof for which the authority of Lawyers is quoted If conditions among men be of such uncertainty it doth not thence follow that it is so in those conditions which God imposes on performance of which he conferres the mercies which he gives in promise If there be so much difference between moral hope and that Christian grace which is wrought by the Spirit that the one is only possible conjectural uncertain and doubtful the other assured and never failing The one often ending in shame The other never making ashamed Then there may be a like difference in the conditions assigned by man and those assigned by God Men may be still uncertain yet God may be assured the event being not left to contingency or the freedome of mans will which is supposed to stand in aequilibrio but determined by the act of grace which is not hid from him whose hand works it in the hearts of his people This might seem to carry far rather force against all conditions in the first covenant which is yet granted to be conditional which for performance was meerly suspended on mans will but hath no colour against the conditions of the second covenant which God works of grace as he requires of sovereignty One is pleased to say Surely they are wide if not very wilde who affirm that all the stipulations on the part of God upon the death of Christ are upon a condition which himself knows to be impossible for them to perform to whom they are made which among Wise men are always accounted nugatory and null And may not the like be said of exhortations promises threats commands God as well knows our disability to answer these as to fulfil conditions yet they are neither wide nor wilde that acknowledge such exhortations promises threats commands without abilities in fallen man to answer them farther then the concurrence of grace that is in Christ Jesus strengthens them There are many more Objections raised by others which the Reader may see brought in by Mr. Grayl and Mr. Woodbridge and fully answered CHAP. X. God in the dayes of the Gospel keeps up the power and authority of his Law The obligation of it is still in force to binde the consciences of beleevers THe last Position that I shall premise is That God in his entry of covenant with man in sinne doth so manifest his free grace that he still keeps up his Sovereignty so exalts mercy that he loseth nothing of his rule and authority His chief aime is to exalt the glory of his free grace and to set out the riches of his great mercy that so noble a species as that of mankinde might not for ever perish yet he quits not man of his subjection and obedience When the Angels fell some stood whether the fallen or persevering number
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
bindes us to believe 2. Much of that which I have spoke by way of answer to the former may be applied to this likewise 3. I shall hereafter speak to this that faith is a duty of the Moral Law where the Reader may have further satisfaction 4. If Adam had no command for faith then he was not in any capacity to believe and by his fall lost not power of beleeving And consequently it will not stand with the Justice of God to exact it at our hands having never had power for the performance of it 5. I say there was power in Adam for that faith that justified but not to act for justification Adam had that habit and the Law calls for it from all that are under the command of it But the Gospel discovers the object by which a sinner through faith is justified 3. The same answer may serve to the third exception which indeed is the same with the former only a great deal of flourishing is bestowed in discourse of the understanding and will paralleling them with the Prefaces grounds and occasions of Laws not needful to be repeated And at last bringing all to the Articles of the Creed to which enough already is spoken 4. It is said But what if all this had been left out and you had proved the Moral Law the only Rule of duty doth it follow therefore that it is the only Rule Answ If the Moral Law be the only Rule of duty then I take it to be the only Rule for I enquire after nothing but duty and I take righteousnesse to be matter of duty and then the only Rule of duty is the only Rule of righteousnesse It is further said Sure it is not the only Rule of rewarding And I say Rewarding is none of our work but Gods and I look for a Rule of that work which is ours and that we are to make our businesse I confesse an imperfection in it to give life but assert a perfection as the Rule of our lives It justifies no man but it orders and regulates every justified man 5. It is further said The same I may say of the Rule of punishment To which I give the same answer It is not our work but Gods either to reward or punish And here he speaks of a part of the penalty of the new Law And I know no penalty properly distinct from the penalty of the old He is wont to compare it to an Act of Oblivion and Acts of Oblivion are not wont to inflict penalties but serve to remove them when another Law imposes them That of the Parable is instanced None of them that were bidden shall taste of the Supper when the sin for which they there suffer is a breach of a Moral command 6. It is said The principal thing intended is that the Moral Law is not the only Rule what shall be the condition of Life or Death and therefore not the only Rule according to which we must now be denominated and hereafter sentenced Just or Vnjust To this I have already given a sufficient answer and if I had not our Authour answers fully for me where he says The precepts of the Covenant as meer precepts must be distinguished from the same precepts considered as conditions upon performance of which we must live or die for non-performance And I speak of them as meer precepts and so they are our Rule of righteousness not as they are conditions either of the covenant of works or grace And a man may be denominated righteous by the Laws Rule when he cannot stand before the sentence of it as a covenant of which we have heard sufficient After a long discourse against all possibility of justification by the Law of works as though I were therein an adversary or that the Antinomian fancy were above all answer that a man cannot make the Law his Rule but he makes it withal his Justification he goes about to prevent an objection and says If you should say this is the covenant and not the Law he will reply 1. Then the Law is not the only Rule To which I say When my work is to make it good that the Law is our only Rule I marvel that he will so much as imagine that I will say that which makes it not the only Rule But perhaps he thinks I do not see how it cannot follow as indeed I do not neither can I see any colour for it 2. He replies It is the same thing in several respects that we call a Law and a Covenant except you mean it of our covenant-act to God of which we speak not who knows not that praemiare and punire are Acts of a Law And that an Act of Oblivion or general pardon on certaine termes is a Law and that the promise is the principal part of the Law of Grace To which I say that praemiare and punire are essential in a Law Some have power of command so that their words in just things is to be a Law where most deny any power of punishment as an Husband over the Wife Some parents have Authority to command children children remaining under the obligation of the fifth commandment as long as the relation of a childe continueth when they have neither power to reward or punish Jacob took himself to be in power to command Joseph among the rest of his Sons as appears in the charge concerning his burial Gen. 47. 29 30. and chap. 49. 29. So compared and yet he was not in power either to reward or punish him And though they be acts of a law where he that gives the Law is in power Yet they are no parts of a Rule nor any directory of life to him to whom they are proposed I know that an Act of Oblivion or general pardon may be called a Law as many other things are catachresticè and abusivè but that it should be a Law properly so called I know not The Romanes defined a Law whilest that a Democratie was in force among them to be Generale jussum populi aut plebis rogante magistratu Afterwards when the State was changed and the Legislative power was in other hands they defined it to be Jussum Regis aut Imperatoris And Tully's definition of a Law is that it is Ratio summa insita in natura quae recta suadet prohibetque contraria Here jussio suasio and prohibitio are express'd which are not found in Acts of Oblivion That every man who is within the verge of such an Act may be said to be acquit by Law I willingly grant seeing that act takes off the force of the Law condemning him But that it is a Law strictly so taken I know not CHAP. XII The Moral Law bindes as it was delivered by the hand of Moses A Third branch of the general Proposition before delivered follows which is that the Moral Law as delivered by the hand of Moses is obligatory to Christians This I
and Law-ceremonies did not reach beyond John who was the last of the Prophets who did bear witnesse of Christ Some say that in case the Law bind as it was delivered by Moses then all that Moses did deliver is obligatory to Christians Quâtale is omne and so the ceremonial Law bindes as doth the Moral and we shall bring our necks under that yoke To this answer all that Moses did deliver doth binde unlesse we have a release or discharge from the same authority by which he spake and hence an argument is drawn for proof of that which we have in hand If the ceremonial Law had bound Christians to this day had it not been revoked and abolished then the moral Law which is no where revoked or abolished as hath been shewn doth still bind Christians This is plaine there is no reason that the ceremonial Law should be obligatory above the Moral But the ceremonial Law had bound Christians to this day had it not been revoked and abolished This is as plain when the great question was in the primitive times whether the ceremonial Law did binde Christians whether they were to circumcise their children after the manner of Moses and consequently to observe other Rites This is decided in making it appear that these were abolished as being shadows of good things to come and an end put to their obligation It may be further objected that if all be of force that Moses wrote as from him then that of divorce of the wife on any cause is of force likewise That was commanded by Moses as the Pharisees Mat. 19. 7. tell the Lord Christ from Deut. 24. 1. To this Chemnitius hath answered that Moses delivered this Tanquam legislator as one that gave orders to that people as to their political estate not Tanquam Theologus as a Prophet raised up to deliver the minde and will of God unto them Moses his writings therefore are in force not onely ratione materiae as containing such precepts upon which Christ in the New Testament hath put a divine sanction but by vertue of a sanction from heaven put upon them as delivered by him and the obligation still remaining If Moses once be neglected I shall fear that Peter and Paul will not long be honoured Moses being a servant in the same house with them and the rest of the Apostles and pen-men of New Testament-Scriptures CHAP. XIII God entring a Covenant of Grace with his people keeps up his Sovereignty in exercise of discipline in the correction and chastisement of his people for sinne AS God holds up his Sovereignty under the covenant of grace in keeping on foot his commandments so also in his exercise of discipline upon those with whom he is in covenant He neither suffers them to be without Law nor to go on in transgression of his Law with impunity and freedome As they have his precept to keep from sinne so they are in danger of his hand in case of sinne Those that are against us in the former are our adversaries in this likewise As they plead a manumission of Christians from the mandatory power of the Law so they will also have them exempted from all chastisement or correction Against these we maintaine that the people of God in covenant even those whose hearts are stedfast in covenant do suffer under the covenant of grace in case of sinne and that for sinne For proofe of this I shall bring Scripture of three sorts 1. Giving instances of the Church and people of God under sore and great afflictions for sinne and these places are even without number Esay 42. 24. Lam. 1. 8. 3. 39. 5. 16. Micah 1. 5. Yea they lie under sufferings till they acknowledge sin till their stomacks are brought down and they humble themselves for sin Lev. 26. 41. Against this is objected that among these afflicted ones there were reprobates as well as elected ones and Elect ones in the state of unconversion and they might suffer for sinne which the childe of God does not nor can not To this I answer 1. There were true converts among these or else the whole world had no converts in it 2. These in their confessions and humiliations involved themselves among the rest and make themselves of the number of those that by sinne draw down sufferings as we have Ezra Daniel and others for examples 2. Instances of the most precious Saints sinning and suffering for sinne 1. Moses and Aaron Numb 20. 12. The Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron because ye beleeved me not to sanctifie me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this Congregation into the land which I have given them Both their sinne and their sufferings are noted there which Moses seems never to have done with Deut. 1. 37. Deut. 3 26. Deut. 4. 21. Deut. 34. 4. 2. David his sinne we finde 1 Sam. 11. at large related his sufferings in the next chapter he suffers in all his relations 1. As a father his childe dies 2. As an husband his bed is defiled 3. As a Prince the sword is brought upon his land 3. Solomon 1 Kings 11. 11. For as much as this is done of thee and thou hast not kept my Covenant and my statutes which I have commanded thee I will surely rend the Kingdom from thee and I will give it to thy servant 4. Hezekiah 2 Chron. 32. 25. 26. But Hezekiah rendred not again according to the benefit done unto him for his heart was lifted up therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the dayes of Hezekiah In which words we see his sinne his suffering for sinne and his humiliation upon account of his sinne Here also exception is taken These here mentioned say some lived under Old Testament dispentations To this I answer 1. We may take up Pauls words in behalf of these 2. Cor. 10. 7. If any man trust to himself that he is Christs let him of himself think this again that as he is Christs so they were Christs Moses that suffered as we have heard upon the account of sinne esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches then the treasures of Egypt Heb. 11. 26. And David that suffered in like sort in spirit called him Lord Matth. 22. 43. 2. That we may not lose Old Testament-Scriptures for if we lose them here we shall hold them no where let us look upon Prov. 3. 11 12. My sonne despise not the chastening of the Lord neither be weary of his correction for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as the father the sonne in whom he delighteth In which words we see 1. The sufferings of the people of God thrice repeated 2. The impulsive cause implyed in the word chastisement which ever is for some fault Psalme 39. 11. 3. The hand that
other differences which I shall observe or which as I suppose are observable have their rise which are these following The covenant of Works or as learned Camero calls it the covenant of Nature was for preservation of man in life that is in present blisse and happinesse to hold him in the condition in which it found him which is implyed in the penalty threatned as was before noted man must not die till sinne enter and exprest in that promise of God Do this and live His life must be continued as long as his obedience lasted his happinesse must have been perpetuated though not necessarily in the same degree God might have translated him from a life on earth to a life in heaven had he kept to the terms of the covenant The covenant of grace is for mans restitution reconciliation and recovery He was before in blisse and if he had so abode he might with good reason have taken up Peters words It is good for us to be here Now he is in misery and must be restored if ever he be blessed and so a farther difference doth arise The covenant of works had its precedency was first in time The covenant of grace in order of time follows after This must needs follow Mans estate in integrity being before his fall the covenant made in his integrity must needs precede the covenant entred into in his fallen condition unlesse we will place the third of Genesis before the first the fall of man before his creation And therefore that is utterly a mistake in one who in the very entrance upon his Treatise of the two covenants gives the covenant of grace the precedency in time giving this as his reason why he places the covenant of Grace before the covenant of Works because the covenant of Grace was in being before the covenant of Works quoting for proof Gal. 3. 17. The covenant which was made before of God in Christ the Law which was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disanul But this can by no means serve his purpose unlesse we should conclude that the covenant of Works had its beginning in Mount Sinai at the giving of the Law by Moses and the covenant of Grace of only four hundred and thirty yeares more ancient standing And that will as little serve his purpose which he after brings in that there was an agreement and covenant between God the Father and his Sonne Jesus Christ about the salvation of man before Adam sinned yea before the world began Seeing that covenant between the first and second person of the Trinity was not the covenant which he hath in hand to treat upon namely the covenant which God entred with man as he himself confesses No covenant can be made with man before man be in being A noâ—ens can be no party in a covenant And whereas we are told that the same covenant which was made with Jesus Christ before time was afterwards made with man I desire that all would observe what is laid down in that Treatise concerning that covenant Christ for his part was by covenant to become a Mediatour Surety and Saviour for all those that his Father should give him And must we become such Mediatours Sureties and Saviours also God the Father did promise to Christ as is further said all the things that did belong to his Mediatourship and things to gratifie and satisfie him for his Mediatourship May we by covenant expect such things from the Father likewise If we are neither tied to the same work to which Christ by covenant was tied nor are to receive the like gifts as he by covenant was to expect we are not in the same covenant that past between the Father and Christ And though these two were one which must not be yeelded the covenants ad intra which the persons of the Trinity make with themseâ—es and those ad extra with the creature may not be confounded yet that would evince no such precedence in time seeing there was alike agreement in the whole Trinity for the creation of man and Gods covenant with him in his integrity as is fully assented to in the same Treatise to the utter overthrow of all that which upon the former supposition he had built To that question To what end should the covenant of Grace be made before man stood in need of Grace he answers Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world And he had all things then as present and real before the eyes of his glory as now he hath viz. Mans Creation Fall Recovery and in this sense there was no precedency of time in regard of any of Gods Counsels or secret actions And then there can be no precedency of one of his covenants before another we must finde then a sense according to which there is a precedency which is not found in any covenants of the Trinity among themselves which in exact propriety of speech are purposes rather then covenants and were before all time but in the actual entrance and assent by the creature given which is in time and admits precedency In which consideration the covenant of works hath its precedency before that of Grace as the state of integrity was before the fall Whence farther yet follows that the covenant of works was but a small time in force at least but a small time of use only during the space of mans integrity which some say was only one day in all probability not long in that man enjoyed no fruit of that blessing in Paradise Increase and multiply But this second is of everlasting continuance when the first Covenant was violated by our first parents and so made uselesse that of grace succeeded which is our only planck after shipwrack but none shall ever succeed this second Adam failing of salvation by the covenant of Works which he entred in the first place is saved by the covenant of grace into which after his fall he entred and into which he was of grace admitted but he that is not saved by the second must everlastingly perish and so I understand that text Heb. 10. 26. If we sinne wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth then there remaineth no more sacrifice for sinnes but a fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation where by sinning wilfully I understand an utter rejection of Gods tender of this sacrifice of Christs blood which I gather from the Apostle in the words that follow the proof that he brings of that sad assertion He that despised Moses Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy that hath trodden under foot the blood of the Sonne of God and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing This is that wilful sinne of which there is no expiation When man had cast off the yoke a sacrifice was found Christ made his soul an
thorow with it here is pure justice without relaxation as to the value confest by those who yet contend whether idem or tantundem be paid by Christ the same in kinde as was owing by man or the like in value and estimate He that is brought under a divine attachment must not come out till he have paid the uttermost farthing which man in torments is ever in discharging and never can discharge It is as easie to make a world as by way of ransome to deliver a soul Christ therefore that knew no sin is made sinne that is an offering for sinne God manifest in the flesh he that was God and man hath undertaken the work man to suffer and God to satisfie in suffering and so God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself 2 Corinth 5. 19. The immediate effect or result of this price of mans redemption I suppose is the putting of man into a capacity of a covenant with God yet when this is done till more be done by Christ in the way of his Mediatourship for man men are not yet in covenant not the Elect among men This is evident in those Ephesians that were raised up together and made sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Ephes 2. 6. There was no time in which Christ had not paid the price of their ransome yet there was a time and then but lately over that they were without Christ being aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of promise having no hope and without God in the world Ephes 2. 12. Elect Infidels are not till their call in covenant they stand not actually reconciled and one with God before Faith for then there needed no Ministery of reconciliation to follow If this were granted then Christ did the whole for mans salvation on the crosse by himself and doth nothing now in heaven by way of intercession nor any thing by his agents in a ministerial way upon earth neither could man before faith be underwrath in which he is yet concluded by our Saviour himself John 3. 36. A state of wrath and an actual reconciled estate cannot stand together There is a price paid and as I may say in the Fathers hand but to be applyed according to the good pleasure of the Father and the Sonne A man may purchase a prisoners liberty so that he hath it in his just and legal power to set him free and yet take what time he pleaseth in discretion to impart it to him and actually deliver him In this work there are three parties God the Father as Creditor Christ Jesus the Surety Man the Debtor The Father might have refused this discharge from the hand of Christ and exacted it of the principal Christ might have refused to have made such payment he was not in the Obligation There was a relaxation of the person as is agreed on all parties Man must come in and manifest his acceptance Till he is content to leave his old master sin and Satan This new Lord gives him no entertainment he must be content to come out of bondage or else he can enjoy no freedome 2. The next work of Christ is to bring man within the bond of the covenant professedly to accept it for which there is yet a double work First to make tender of it this hath been Christs work as the Prophet of his Church in all ages In what latitude in was carried in the dayes of the fathers before the flood it is rather obscurely pointed at then plainly shewed yet there was then a distinction between the posterity of Seth and that of Cain and so contiued till the dayes of Noah when the sonnes of God saw the daughters of men children of the covenant saw those out of the covenant Men within the visible Church saw women without the Pale and joyned themselves in marriage with them From Abrahams dayes it was confined to his posterity and held within his line and those few that as proselytes joyned themselves unto them In Gospel times it is enlarged the tender is made not to Jewes only but also to every Nation under heaven the Commission being to preach the Gospel to every creature none by Nation so contemptible that is to be excluded In Christ Jesus there is neither Barbarian nor Scythian Jew or Gentile Col. 3. 11. And as there is to be a tender so also it is his work to shape the heart for acceptation of it to embrace the terms and enter into it God shall perswade Japhet and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem Gen. 9. 27. The inhabitants of the Isles peopled by Japhets posterity shall become the Israel of God shall succeed the Jewes in a Church-state and vissible profession of the name of God The hand of the Lord was with them namely those that preacht at Antioch and a great number beleeved Acts 11. 21. where beleeving after the manner of the History in the Acts is no other then embracing the Doctrine of Faith they were made Disciples many of which after fell off even from their profession A third work is to enable those whom he brings to glory those among them in covenant that are called according to his purpose to performe the duties of the covenant to be stedfast and upright in it and this is by Circumcising their heart giving them a new heart writing his Law in their hearts putting it into their inward parts keeping them by his mighty power through faith unto salvation of which more hereafter The last work is to crown with glory those that by grace he raises up to the termes of the covenant thus qualifying them he crowns them I have fought a good fight I have finished my course henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousnesse which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to my self John 14. 2 3. Here some difficulties offer themselves If the covenant of works past between God and man in his integrity were immediate and the transactions of it without reference to Christ then if follows that faith in Christ is not commanded in that Law Obj. which was given to man for a rule There being no possibility of it there could be no command for it and there was no possibility of Adams beleeving it seeing Christ was not revealed and was not as Mediatour of any use This opinion is strongly maintained by Arminians Armin. in resp ad artic decimum nonum Corvinus Contr. Molin cap. 11. And to this end that they may make it good that God cannot in justice require faith in Christ from man in his fallen condition unlesse he withal confer upon him abilities to believe seeing he never had that power from him in his integrity and state of purity and upon this supposition
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
onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Mark 16. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that beleeveth not shall be damned Acts 10. 43. To him give all the Prophets witnesse that thorough his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sinnes Acts 13. 38 39. Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man is preached unto you forgivenesse of sinnes And by him all that beleeve are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts 16. 31. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy whole house Rom. 3. 25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 10. 4. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth In all these texts and several others faith is required of men in covenant and if men did not engage to beleeve they could not be so much as professed covenanters This is in reason further evident 1. That which gives us interest in the Mediator of the covenant without which we have no title to him or portion in him is a condition of the covenant This is plain of it self without interest in the Mediator of the covenant we are as though no covenant were entred and the former distance held up But it is faith that gives us interest in Christ the Mediatour He dwells in us by faith Ephes 3. 17. He is set forth a propitiation through Faith in his blood They that believe receive him John 1. 12. Others hold a distance from him To as many as received him to them he gave power to be the sonnes of God even to those that beleeve in his Name 2. That which receives all that grace gives must needs be a condition of the covenant of grace This is as plain to be under a covenant of grace and void of the gifts of grace is a vain entrance upon it and the reception of the gift is a condition necessarily requisite But Faith receives all that grace gives It is of Fath that it might be of grace Rom. 4. 16. God gives nothing at least tending to eternity but he puts it into the hands of Christ He is the Fathers treasury and store-house Col. 1. 19. It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell And that of his fulnesse we should all receive Joh. 1. 16. And faith receives al from him He that believeth out of his belly flowes rivers of living water Joh. 7. 38. 3. That which interest us in and gives title to all priviledges of a people in covenant with God through Christ is a condition of the covenant This is plaine the end of the covenant being to conferre those priviledges upon us But Faith interests us in and gives title to all these priviledges Paul is sent to the Gentiles to turne them from Satan to God to bring them out of Satans kingdome and to bring them in a covenant-way into Christs Kingdome That they may receive forgivenesse of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified saith Christ by faith that is in me Christ is the object of a Christians faith on whom it is terminated Faith which is in Christ receives that leading priviledg forgivenesse of sins without this priviledge we are strangers to all other priviledges Being under sinne we are heires of wrath and in no capacity of mercy Faith interests us in this Acts 10. 43. To him give all the Prophets witnesse that through his Name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Acts 13. 39. And by him all that beleeve are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Rom. 3. 25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousnesse for the remission of sinnes that are past through the forbearance of God Faith interests us in the consummating priviledge an inheritance among them that are sanctified He that believeth hath everlasting life John 6. 40. Faith interests us in all intermediate priviledges which a man in covenant can enjoy in the way to this inheritance Adoption of sonnes is this way obtained John 1. 12. Gal. 3. 26. Pacification of Spirit Serenity and tranquility of minde Isa 26. 3. Rom. 5. 1. Boldnesse at the throne of grace Ephes 3. 12. There is no priviledge bottomed on Christ that hath foundation in him but Faith receives Faith then must be a condition of the covenant 4. That which puts into a capacity to receive the mercies of the covenant held forth in Promise is a condition of the covenant and the want of it strips off all hope and expectation of it But Faith puts into a capacity to receive all the graces of the covenant given in promise Said I not unto thee if thou wilt beleeve thou shalt see the glory of God John 11. 40. God exerts and glorifies his power in great things for good unto those that exercise the grace of Faith Paul saw the Creeple had faith to be healed Acts 14. 9. Sure if there be such a thing as a condition in any covenant in the world any such thing as a conditional covenant then sure faith is a condition of the covenant of grace Some conceive an absolute covenant made of God for grace as Jer. 31. 33. This with me is very disputable and I have given my reasons But the covenant made to grace must needs suppose grace There is no covenant for happinesse made with any creature but upon termes and conditions For further clearing of this point we must know that faith is considered under a double notion First as an instrument or if that word will not be allowed as the way of our interest in Christ and priviledges by Christ Secondly as an inherent grace or Christian duty to which both the Law and the Gospel call The radical grace from which others flow though not in their being yet in their farther growth and encrease I speak of Faith now in the first acception Neither as a part or any way a working cause of the farther progresse in inherent righteousnesse so it will come in the second place but as interesting us in another righteousnesse and so I say it is a condition in the covenant of grace immediately serviceable for our returne to God and reconciliation in Christ For clearring of which I shall clear it in some propositions First God will by no means justifie a wicked person no man in sin shall stand and live in his sight He that hath made a Law to forbid it ordained hell for the punishment of it will not justifie the person that is convinced and found guilty of it Some say it is against his essence The justice of God which is God ties him to take vengeance sure I am it is against his declaration of himself
20. They had their righteousnesse and as was supposed they made a great progresse in the way of righteousnesse yet we must have an exceeding righteousnesse above that which they taught and practised or else there is no salvation in this covenant These two covenants notwithstanding remaine distinct and not confounded together There is a legal righteousnesse such as the Law in the highest extremity of it requires without the least indulgence in case of failing This the covenant of Works calls for and in this we fall short but Christ answers and therefore He is the end of the Law for righteousnesse Rom. 10. 3. and by this we are saved There is a righteousnesse of the Gospel which God in covenant calls for to which it is his Spirit enables and in this we are saved 2. Gospel-obedience is called for in the Covenant but not as any condition of the Covenant Faith is the alone condition obedience necessarily flows from it and follows upon it when once we believe it need not to be conditioned or indented for seeing when we are in Christ by faith we can then do no other than obey I answer This position here laid down that obedience necessarily follows and flows from Faith is a position indeed maintained by the reformed Churches against Papists Arminians Socinians and other opposites of it from which position of ours they inferre as by necessary consequence that all commands requiring obedience are then needlesse and all exhortations reproofs motives and promises to no purpose None either commands or perswades the Heavens to move the Sunne to give light the Fire to give heat or the water to give moisture That which necessarily works is let alone to work and to take its course in working And this Objection taking away this Gospel-condition on this ground is of the same stamp Obedience necessarily flowing from Faith includes Gospel-commands exhortations reproofs as well as Gospel-conditions If God need not to condition and engage for obedience from Beleevers because they thus necessarily obey then he needs not give commands or presse obedience for the same reason when yet the Gospel is full of exhortations commands menaces promises with application to Beleevers to men professing Faith to men in Christ by Faith For satisfaction then of this Popish-Arminian objection we must distinguish of consequents which necessarily flow from their principles Some are natural which of themselves have their effects as those in the objection mentioned Here is neither command imposed condition required nor promise held forth They are not in any capacity of acting or working otherwise than they do Others are moral who work not by way of Physical necessity but are kept in their way by the power of grace upholding which does not exclude but necessarily takes in mans endeavour in the use of meanes to yeeld obedience and to hold on in all patience and perseverance This argument followed home will be of equal force against Faith as a condition as against sincerity seeing Gods Elect shall beleeve as they that beleeve shall yeeld obedience There is a like necessity of faith flowing from election as there is of obedience to flow from Faith as Faith therefore so obedience either of both in their places are covenant-conditions CHAP. XXV What degree of obedience the Covenant of grace calls for from Christians HEre is seasonably moved and is not without some difficulty answered what degree of obedience this new covenant calls for from us that so we may endeavor it and understand our selves when we have by grace attained to it that having entred covenant with God we may not be found of those that have wickedly departed and dealt falsely in the covenant In this there are several opinions which are to come under examination First some say that it is required of Christians in an exact way in a full perfection as of parts so of degrees answering to the perfection of the Law as written in the heart and given on Mount Sinai And so required that obedience in a more low degree will not be accepted or the mercies promised in the covenant obtained which doctrine of theirs rigidly followed stands as that two edged sword Gen. 3. 24. keeping the way of the tree of Life and making the way to salvation unpassable Thus the Councel of Trent If any man shall say that by Baptisme men are obliged to Faith only and not to the observation of the whole Law let him be accursed which Chemnitius in his Examen confesses in a qualified sense might be admitted seeing persons baptised owe subjection but not in the sense which that Canon holds forth being an allusion to that of the Apostle Gal. 5. 3. I testifie again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor of the whole Law By which Glosse Baptisme makes Christ of none effect as well as Circumcision as it was taken in the sense of those false Teachers among the Galatians viz. as a leading ceremony of the Law binding to the observation of the whole And so also Bellar. lib. 1. de Baptis cap. 15. Baptisme doth not make us debtors to Faith only but to keep the whole Law and there explaines himself that to deny a man to be a debtor to keep the whole Law may be taken two wayes either so as that to do things against the Law were no sinne as though the Law were abrogated This he confesses Protestants do not say and in that he saith there is no controversie or else so that justification or salvation doth not depend on the fulfilling of the Law but only on the mercy of God by faith applied this he makes the Protestants errour and so brings in justification by the Law and utterly confounds the covenant of works and grace together onely I confesse the businesse seemes much mollified by the explanations that they give of those words fulfilling of the Law First curtelling the Law in taking off the first fomes and motions of actual sinne yea even all that goes before consent of will making it no sinne at all as also multitudes of actions some of them foule enough as not within this verge such which they call by the name of venial sinnes which are besides the Law but not against it bending as some merrily speak but not breaking the Commandments though they would never give us a catalogue of sins mortal or venial nor any certaine mark or character whereby they might be distinguished All these are pared off as no breaches of the Law nor in their own nature deserving the sentence of eternal death and the temporal punishments due to them after death is holpen out by their Indulgences Secondly so helping themselves out with distinctions at least some among them that keeping the Law with them is no other than the grace of sanctification in the very sense as the Orthodox hold it forth He that pleases may read what Jansenius hath chap. 81. of his Harmony Opposing Luther for his denial that
the first and great Commandment in the Law in this life can be fulfilled and charging it with blasphemy Luther having Austins authority in several places as Jansenius confesses for to second him affirming with him that this Commandment in this life cannot be perfected or fulfilled but it is to be fulfilled in the life to come giving his reason As long as there is any thing of carnal concupiscence to be restrained God is not with the whole heart loved The good Bishop knows how by distinction to salve Austin and maintaine his doctrine to be good divinity and denying Luther that favour to leave him under the brand of blasphemy so that the result of all with him is this God is then loved with the whole heart when any one out of inward and sincere affection to God is principally exercised in those things which are of God studying above all things to please him and carefully to observe not one but all his Commandments and that not slothfully and against heart but diligently and cheerfully grieving from the heart if any thing by others or himself through infirmity of the flesh be admitted contrary to the will of God So that some might think all controversie in this point may cease and that the difference between us were no more than a strife of words seeing we do not only confesse that this ought to be done but also urge a necessity of doing of it and they say the Law is fulfilled when it is done But here 1. Much wrong is done to the Law as though it were a rule of our strength not of our duty that it answered and might be applied to each mans impaired strength and weakened abilities or that the gospel-Gospel-grace of godly sorrow for sin against the Law were the keeping of the Law making repentance a satisfactory discharge for disobedience When these men cannot bring up mans nature to the streight line of the Law they bring down the Law to the crooked nature of man 2. It is injurious to man puffing him up with conceit of answering the Law setting him up as high as he should be laid low ready to say with the young man in the Gospel All these have I kept from my youth when holding out the Law in its just latitude as it was happily brought home to the Apostles conscience sin would revive and he would see himselfe in a lost condition A second opinion is that the covenant of grace requires perfection in the exactest way without help of these mens distinctions in an equal degree with the covenant of works but with this difference In the covenant of works there is no indulgence or dispensation in case of failing but the penalty takes hold the curse follows upon it But the covenant of grace though it call for perfection such is the exactnesse of it yet it accepts of sincerity such is the qualification of it through grace or the mercy in it If I should take up any opinion in the world for the Authours sake or those that have appeared as Patrons of it then I should embrace this The reverence deservedly due to him that I suppose first manisted himself in it hath caused it to finde great entertainment but upon more than twenty yeares thoughts about it I finde it labouring under manifold inconveniences 1. It establishes the former opinion opposed by Protestants and but now refuted as to the obedience and the degree called for in covenant And if I should be indulgent to my affections to cause my judgement to stoop Dislike of the one would make me as averse from it as an opinion of the other would make me prone to receive it Judgement therefore must lead and affections be waved 2. If this opinion stand then God accepts of Covenant-breakers of those that deale falsely in it whereas Scripture charges it only upon the wicked upon those of whom God complaines as rebellious Deut. 29. 25. Josh 7. 15. Jeremy 11. 10. Jeremy 22. 8 9. Yea it may be charged on the best the most holy in the world lying under the guilt of it according to this tenent 3. Then it will follow that as none can say that they have so answered the commands of the Law that they have never failed they have not if put to answer in the greatest rigour once transgressed so neither can they with the Church make appeale to God That they have not dealt falsely in the Covenant nor wickedly departed from their God Psal 44. 17. Every sinne according to this opinion being a breach of it and a dealing falsely in it 4. Then that great promise of mercy from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousnesse unto childrens children to such as keep his Covenant and to those that remember his Commandments to do them Psalme 103. 17 18. only appertaines to those that so keep the Law that they sinne not at all against it 5. Then our Baptism-vow is never to sin against God and as often as we renew our covenant we do not only humble our selves that we have sinned but we afresh binde our selves never more to admit the least infirmity and so live and die in the breach of it 6. Then the distinction between those that entered covenant and broke it as Jerem. 31 32 33. and those that have the Law written in their hearts and put into their inward parts to observe it falls all standing equally guilty of the breach of it no help of grace being of power to enable to keep Covenant Each of these five last arguments are replyed to by a distinction of the precept and conditions of the Covenant Men that are sincere break the precept as is said but not the conditions But I know no precepts in covenants which are not conditions Faith and Repentance are Precepts and I think the alone Precepts and I know not neither do I heare of any other Conditions 7. Then it follows that Sincerity is never called for as a duty or required as a grace but only dispensed with as a failing indulged as a want It is not so much a Christians honour or character as his blemish or failing rather his defect than praise But we finde the contrary in Noah Job Asa Hezekiah Zachary and Elizabeth Nathaniel an Israelite indeed that entered covenant and kept covenant Sincerity is a degree towards perfection in obedience and if the command looks no lower than perfection in degree the imperfect degree is not commanded though it be indulged And therefore I conclude that as in the Law there was pure justice as well in the command given as the penalty threatened without any condescension or indulgence So in the covenant there is mercy and condescension as well in the condition required as in the acceptance through grace The Covenant requires no more than it accepts The alone Argument Object so farre as ever I could learn that hath brought some of reverend esteeme heretofore into this opinion is That if
the covenant requires not exact perfection in the same height as the Law calls for it then a Christian may fall short of the Law in his obedience and not sin perfection being not call'd for from him nor any more called for from him than through grace he doth performe he rises as high as his rule and so sins not through any imperfection therefore to make it out that a beleevers imperfections are his sins it must needs be that the covenant requires perfection as to make good that he may be saved in his imperfections it must be maintained that it accepts sincerity But this argument is not of weight Christ entering a Gospel-covenant with man findes him under the command of the Law which command the Law still holds the Gospel being a confirmation not a destruction of it All imperfection then is a sinne upon that account that it is a transgression of the Law though being done against heart and laboured against it is no breach of covenant We are under the Law as men we are taken into covenant as Christians Retaining the humane nature the Law still commands us though the covenant in Christ through the abundant grace of it upon the termes that it requires and accepts frees us from the sentence of it Here is objected What shall we think of those Texts in the New Testament which require us to be perfect 2 Cor. 13. 11. James 1. 4. Yea perfect as God is perfect Matth. 5. 48. reproving weaknesse and infirmity and commanding a going on to perfection Answ We are to think of them as Protestant Dâ—vines ordinarily do in their commenting upon them We deny saith Rivet that the perfection of which Scripture speaks either when it commands us to be perfect or gives testimony of perfection or integrity to some consists in a freedome from sinne Exercit. 52. in Genes pag. 267. The Text quoted out of James serves well to explaine the rest Let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire wanting nothing whence we may argue 1. That perfection which Christians may attaine is the perfection that the Apostle calls unto This is plaine in the text He calls for perfection that we may be perfect But Christians can reach no further a degree in perfection than sincerity Therefore the Apostle calls onely to sincerity 2. That is the Apostles meaning where he speaks of perfection that himself gives in as his meaning This is cleare he is the best interpreter of himself But he expresses himselfe by perfect there to mean entire or lacking nothing A perfection of entirenesse or integrality then he meanes a perfection of parts and not of degrees For that text of Paul 2 Cor. 13. 11. Finally brethren farewell be perfect c. let us compare with it that which he testifies of some in Corinth 1 Cor. 2. 6. Howbeit we speak wisdome among them that are perfect that is those that have a right and more full understanding of Gospel mysteries put in opposition to the weaknesse of novices which perfection is according to the Apostle the way to unity of judgement As for the Text Mat. 5. 48. Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect If it be streined to the highest it calls for a divine increated perfection our adversaries then must yeeld that there is a sicut similitudinis non aequalitatis in that place And if the context be consulted we shall finde that it is opposed to that half hypocritical-righteousnesse which was found in Scribes and Pharisees which all must exceed that enter into the Kingdome of heaven In Heb. 6. 1. a novice-like imperfection in knowledge is reproved and a further growth towards perfection is called for It is further objected If perfection were not the duty of a Christian and unperfectnesse and infirmity his sinne why doth the Apostle groane and grieve under the remainder of his natural infirmities and presse on to perfection Rom. 7. 14. to the 24. Phil. 3. 12 14 The conclusion here is granted The one is a duty the other is a sinne and because of failing in the one and the burden of the other the Apostle groanes Foreseeing that this would be yeelded him there is added by way of objection Or is such unperfectnesse a sinne onely in reference to the rule of the Law and not the rule of the Gospel or that the Law doth but the Gospel doth not call for perfection Answ There is not one rule of the Law as I have demonstrated at large and another of the Gospel seeing the Gospel establishes the Law Onely the Gospel-covenant calls for those sincere desires which grace works to conform us in our measure of the rule of the Law There is yet a third opinion which I may well doubt whether I understand but so farre as I do understand I am as farre from assent to it as either of the former and that is of those who do not only assert a personal inherent righteousnesse as well as imputed against the Antinomians But also affirm that this righteousnesse is compleat and perfect which if it were meant onely of the perfection of the subject as opposed to hypocrisie dissimulation or doublenesse implying that they do not only pretend for God but are really for him that they do not turne to him feignedly as Israel was sometimes charged Jerem. 3. 10. but with an upright heart or of the perfection or entirenesse of the object respecting not one or only some but all commandments which is called a perfection of parts we might readily assent to it The covenant calls for such perfection Gen. 17. 1. Walk before me and be thou perfect and many have their witnesse in Scripture that they have attained to it as Noah Gen. 7. 9. Job Job 1. 1. Hezekiah Esay 38. 3. But a perfection above these is maintained a perfection compleat and full Righteousnesse signifies as is said a conformity to the Rule and a conformity with a quatenus or an imperfect rectitude is not a true conformity or rectitude at all imperfect righteousnesse is not righteousnesse but unrighteousnesse It is a contradiction in adjecto though holinesse be acknowledged to be imperfect in all respects where perfection is expected in reference to the degree that it should obtaine or the degree which it shall obtaine or in reference to the excellent object about which it is exercised or in reference to the old covenant or the directive and in some sense the preceptive part of the new Covenant in all these respects it is imperfect and righteousnesse materially considered is holinesse and therefore thus imperfect but formally considered it is perfect righteousnesse or none this not in relation to the old rule but the new Covenant Upon this account they are charged to discover grosse ignorance that use and understand the word righteous and righteousnesse as they relate to the old rule as if the godly were called righteous besides their imputed righteousnesse only
because their sanctification and good works have some imperfect agreement with the Law of Works This and much more to assert a personal perfect inherent righteousnesse as is said all which as it is here held out to me is new and I must confesse my self in ignorance all over I never took imperfect righteousnesse to imply any such contradiction no more than imperfect holinesse Isaiah I am sure saith All our righteousnesse are as filthy rags Esay 64. 6. No greater charge of imperfection can lie against the most imperfect holinesse than the Prophet lays upon our righteousnesse Neither do I understand how holinesse should be imperfect taken materially and righteousnesse perfect taken formally in reference to a rule We may for ought I know as well make holinesse formal and refer it to a rule and righteousnesse material in an absolute consideration without reference to any rule at all And in such consideration I do not know how there can be perfection or imperfection either in holinesse or righteousnesse it is as they come up to or fall short of the rule that they have the denomination of perfection or imperfection Pauls Gospel-frame whether you will call it righteousnesse or holinesse is set out Rom. 7. full of imperfection yet all this as in reference to the rule as it answered or fell short in conformity to it verse 22. I delight in the Law of God after the inward man And whereas a charge of ignorance is laid even upon learned Teachers that commonly understand the word righteousnesse and righteous as it referres to the old rule I professe my self to have little of their learning but I am wholly theirs in this ignorance I know no other rule but the old rule the rule of the Moral Law that is with me a rule a perfect rule and the only rule The perfection of this holiness and righteousness in mans integrity stood in the perfect conformity to this Law and the reparation of this in our regenerate estate in which the Apostle places the image of God must have reference as to God for a patterne so to his Law as a rule As an image carrying an imperfect resemblance of its samplar is an image So conformity imperfectly answering the rule is conformity likewise A perfection of sufficiency to attaine the end I willingly grant God condescending through rich grace to crown weak obedience in this sense our imperfection hath its perfectnesse otherwise I must say that our inherent righteousnesse is an imperfect righteousnesse in an imperfect conformity to the rule of righteousnesse and without thir reference to the rule there is neither perfection nor imperfection in any action See Doctor Davenant disputing against justification by inherent righteousnesse upon the account of the imperfection of it de justitia habituali pag. 349 and how fully he was perswaded of the imperfection of this righteousnesse appears in sentences prefixt before two Treatises as may be seen in the margent In the last place I shall conclude that sincerity in the way and work of God which Scripture also calls by the name of truth integrity simplicity uprightnesse perfectnesse an heart in the work of God whole and unfeigned is that which the covenant of grace doth require and that which it accepteth This God in covenant gives in charge and this he rewards and crownes The Law stands as a rule and the charge in it is the highest top of perfection without the least indulgence in any case of failing suitable to the abilities that once were put into our hands God in Gospel-condescensions will have this rule eyed with a single and upright heart universally eyed and observed both in our returnes from sin and in our application to God in new obedience This doing of the will of God from the heart with good will-doing service Eph. 6. 6 7. Serving with a willing minde 1 Chron. 28. 9. This preparing the heart to seek the Lord God of our fathers Ezra 7. 10. This delight in the Law of God in the inward man Rom. 7. 22. though it be in much weaknesse and with strength that is little Rev. 3. 8. by reason of inward corruptions Rom. 7. 23. Gal. 5. 17. enemies without Ephes 6. 12. is required of God in covenant and through grace accepted And as faith which as we have heard is the other new covenant-condition brings us into communion with God So this of a sincere heart and walk holds in communion Faith gives accesse to God in grace and through sincerity we walk with God in grace to glory Both of them are called for of God both accepted with God and both of them crowned with glory That in this degree obedience is both required and accepted in the Gospel is evident This where oever it is God observes and eyes 2 Chron. 16. 9. For the eyes of the Lord runne to and fro throughout the whole earth to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him Herein thou hast done foolishly therefore from henceforth thou shalt have warres These have letters testimonial from heaven Job 1. 8. Hast thou not considered my servant Job that there is none like him in the earth a perfect and an upright man one that feareth God and escheweth evil Gen. 7. 1. Thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation According to the degree of this higher or lower they have praise 2 Chron. 29. 34. The Levites were more upright in heart to sanctifie themselves than the Priests yea where there is integrity in a single act this God notes Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thine heart Gen. 20. 6. These God protects with his omnipotence preserves 2 Chron. 16. 9. The eyes of the Lord runne to and fro throughout the whole earth to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him He is a buckler to them that walk uprightly Prov. 2. 7. In these God takes pleasure I know my God that thou triest the reines and hast pleasure in uprightnesse 1 Chron. 29. 17. Unto these God speaks peace Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly Mich. 2. 7. This the people of God plead with God as an argument to finde favour in his eyes Psalme 26. 1. Judge me O Lord for I have walked in my integrity 1 Chron. 29. 17. As for me in the uprightnesse of my heart I have willingly offered those things Psalme 18. 23. I was also upright before him c. This hath been the high ambition of the servants of God in their most sad troubles to reach David begging mercy saith to God Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts Psal 51. 6. This hath upheld the souls of the Saints in their greatest difficulties with all joy and consolation 2 Cor. 1. 12. For our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience that in simpliciâ—y and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdome but by the grace of God we
confirmed at large but that others have fully done it and I know not that there is any adversary that appears in it The name of a covenant is frequently given to it Deut. 4. 13. He declared unto you the covenant which he commanded you to performe even ten Commandments See 2 Kings 18. 12. 2 Chron. 6. 11. All the essentials of a covenant before mentioned Parties Consent Conditions are found in it as we may see in that one Text Deut. 26. 17 18. Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God to walk in his wayes and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee Yea the solemnities of a covenant as before hath been largely shewne are found in it Secondly This covenant delivered by Moses to the people of Israel was a covenant of Grace the same in substance with this under which we live in Gospel-times This is so largely proved to my hand by Master Ball in his Treatise of the covenant page 102 103 104. and Master Burges in his Vindiciae legis page 224 225. that I may spare my paines yet in brief That covenant which teacheth Christ in which men attaine salvation that accepts men upon repentance in which there is pardon of sinne and in which the heart is circumcised of God that is a covenant of grace One of these single will evince it much more in their joynt strength will they conclude it But the covenant delivered by Moses was such a covenant In that covenant Christ was taught John 5. 46 47. Had ye beleved Moses ye would have beleeved me but if ye beleeve not Moses how will ye beleeve my words Whence the collection is plaine Beleevers of Moses are Beleevers of Christ and Rejecters of Moses are Rejecters of Christ See Luke 24. 25 26. with 44 45 46. John 1. 45. Acts 26. 22 23. Rom. 3. 21 22. The Prophecies Promises Types Genealogies Sacraments under that covenant whether ordinary or extraordinary all held forth Christ as might be easily shewn in their several particulars In that covenant the people of the Jews attained salvation and were not only fed with temporal Promises and a covenant meerly carnal not looking above or beyond the land of Canaan as shall be shewen In this covenant men are accepted and received into mercy and favour upon repentance When thou art in tribulation and all these things are come upon thee in the later dayes if thou turn to the Lord thy God and shalt be obedient to his voice for the Lord thy God is a merciful God he will not forsake thee neither destroy thee nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them Deut. 4. 30 31. In this covenant there is pardon of sinne the great priviledge of the New covenant Heb. 8. 12. The Lord proclaimes himself to Moses The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodnesse and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin Exod. 34. 6 7. See Exod. 32. 31 32. 2 Chron. 7. 14. Psal 25. 11. Psal 51. 12. 7. 9. 14. In this covenant the heart is circumcised another great priviledge of the New covenant Heb. 8. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God All of these any of these hold out a covenant of Grace Thirdly the ten commandments which are called the covenant of God Deut. 4. 13. 2 Chron. 6. 11. all that Moses delivered to Israel being there epitomized holds forth a covenant of Grace and not of Works This appears in the Preface intimating Gods grace and goodnesse to that people bringing them out of the land of Egypt and the house of Bondage Which deliverance had more in it than a bare temporal mercy otherwise their passage through the red Sea could have been no Baptisme as the Apostle calls it 1 Cor. 10. 1. Neither had it been any act of justifying faith in Moses to observe the Passeover which yet the Apostle observes Heb. 11. 28. Then their Rock and Manna had been a viaticum in the way but no Sacrament There God avoucheth himself to be the God of that people I am the Lord thy God and he was a God in covenant to none of man-kinde fallen but by an act of grace It appears in the first commandment where God requires them to accept him and cleave unto him which cannot be done but through Christ It appears in the second commandment in the preceptive part of it which contains the whole ceremonial Law in which pardon of sinne was found through Christ Thither Interpreters reduce all the Sacrifices Types Sacraments of the Jewes It appeares in the reasons annext to that precept which as it threatens judgement on transgressours of the Law so mercy to those that observe it Mercy is an act of Grace and not vouchsafed but in Christ It appears in the fifth commandment in the promise there annext and fastened to it So that this covenant or this summe or epitome of the covenant between God and his people which was put into the Arke and the Mercy-seat or propitiatory set upon it in the most holy place Exod. 26. 34. was a covenant of Grace Fourthly this covenant delivered by Moses and epitomized in the Decalogue being a covenant of Grace it could by no meanes be in the whole and entire nature of it a covenant of Works This is plaine God doth not at once with the same people enter covenant upon so opposite termes These are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either of them destructive to the other We may argue concerning the covenant as the Apostle doth concerning Election If by grace then it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace but if it be of works then it is no more grace otherwise work is no more work This I speak as for their sakes that make it a mixt covenant such a one as Pauls adversaries preacht in the Churches of Galatia so also for their sakes that assert it to be a covenant of Works never undertaking any answer to those arguments which so clearly conclude it to be a covenant of Grace Fifthly What this covenant is to any that it is to all whether it be of works or of grace what it is in it selfe in the tender and termes of it that is the denomination of it This is plaine Mens faith or unbelief Mens obedience or transgression cannot diversifie the nature of that which God doth tender And what God spake to the people he spake to all the people the same to all that he spake to any Exodus 19. 25. Exodus 20. 18. compared and therefore that is a mistake in some that say That the Law is doubtlesse a pure covenant of Works to some men but not to all It is a covenant of works occasionally and accidentally and not only to those which are not related to comprehended in or made
partakers of the covenant of Grace He should rather have said that the ten commandments had been a covenant of Grace but sometimes by an accident or especial occasion had become a covenant of Works which yet could not have held The covenant of Grace and the covenant of Works are two distinct and opposite Species They have one and the same univocal Genus of whose nature they equally partake Therefore as an Oxe can by no occasion or accident be a Horse or a Horse a Sheep or a Sheep a Lion or a Lion a man so a covenant of Grace can by no occasion or accident be a covenant of Works one and the same thing intended for one end may occasionally and accidentally have another event as the Ministery intending salvation may prove an aggravat on of condemnation but no occasion or accident can change the nature of any thing into that which is of a kind opposite to it and different from it And in such cases where the event is hindred and another happens the denomination is and must be from the primary intention The Apostle calls the Gospel the power of God to salvation Rom. 1. 16. The word is called the word of Life though to some through their obstinacy it turns to condemnation and to death If our author in this question take liberty to differ from all as himself professeth I hope he will not be displeased if all differ from him Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim Sixthly In Moses time and under his administration commands were frequent and full as well ceremonial as moral as also menaces The directive and maledictive part of the Law were clear and open for discovery of sinne to work to a sense of danger to put them in a posture to look for and long after the Messiah But the promises more obscure I mean the promises of eternity scarce known any otherwise then as they were shadowed out in temporal things This as the Apostle shews was figured by that vaile which was before Moses his face when he spake with the people upon the renuing of the Tables Moses his face upon his converse with God in the Mount shone with that glory that Aaron and all the children of Israel were afraid to come nigh Exod. 34. 30. Afterwards he speaks to the people and talks with them And till he had done speaking with them he put a vaile before his face verse 33. Whereupon the Apostle having entred comparison between the Ministers of the Law and the Ministers of the Gospel alludes to this vaile before Moses his face 2 Cor. 3. 12 13 14. in these words Seeing then we have such hope saith he we use great plainnesse of speech and not as Moses which put a vaile over his face that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished but their mindes were blinded Upon which Diodati saith Moses Ministry kept the people under the shadows of ceremonies without contemplating the mysteries which were figured by them to the bottom which was reserved for the time of the Gospel Heb. 10. 4. Whereof was a figure that vaile on Moses his face Not saith he that that was the end of that act of Moses but of that which the Apostle saith may be allegorically understood thereby namely of the obscure dispensation of the Law Which obscure dispensation meeting with that blindnesse that was in the judgements of that people held them in such ignorance that they saw little of Grace in that covenant but rather through their blinde mistake looked upon it the generality of them as a covenant of Works And this the Apostle signifies in the place before quoted as also Rom. 10. 3. They being ignorant of Gods righteousnesse and going about to establish their own righteousnesse have not submitted themselves to the righteousnesse of God This caused them so tenaciously to hold to the precepts of the Law especially to the ceremonial part which though more burdensome yet was easilier fitted to their corruption that they refused Christ the end of the Law for righteousnesse sake to every one that beleeveth Rom. 10. 3. Seventhly There was yet so much of grace and Christ held out in this covenant that they were not only left without excuse that were under it but convinced of sin if they saw not Christ and the grace of the covenant in it Christ in his contest with the Jewes who would not receive him but stood in opposition and raised persecution against him appeales to the Scriptures Old Testament-Scriptures Search the Scriptures for they testifie of me and in them you think to have eternal life Iohn 5. 39. Where we see a double encomium of the Scriptures 1. From the Iewes own acknowledgement In them eternal life may be found 2. From the testimony they give of Christ In them upon search Christ may be found There are such discoveries there that hold him out and eternal life in him to those that search them And they suspecting by that intimacy of communion that he profest to have with the Father and the heavy charge that he laid upon them that he was about to accuse them to the Father Christ puts it off from himself and puts it upon one that they had least in suspition even Moses Moses in whom they trusted in whom they pretended to repose confidence It is he that is ready to accuse them not of breach of the Law or transgression of any command of his which they could easilier have beleeved but of unbeliefe of Moses You have one that accuseth you even Moses in whom you trust for had ye beleeved Moses ye would have beleeved me for he wrote of me Unbelief in Christ set forth in Moses is a sinne which Moses his writings shall charge upon them So also in that speech of Christ to the two disciples in the way to Emmaus O ye fools and slow of heart to beleeve all that the Prophets have spoken ought not Christ to have suffered those things to enter into his glory where we see them charged with sin in that they understood not Christ in the Prophets Christ in Moses as follows there in the next words Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded unto them all the Scriptures the things concerning himselfe Luke 24 25 26 27. They that dwell at Jerusalem and their Rulers because they knew him not nor yet the voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath day they fulfilled them in condemning him Acts 13. 27. Eightly There are those phrases in Moses which are ordinarily quoted as holding out a covenant of Works and in a rigid interpretation are no other yet in a qualified sense in a Gespel-sense and according to Scripture-use of the phrase they hold out a covenant of Grace and the termes and conditions of it To instance in some few Deut. 4. 1. Now therefore hearken O Israel unto the statutes and unto the judgements which I teach you to
do them that ye may live and go in and possesse the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you Deut. 5. 33. You shall walk in all the wayes which the Lord your God hath commanded you that ye may live and that it may be well with you and that ye may prolong your dayes in the land which ye shall possesse Deut. 30. 16. In that I command this day to love the Lord thy God to walk in his wayes and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgements that thou mayest live and multiply and the Lord thy God shall blesse thee in the land whither thou goest to possesse it Deut. 6. 24 25. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always that he might preserve us alive as it is this day And it shall be our righteousnesse if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as he hath commanded us We may so interpret those Scriptures and the Jewes as it appears for a great part did so interpret them that they hold out a covenant of Works when Grace was not at all acknowledged to assist in doing nor Christ known at all to satisfie for failing and to expiate for transgression These seeing nothing but a reward upon labour and punishment in case of transgression They may yet be so interpreted as taking Grace in the Work for change of the heart and putting it into a posture for obedience according to that even in Moses Deut. 306. I will circumcise thy heart and the heart if thy â—eed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live and so these duties are only Gospel qualifications of truth and sincerity of obedience In this sense which they may well bear and I take to be their native sense here is no more than what we finde in the Gospel from Christ and the Apostles They that have done good shall rise unto the resurrâ—ction of life John 5. 28. To them that by patient continuing in well-doing seek for glory and immortality eternal life Rom 2. 5. Where as in many other places we may see that according to the New covenant a man may make the attaining of life the end of his work and the Reader may see phrases of his nature to be New covenant New Testament and Gospel-language unlesse they will charge Christ and the Apostles to have Old Testament-spirits To save a mans self may be so understood as to bear a sense purely legal anti-Evangelical and opposite to Grace or Faith in Christ and so it is used by the Apostle or a phrase very near it For by Grace ye are saved through Faith not of your selves it is the gift of God Eph. 2. 8. Not obscurely shewing that if we are saved of our selves it is not of Grace not of Faith and not the gift of God Yet the phrase may be understood in a Gospel-sense as requiring and implying no more than our endeavour in a state of grace through the assistance of the Spirit to walk in Salvation-way To strive to enter in at the strait gate and to seek the Kingdome of God and the righteousnesse of it and so we finde it used and that more than once in Scriptures 1 Tim. 4. 16. Take heed unto thy self and unto the doctrine in so doing thou wilt save thy self and them that hear thee Ministers taking heed to doctrine save hearers and yet are no saviours in opposition but in subordination to the Lord Jesus Ministers and others taking heed to themselves save themselves and yet are no self-saviours in opposition to free grace the merit of or faith in Christ Jesus Peter in his first Sermon after receiving of the holy Ghost preâ—cht the Gospel yet he urg'd this which some will have to be no other than a covenant of Works Save your selves from this untoward generation Act. 2. 40. And the Apostle preacht no other thing than Christ and him crucified when he called on the Philippians to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2. 12. To be found in our own righteousnesse in that sense that Paul uses it Phil. 3. 8. doth exclude the righteousnesse of faith that was no bottom on which he durst stand yet in the sense that Ezekiel uses it the soul is delivered by it Though Noah Daniel and Job stood before me they would but deliver their own soules by their righteousness Ezek. 14. 14. so Ezek. 18. 22. In his righteousness that he hath done he shall live Noah was an heir of the righteousness of faith Heb. 11. 7. as the Holy Ghost himself witnesseth yet the same Holy Ghost tells us that his own righteousness delivers his soul So Solomon saith Righteousnesse delivers from death he doth not only say it would deliver were it exact and compleat but such as it is it doth deliver Prov. 20.2 David as Paul observes describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works Rom. 4. 6. Yet the same David puts blessednesse upon works Psal 112. 1. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord that delighteth greatly in his commandments Psalme 119. 12. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the Law of the Lord Blessed are they that keep his testimonies that seek him with the whole heart Ps 128. 1. Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord that walketh in his wayes And so also the Apostle James Who so looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty and continueth therein not being a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word that man shall be blessed in his deed James 1. 25. The Apostle Peter tells us We are kept by the mighty power of God through faith unto salvation 1 Pet. 1 5. Our salvation is not in our own keeping It is not our own care that frees us from destruction yet John saith He that is begotten of God sinneth not and keepeth himself that the wicked one toucheth him not 1 John 5. 18. Here are the same words affirmed and denied and both from one and the same mouth of truth a different sense therefore is to be enquired after A righteousnesse which is the condition of the covenant of Works out of our own inherent strength and abilities in an exact perfection is denied a righteousnesse not of us but through grace wrought in us in sincerity which the covenant of Grace calls for is asserted and required Ninthly Though the whole Law that Moses delivered from God on Mount Sinai to the people and is among the sacred Oracles of God for posterity do containe a covenant of Grace yet the Law is taken sometime in that strict sense as containing a covenant of Works and holding forth life upon condition of perfect obedience So the Apostle Rom. 10. 5 6. puts an opposition between the righteousnesse of the Law and the righteousness of Faith So also Gal. 3. 18. If
them onely that receive the benefits of it and are upright in it An eminent Divine putting the Question and returning answer How a man may know himself to be in covenant with God presently foresees an Objection against any such Quaere As Saul and all the people of Israel were in covenant with God so all professing Christians are covenanters likewise and hereby all distinguishing notes of Professors some in covenant and some without must needs fall to the ground one member then of the distinction having no being for solution of the doubt he layes down a distinction There is saith he a twofold covenant 1. A single Covenant which God makes with his children when they are baptized which is this if ye will believe repent and walk in my ways ye shall be saved now if they break this condition God is freed 2. A double covenant to performe both parts which is this if you will repent and beleeve ye shall be saved and I will give you an heart and you shall repent believe and be saved So Preston on Attributes part 2. page 85. 86. These distinctions plainly yeeld that there is a covenant between God and man in this latitude of which we speak and which here is exprest and that all professed Christians so called are in an outward and single covenant which puts them into a capacity of Sacraments and their children which is a covenant properly so called and which Scripture holds out for the covenant of God with his people These Divines yeelding so much and their meaning being so Orthodox there is no reason of contraversie with them or contention about words Yet I should choose rather to expresse my self in Pareus his words against Stapleton the Jesuite on 1 Cor. 7. 14. objecting against this doctrine for it is a doctrine which Antipaedobaptists and Independents have borrowed from Jesuites and we have them all in this as in many other things our Adversaries To be in covenant saith he is taken two ways either according to tiole to the covenant or to the benefits of the covenant He is said to be in covenant that either obtaines the benefits of the covenant which are remission of sinnes adoption c. Or else that hath onely the title and outward badge of the covenant so that he is repute to have interest in it and is not an alien from it The right of covenant belongs to all that externally make profession These engage themselves upon Gods termes The benefit of the covenant remission of sinnes justification adoption c. belongs only to the Elect regenerate Or farther we may distinguish of the covenant of grace and the grace following the covenant The covenant of grace is in the latitude before mentioned the grace following the covenant in that restriction that some contend for or else we may distinguish of entring covenant and stedfastnesse and faithfulnesse in the covenant All enter that are visible professors onely the elect and faithful are steady in it This distinction is evidently grounded on Psal 78. 34. They remembred that God was their rock the high God their Redeemer nevertheless their heart was not right in them neither were they stedfast in his covenant All covenant-enterers are not covenant-keepers To take off this restriction and for overthrow of this imaginary difference it were enough to require of these Asserters of this covenant-restriction and limit where God hath put any such restraint for affirmanti incumbit probatio and to require some reason why men in nature in Old Testament-times should be honoured with that neare relation to God as to be of the Common-wealth of this people enjoying not barely civil and domestick Priviledges but saving Ordinances and under the Gospel must stand shut out of all such visible relations why unregenerate men in order to regeneration may not come under the discipline of God under the Gospel as well as under Old Testament-dispensations Why poore sinners that confesse with their mouth with the Eunuch that Jesus Christ is the Sonne of God Acts 8. 37. may not be indulged those proviledges now Christ is come in the flesh to save sinners whereby they may be brought to be beleeve with the heart that they may be saved To those that would make such a distance between the covenants as to throw out of the covenant of God and visible communion all that are unregenerate we may speak in Christs words From the beginning it was not so and either we must see some good ground that in this there is by the will of God this great change or else we shall beleeve as it was then so it now But I shall deale more liberally and make it appear that the Gospel doth not only not quit us of it but establishes it doth not only not abolish it as it doth the Types of the Law but holds it forth and gives testimony of the continuance of it CHAP. XXXVII New Testament-Scriptures asserting the latitude of the covenant of Grace in Gospel-times LEt that Text Matth. 28. 19. in the first place be weighed Go teach all Nations c. which our adversaries in this cause willingly consent to have translated Disciple all Nations and therefore there needs no words nor stir to be made about it and that a Disciple of Christ is in covenant with God is as freely confest he takes God in Christ to be his God he layes claime to salvation by him this ground being laid in which I think I have not an adversary I draw from hence a twofold Argument First that covenant between God and man which is committed to the Ministry of man to work to judge of being wrought and to put to a Seale for confirmation of it is a covenant onely visibly entred and doth not require any inward real change or work upon the soule to the being of it This Proposition is clear man can judge no farther than of that which is outward and visible Man looketh on the outward appearance but the Lord looketh on the heart If none but a regenerate elect person be in covenant then none but God knowes who are in covenant Then we may apply that of the Apostle spoken of the Seal of Election The Lord knoweth them that are his 2 Tim. 2. 19. unto every one that as a Church-member is to be received into visible fellowship A Church-member and an elect person according to this tenent are termini convertibiles and the seale of the Spirit and the seale of the Sacrament are in equal latitude To baptize an unregenerate person is to put a seal to a blank as high an abuse of that sacred Ordinance as the circumcision of the Sichemites Gen. 34. 24. That this covenant is such appears in that Text It is committed to man to work and to judge of it being wrought to put a seal for ratification and confirmation of it The Apostles were to make Disciples to bring men into covenant with God and being discipled to baptise them
their flesh this signe and seale of the Covenant 2. Upon it they had many and great priviledges yea all Church priviledges followed upon this leading priviledge though otherwise strangers to the Common-weale of Israel now they were look't upon as of Israel 3. Answering unto and in sincerity making good that unto which they do actually engage the whole blessing of the Covenant is theirs They that undertake the termes on which covenant-salvation according to the Gospel is had are actually vested in a a saving covenant but they undertake the termes on which covenant-salvation according to the Gospel is had they are therefore in a saving covenant 4. In case unbelief and impenitence in them be not only Law-transgressions but also Gospel-sins and breaches of a Gospel-covenant then these professed believers are under a Gospel-covenant This is evident They sin not against the Gospel that are not under the Gospel they break not covenant that were never in covenant but their unbelief and impenitence are above Law-transgressions they are Gospel-sins and breaches of covenant as I think need not to be proved and therefore it is plain that they are in covenant Upon this account I confesse I have often marvelled why many eminent and godly Divines do earnestly perswade their people to whom they speak to enter covenant with God giving directions what way they are to take to come into covenant with him telling them that it is of great concernment to them to know under what covenant they are whether under a covenant of Works or a covenant of grace when the same men expressely say that we all entred covenant in baptisme and that unbelief and impenitence at least if not every sin is a breach of our baptism vow and covenant Might not any think that these did perswade to be baptised and that they tell their people that it is of great concernment to know what covenant it is that baptisme seales whether it seales the covenant of Works or the covenant of Grace If we enter in covenant in our baptisme as they truly say that we did as to the Jus in re then how comes it to passe that any that are baptised are out of it and being already actually in it how are they perswaded to enter into it These perswasions therefore and motives to enter covenant I think should be to presse men on to keep covenant and so the directions which they lay down are indeed of divine and excellent use And when they say it so much concernes men to know what covenant they are under I conceive it should rather be to let them know of how great concernment it is to them to see that they have their interest in the mercies of the covenant through grace answering to the termes of it and requisites in it and so the entring of covenant which is done as these say in baptisme and keeping of covenaut or obtaining the mercies of the covenant would not be confounded but distinguished Their labours would likewise be of excellent use which otherwise scarce suit either with their own words or the Scriptures It may be objected that in case they are from under the covenant of Works and under the covenant of Grace then they are exempted from the curse and acquitted from the condemnation which is annext to that covenant which cannot be affirmed of any meer Professour of Christianity in unbelief and impenitence and enough is spoken in this Treatise it self against it To this I answer 1. The curse may follow upon the transgression of the Law as a Law without consideration of any covenant at all whether of Works or Grace and it is not interest in Covenant but interest in Christ which these supposedly such have not that frees from condemnation 2. What if it be yielded that they beare no more than the penalty annext to the breach of the Covenant of grace If the Gospel be consulted that is sufficiently sad and heavy If they be put to beare that nothing more needs to be added to the burden and indeed with submission to better judgments not resolvedly determining any thing it is my thoughts that professed Christians in unbelief and impenitence suffer not upon account of the penalty annext to the breach of the covenant of Works but upon account of the penalty annext to the breach of the covenant of Grace and let not any here object that the transgression of the Law shall not then be laid to their charge for the Gospel bindes us to the obedience of the Law though not in exact perfection yet in sincerity and truth And this I suppose receives strength from that of the Apostle 2 Thes 1 7 8. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which character therof not knowing God Interpreters saith Dr. Slater upon the words generally take to be a description of the Gentiles who though they know God by his Works yet they know him not by his Word and to this he subscribes The other character of not obeying the Gospel of Jesus Christ is as he saith a circumscription of Christians according to Interpreters Gospel-disobedience is then their guilt and upon account of this they suffer Had they believed and yielded sincere obedience which they professed and to which they engaged themselves they had not perished and the want of this appears to be their destruction CHAP. XLI Interest in a Church-state is of equal latitude with the Covenant THen it follows by way of necessary corollary that Church-membership interest in a Church-state is of equal latitude not only the elect and regenerate but all in covenant as before spoken to have their right stand entitled to Church-priviledges And here lest I should be mistaken let me explaine my selfe that my meaning is not ipso facto because in covenant with God and called by his name to entitle them to the Church invisible and so to suppose them lively members living in grace by influence of the Spirit from Christ This would clearly enough contradict that which before I have spoken and were indeed a contradiction in the adject I mean it of a visible Church-state and interest in visible priviledges If any quarrel at the distinction as some have done on either hand endeavouring to take off both members The Church of Rome not admitting any Church invisible and others not brooking any Church but such as consists of invisible members as may appear in their definitions of a particular Church putting in those clauses that belong only to the Church invisible I shall refer them to Doctor John Reynolds in his second Thesis fully bottoming it on that Text Mat. 22. 14. Many are called but few chosen which yet must be confest with judicious Master Hudson that it is not a division into two distinct Churches or species of Churches but a distribution of the subject by the adjuncts
concerning grace and works verse 6. to the 11. 2. He speaks to the Gentiles and to take down their insultation over the Jewes he shewes that this rejection of theirs is not final And this as the former is 1. Asserted verse 11. I say then have they stumbled that they should fall viz. irrecoverably fall God forbid 2. Proved by giving account of a twofold end of this rejection of the Jewes 1. The call of the Gentile verse 12. But rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousie 2. A more glorious returne of the Jews in emulation of the Gentiles verse 12. Now if thâ— fall of them be the riches of the world and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles how much more their fulnesse Hereupon he falls upon a large discourse of his zeal toward them and their re-ingraffing vers 13. 14 15. adding the words of the Text If the first fruits be holy the lump also is holy and if the root be holy so are the branches This Paraâ—us makes a farther Argument for proof that the Jews shall again be called Gomarus makes it an encouragement to the Apostle to endeavour their call howsoever here is a double similitude One drawn from the Ceremonial Law If the first fruits be holy the lump is also holy The other from Nature If the root be holy so are the branches The first is only mentioned the second is largely commented upon In both we see 1. A supposition 2. An affirmation The supposition is of the holinesse of the first fruits the holinesse of the root The affirmation is the whole lump is holy the branches are holy This last is grounded on a principle in nature universally true As is the root so is the branch they are both of one and the same nature As is the one so is the other Which he applies to the state of the Church of God first to the Church of the Jewes and that 1. In their ancient estate when they were a people of God in Covenant-relation holy so stiled of him frequently in Scripture 2. In their present state for a great part broken off and so made no people 3. In their future condition when they should be called of God and as it were risen from the dead Secondly he applies it also to the Gentiles 1. In their ancient estate as no people 2. In their present estate made a people of God in the place of the Jewes 3. In their possible estate and condition to be rejected and cast off On which we may ground several undeniable Positions some concerning the subject root and branch some concerning the predicate holy First concerning the subject root and branch in this place as by way of Metaphor set out the estate of parent and childe ancestor and issue 2. The whole body of the Church is compared to a tree to an Olive tree 3. The root of this tree viz. the first supreme universal root is Abraham Isaac and Jacob. Not Abraham alone so Ishmaelites would be of the body Nor Abraham with Isaac alone so the Edomites from Esau would have been taken in But the Apostle in this chapter from Old Testament-authority excludes both of them Abraham Isaac and Jacob are therefore joyntly the root 4. The branches of this tree are of two sorts â—ome natural issuing from the root by descent others ingraffed put in by way of insition The â—ewes were natural branches descending from the loynes of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. The Gentiles are branches by insition put into the stock the natural branches being broken off 5. The fatnesse of this tree is the glory of Ordinances of which the whole Church partakes or as some say Christ is the fatnesse but that is onely as he is tendered in Ordinances for he walks in the middest of the Golden Candlesticks In which sense onely we may yeeld that Christ is that fatnesse Secondly concerning the predicate Holy There is one and the same holinesse goes through the whole tree all the branches natural and engraffed through the whole Church and all the children of it Jews and Gentiles The whole of this holinesse is from one Original root and therefore one and the same 2. This holinesse is such as is communicable from parent to childe and necessarily communicated as a root communicates sap to the branches This is so plaine that if it be denied all the Apostles dispute falls 3. It is no holinesse of inhesion but relation not qualitative but federal The holinesse of the Jewes who were a holy Nation was such The holinesse of the Gentiles can be no other Holinesse of inhesion is not communicable but only holinesse of relation In holinesse of inhesion the proposition holds not as is the father so is the child who knowes not that holy fathers have unholy children regenerate parents have issue unregenerate These things considered it is evident that as the father is in regard of Church-state Covenant-holinesse so is the childe both in the Church of the Jews and Gentiles The father being without the childe is without the father being within the childe is within eo nomine because a branch of such a root a childe of such a father which is a full confirmation of the point in hand that the childe is in Covenant with the father and the person that actually enters Covenant is not solely vested in it One stands upon the contrary part and puts it to this issue for trial Whether this ingraffing be into the visible Church by profession of Faith or into the invisible by Election and Faith and concludes that it is meant of the Church invisible which if he can make good I shall confesse all Arguments drawn from hence as to this point are lost I would to avoid impertinent cavils and quarrels each Text were brought to such issue I shall in the first place bring arguments to evince that the breaking off and engraffing is respective to the Church as visible and then proceed to answer arguments from a late hand against it 1. That ingraffing which is into Abraham Isaâ—â— and Jacob as a root is not an invisible graffing by saving Faith and Election This is plaine we live not by power received from Abraham Abraham cannot say he bears us up in saving graces and that without sap from him we can do nothing But the ingraffing is into Abraham Isaac and Jacob as a root This argument as is said by one were of force if Abraham were made a root by communication and for prevention he is put to it to tell us of a root communicating nothing but an exemplary root or an exemplary cause of beleeving only what an exemplary non-communicating root is or meanes let the Reader Consider Secondly that ingraffing which caused disputation and contention in some emulation in others upon the sight and report of it was not by saving faith only into the invisible body but open visible and apparant into the
it p. 272 Baptisme into particular Church-societies examined p. 461 See Infants Infant-Baptisme Beleevers Vnregenerate persons have the name and outward priviledges of Beleevers p. 249 Berith In the most proper sense signifies a Covenant p. 37 Birth-priviledge Birth-interest in Ancestours-priviledges is of the nature of the things that descend from Parent to Childe p. 401 402 It is so in civil Priviledges in all Kingdomes States Corporations ibid. Vpon this account Protestants are taken up by Jesuites and the Orthodox by Anabaptists in their words p. 403 Birth-interest in Ancestours-priviledges is held up in all other Religions p. 405 God ownes Infants borne in the Church upon account of their birth as his children his servants ibid. Birth-interest being denied parent and childe are heterogeneal p. 406 Children then brought up not in Covenant but for Covenant ibid. According to Scripture-grounds no hope left of their salvation p. 407 Branch What with the Apostle it signifies Rom. 11. 16. p. 325 Branches of two sorts Natural and engraffed ibid. See Root C Canaan GIven to Abrahams natural issue by Promise p. 301 That gift was an appendant to the Covenant p. 303 The promise of it did not denominate the Covenant mixt p. 226 Carnal See Covenant Camero's Assertion of an animal life in Paradise p. 100 His distinction of an absolute and conditional Covenant of the Antecedent and consequent love of God p. 46 47 Children Acts 2. 39. Comprizes Infants p. 322 Not the same with sons and daughters of the Nation vers 17. p. 319 See Promise Christ Is the Mediatour of the Covenant of Grace a fulnesse and fitnesse in him for that work p. 92 A Covenant made of God with him p. 14 This Covenant not the same with the Covenant of Grace made with man ibid. In the assumption of mans nature he did not change the law of nature p. 57 Whole Christ is to be received by Beleevers p. 190 Justification strictly so called seemes to be the fruit of Christs passive righteousnesse p. 123 His active and passive obedience both concurre to mans full happinesse ibid. See Mediatour Christians Vnregenerate persons have the name and outward priviledges of Christians p. 252 Church The distinction into visible and invisible asserted and explained p. 267 See Engraffing Church visible Distinguished into universal and particular p. 269 Universal visible Asserted p. 267 c. It consists of all that make profession of Christian Religion p. 268 Interest in it is of equal latitude with the Covenant p. 267 Church particular A man by Covenant with God interessed in the universal Church visible needs nothing farther for his accesse and interest in particular Churches p. 270 Cohabitation makes not up a Church congregational p. 273 Yet it is necessarily required ibid. A people cohabiting in a vicinity ough to associate in Church-fellowship for Ordinances ibid. Professing Christians in such cohabitation are to be esteemed particular Church-members p. 274 Church-Covenant Explicite or implicite p. 459 Covenant explicite not essential to the relation of a particular Church-member p. 460 Without any Scripture-precedent p. 272 460 Where all is enjoyed for the being of a particular Church much may be wanting for the well-being p. 273 Church pure impure When to be judged pure p. 277 Impure Churches have yet the being of Churches ibid Rome a Church of most impure being ibid. That which especially denominates a Church pure or impure is doctrine p. 278 Doctrines tending to the defilement of Churches are tainted either in the foundation or superstruction ibid. See Errors Parochial Churches Vindicated p. 274 See Place Circumcision A seale of spiritual mercies p. 227 Both a priviledge and a bondage p. 208 Called by the name of Covenant p. 423 It was bottomed on the commandement p. 297 Which command had relation to the Covenant ibid. It was peculiar to Abrahams natural issue p. 301. Cohabitation See Church particular Commands Frequent and full under Moses his administration p. 213 See Law Consent In man of necessity to his being in Covenant with God p. 3. Consequence From Scripture justified p. 416 Conditions Covenant What a Covenant-condition is p. 35 Conditions of the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace on Gods part seem to be the same p. 99 Conditions in the Covenant of Works Were in mans power p. 102 103 Kept man within himself for righteousnesse p. 115 116 Their end was mans preservation 117 Conditions in the Covenant of Grace Covenant of Grace hath it's conditions p. 33 34 Arguments asserting it p. 34 c. Objections answered p. 36 c. These conditions are not performed without special assistance of Grace p. 104 Arguments for special assistance in this work p. 104 105 Objections answered p. 113 c. These conditions carry a man out of himself for righteousnesse p. 116 They are for mans restitution p. 117 A people thus in Covenant must come up to the termes and conditions of the Covenant p. 190 c. No happinesse or assurance but in performance of these conditions p. 195 Objections answered p. 199 Covenant in general Figurative acceptions of the Word p. 2 Requisites in a Covenant p. 3 Mutual contracts of the nature of it p. 38 Distinguished p. 4 Defined p. 5 Covenant between God and Man Reasons why God dealt in a Covenant-way with man p. 6 7 Covenant between God and man defined p. 8 Definition asserted p. 37 38 This Covenant distinguished into Covenant of Works Covenant of Grace p. 8 Covenant of Works and Grace Their agreement p. 86 Their respective differences p. 87 c. Covenant of Works Was entered in mans integrity ibid. Was alone for his preservation p. 88 Did precede the Covenant of Grace ibid. Was a small time in force p. 90 Had no Mediatour p. 91 Covenant of God with Christ Not the same with the Covenant of Grace entered with fallen man p. 14 15 Covenant of Grace Defined p. 159 Distinguished into the Old and New or first and second p. 202 Hath it's solemnities in the highest way p. 5 12 Was entered in mans fallen estate p. 87 Is for mans restitution p. 88 Is in time after the Covenant of Works ibid. Is of everlasting continuance p. 90 Is in and by a Mediatour p. 91 God in this Covenant so manifests his free grace that he still keeps up his Sovereignty p. 53 Old and New or first and second Covenant Their agreement in 6. particul p. 202 c. They are one in substance p. 204 Old Covenant Was administred and held forth by Servants Prophets Priests c. p. 205 It received only the Jewes ibid. It had its date of time and is antiquated for another to succeed p. 206 It was dedicated with the blood of Bulls and Goats ibid. It held forth Christ only in a promise to be incarnate to suffer p. 207 It held all out under types figures and shadowes ibid. Vnder that dispensation knowledge dim those under it in a state of darknesse comparativè to Christians p.
208 Circumcision that painfull signe was the leading initiating seale of it p. 209 Nine positions tending to clear the Old Covenant under Old Testament-dispensations p. 210 211 212 c. See Moses It was not made up of carnal promises p. 219 c. The charge of the Old Covenant to be meerely carnal serves divers interests 1. To bring down all honour and esteem of Old Testament-Scriptures p. 220 2. To take Infants out of Covenant p. 221 3. To keep Infants from Baptisme p. 222 Testimonies evincing the spirituality of Old Covenant-Promises ibid. This Old Covenant was a pure Gospel-Covenant and not mixt p. 224 New Covenant It is held forth by Christ the Mediatour p. 205 It takes in all Nations ibid. 206 It must remain till the end of time ibid. The dedication of it is in the blood of Christ p. 207 Christ already come in the flesh is set forth in it ibid. Truth without type or-shadow held forth in it p. 207 208 Light abounds and knowledge is clear in it p. 208 Baptisme is the initiating seal of it p. 209 It is not limited to the Elect Regenerate p. 231 The meaning of some Orthodox Divines that in some expression seem to deny it p. 233 Severall New Testament-Scriptures evincing it p. 235 c. Arguments asserting it p. 205 Absurdities following upon the restraint of the Covenant to the Elect regenerate p. 252 Objections answered p. 257 It comprizes professed Beleevers and their issue p. 246 The question stated as to the issue of Abraham in severall particulars p. 296 297 c. Arguments from Old Testament-Scriptures evincing the natural issue of Abraham to be in Covenant p. 301. From New Testament-Scriptures p. 304. The grand Objection Rom. 9. 6 7 8. answered p. 309 A second Objection that it is not in that latitude in New Testament-times answered p. 316 1. By Quaeries put p. 317 New Testament-authorities Acts 2. 38 39. Rom. 11. 16. 1 Cor. 7. 14. Gal. 4. 29. Matth. 19. 14. p. 318 3. Arguments evincing it p. 401 c. D. Death WHat in Scripture it implies p. 100 p. 101 The same in the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The proper and most received signification denotes a Testament and not a Covenant p. 38 39 Disciple Vnregenerate persons have the name and outward priviledges of Disciples p. 251 Whole Nations in capacity to be Discipled p. 236 Infants are Disciples p. 413 Discipline God in the Covenant of Grace keeps up his Sovereignty in exercise of Discipline p. 77 78 c. See Separation E. Election INto a Church-state p. 340 The Covenant of Grace not commensurate with Election p. 98 Election leads to salvation without any merit of workes p. 341 See Reprobation Engraffing There is no engraffing into the Church invisible p. 336 Engraffing by Faith according to Election is into Christ. ibid. Engraffing into the true Olive Rom. 11. is into the Church as visible Asserted by Arguments p. 327 c. Errors Have their estimate more or lesse according as they are against Christ p. 280 Some render Christ in an incapacity to be Mediatour ibid. Some are in whole or in part inconsistent with his Mediatorship ibid. Errours either in the foundation or in the superstructure p. 278 In the foundation more neere or more remote p. 279 Epample The Argument that there is no example for infant-baptisme answered p. 414 Extreames In the worship of God dangerous p. 439 F Faith IN Christ commanded in the Moral Law p. 96 c. Is a Condition of the Covenant of Grace p. 118 c. Proposâ—tions tending to clear it p. 122 Reasons to confirme it p. 119 Objections answered p. 130 c. As accepting Christ as a Lord it doth not justifie p. 125 It justifies as an instrument p. 126 Truth explained p. 127 Objections answered ibid. See instrument Faith of profession entitles to Baptisme p. 289 Arguments proving it p. 290 Faith and Repentance our conditions not Gods p. 144 Faith of profession Entitles to the Church visible p. 334 May be lost p. 333. 334 Flesh Birth after the flesh gives a visible title to Church interest p. 370 c. Children of the flesh those who in course of nature come from Abraham ibid. G. Gentiles SInners of the Gentiles Gal. 2. 15. what it implies p. 305. 306 Engraffing of the Jewes and the Gentiles Rom. 11. is into the Church visible p. 327 See Engraffing Church of Jewes and Gentiles one p. 328. Gomarus His answer to the Anabaptists Argument draw from Rom. 9. 6 7. p. 313 c. Gospel Where it is tendered and recieved there is a Covenant p. 161 Where it is tendered and refused there is no Covenant ibid. Grace Is the Fountaine and rise of every Covâ—â—nant of God with man p. 9 The necessity of the concurrence of Grace in mans conversion p. 111 Arguments evincing it p. 104 c. Objections answered p. 113 c. Sufficiency of Gospel-grace in the Old Covenant to convince men of sin for not beleeving p. 215 H. Holy Holinesse HOlinesse of relation of infusion p. 326 One and the same holinesse in every branch of the Olive Rom. 11. ibid. Holinesse not legitimation p. 357 Not regenerate with the Apostle 1 Cor. 7. 14. ibid. See places Holinesse of relation of persons p. 440 Of unreasonable creatures ibid. Persons holy in some peculiar way of service p. 444 In a more general way as separate from Idols to God p. 447 Heaven See Kingdome I. Jew A Jew by nature is one in Covenant by birth p. 306 Infant Those little ones that Christ recieved and blessed were infants p. 394 They were infants of Parents in Covenant p. 394 395 They were themselves in Covenant ibid. They were admitted upon a common right and no special priviledge above other infants in Israel ibid. They were admitted to a Church-priviledge p. 397 The Disciples excluded them upon their minority and Christ will have that to be no bar for their admittance p. 399 Infant-Baptisme By Arguments asserted p. 410 c. Objections answered p. 411 c. Infants of all Christian Parents have right to Baptisme p. 448 Infants of wicked Parents p. 448 Of misbelieving Parents p. 449 Of ignorant Parents ibid. Of illegitimate birth p. 450 Of excommunicate persons p. 468 Right of infants of Apostates discussed p. 453 Infants have right to Baptisme as from immediate so from mediate Parents p. 465 Infants within the verge of Baptism-institution p. 411 412 Infants of Christian Parents entitled to the Lords Supper by jus ad rem not jus in re p. 436 Instrument The Word the outward Faith the inward instrument in justification p. 129 Faith more aptly said to be an instrument in justification than the word ibid. Relative actions have not their instruments fitly and properly so called as those that are absolute p. 127 Faith is the instrument of man in the work of justification and because of man in a work of this nature it
is not unfitly called in instrument of God p. 128 See Faith Justification Ishmael In Covenant when circumcised p. 296 Not to be branded with bastardy ibid. He and his seed cast out of Covenant p. 298 Justification Mans concurrence in it necessarily required in it as an acceptant not as agent p. 127 It is a transient act of God not an immanent p. 132 It is not from eternity p. 131 c. A justified man an an fitted for every duty to which God calls p. 135. See Faith Instrument K. Kingdome of Heaven IN what sense taken Matth. 19. 14 c. p. 399 The Hinge of the contraversie concerning infants interest in Covenant hangs not on the interpretation of those words ibid. Anabaptists reasons not sufficient to prove it to be meant of the Kingdome of Glory p. 400 Though understood of the Kingdome of Glory it serves not to discovenant or dischurch infants p. 401 L. Law COnsidered as a Covenant to give life is inconsistent with the Gospel p. 55 Moral-Law hath a commanding power over Beleevers ibid. By Arguments asserted ibid. Objections answered p. 58 In what sense a dead husband p. 59 See Moses A rule of our duty not of our strength p. 151. Life What in Scripture it implies p. 100 The same in substance in the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace ibid. A Medium may be concieved and is by some assigned between life and death in Scripture acceptation p. 123 Lord. The acceptation of Christ as Lord doth not justifie p. 125 Love To do a thing out of obedience to the Law and by love not opposite p. 61 Love cleaves to Christ for communion but recieves him not for justification p. 125 M. Master Marshal VIndicated p. 435 Mediatour A foure-fold work respective to the Covenant incumbent on the Mediatour p. 93 c. See Christ Moses Metaphor God's entring Covenant with man no Metaphor p. 10. 37 Ministers Must bring their people up to the termes of the Covenant in pressing the necessity of Faith and Repentance p. 188 c. They must not sever the promise from the duty p. 189 Ministry The necessity of a Ministry to bring me into Covenant and to bring them up to the termes of the Covenant p. 160. Reasons evincing that God hath appointed such a Ministry to be perpetuated through all ages p. 162 c. Reasons evincing the necessity of such an established Ministry p. 165 c. Objections answered p. 168 169 An orderly call from God into the Ministerial function necessary p. 180 Reasons assigned p. 181 182 Several wayes of calling to the work of The Ministry p. 182 See Ordination Ministry-maintenance p. 442 Moses The Law as delivered by Moses bindes Christians p. 73 74 75 He delivered a Covenant to the Jewes p. 210 He delivered a Covenant of Grace to the Jewes p. 210 211 In his time commands were frequent and full the directive and maledictive part for discovery of sin were open and clear but promises for eternity little known p. 213 He was a Mediatour in type N. Nature TAken for Birth-priviledge or descent from Ancestors p. 307 Taken for qualifications of nature ibid. Jewes by nature had priviledges above Gentiles p. 307 308 O. Obedience See Righteousnesse Olive THe whole universal Church visible Rom. 11. p. 325 Fatnesse of the Olive glory of Ordinances p. 326 Ordination An orderly call by way of Ordination into the Ministerial function necessary in all not gifted by immediate revelation p. 182 Ordination described ibid. Men in Ministerial function are to act in Ordination p. 182 183 They are to set men apart as Presbyters and Elders p. 184 Ordination not to be passed but upon examination and tryal p. 140 To be solemnized with fasting and prayer p. 185 186 Imposition of hands to be used p. 187 Objections answered ibid. P. Pardon NAtional and personal p. 343 My People That phrase applied in New Testament-Scriptures to those that stand invisible relation to God p. 258 Places for worship In New Testament-times have their warranty In what sense holy p. 441 Places holy by divine institution by divine approbation p. 439 Positions concerning places for worship in Gospel-times p. 441 Not in equipage with the Temple and Tabernacle ibid. Temple and Tabernacle had the pre-eminence in four Particulars ibid. Our places of meeting by good warranty called Churches p. 441 c. Position This Position that the Moral Law hath no commanding power over Believers examined p. 58 That position concerning the Old Covenant to be both a Covenant of Works and a Covenant of Grace examined p. 210 Power Necessary in the call of Nations to a visible Church-state p. 330 Priviledge See Birth Professors Who to be accounted so before men p. 450 Promises Made to the wiked made good to the believing and penitent p. 190 Absolute promises yield not peace to him that is wanting in the conditions of God required ibid. p. 47 Objections answered p. 190 Spiritual promises rare and obscure under Moses his administration p. 213 Scriptures evincing the spirituality of Old Testament-Promises p. 222 Temporal promises annexed as appendants to spiritual in the Old Covenant p. 226 Children of Promise All the seed of Abraham by Isaac born by vertue of that miraculous promise p. 298 Q. Quaeries PVt to those that restraine the New Covenant to the Elect regenerate p. 234 c. Put to those that put a limit to the New Covenant respective to the issue p. 317 R. Reconciliation GRadual or total of persons of Nations p. 331 Repentance A distinct grace from faith p. 136 A condition of the Covenant of grace ib. Considered in the prae-requisites p. 137 In the essential parts of it ibid. Privative part which is cessation from sin is required in Covenant p. 140 Positive part which is a returne to God and an holy walk with God is required in Covenant p. 142 See Righteousnesse Objections answered p. 144 c. Reprobation No cause of unbelief or sin p. 341 It leads not to condemnation without merit of sin as Election leads to Salvation without merits of works ibid. Righteousnesse What degree of righteousnesse is required in the Covenant of Grace p. 148 Perfection of degrees is not so required that upon the defection of it the penalty is incurred p. 149 Perfection of degrees is not required and sincerity accepted p. 151 Reasons assigned ibid. c. Objections answered p. 153 Our Evangelical righteousnesse is imperfect p. 155 c Sincerity is required and accepted p. 112 c. Root and Branch Denote parent and childe Rom. 11. 16. p. 325 Root Abraham Isaac and Jacob. ibid. Every natural parent a Root p. 338 Every natural believing Parent an holy Root ibid. Abraham a Root by communication not by example p. 399 S. Sacraments ARe Gospel mysteries p. 446 Sacriledge Defined p. 440 With-holding infants of believing parents from Baptism is Sacriledg p. 437 c. Saints Vnregenerate persons have the name and outward priviledge of Saints p.
disobligation to obedience a Cùm itaque homo jaceret sub maledictione ad obedientiam amplius non obligabatur quia coli ab eo Deus ampliù◠non volebat b Nam quòd coli à creature sua Deâ—â— vult favâ—râ—is est The Sovereignty of God is held up 1. In keeping up his commandments The Law hath a commanding power over beleeevers Rom. 7. 1 c. vindicated The Law bindes the whole of man * Authorities vouchsafed for the perfection of the Moral Law as a Rule a Lex ista Dei quae in Decalogo continetur est perfectissima regula ad vitam hominis dirigendam b Ut legem istam Dei eo loco habeamus quo debemus i.e. ut non aliter de eadem cogitemus quam ut de vitae nostra unica forma tanquam de illa norma quae nullum habet defectum sed perfecta est in sese perfectionem omnem à nobis requirit c Ipsa lex Christi est exactissima perfectissima regula Sanctitatis justitiae d Passim in Scripturis confirmatur quae perfectionem legis divinae mirificè extollunt e Tam perfecta est haec lex ut nihil ei in praeceptis moralibus aut à Christo aut ab Apostolis ipsius additum fuerit quoad exactionem bonorum operum normam sub novo Testamento sit adducta f Obligans omnes creaturas rationales ad perfectam obedientiam internam externam g De perfect â obedientiâ quam Lex requirit h Variis autem corruptelis omnibus temporibus olim nunc depravata est doctrina de perfect â obedientia quam Lex Dei requirit i Est praeceptio divina continens piè justeque coram Deo vivendi regulam requirens ab omni homine perfectam perpetuam obedientiam Arguments evincing the perfection of the Moral Law a Exceptions taken against the perfection of the Law b 1. Exception 2. Exception 3. Exception 4 Exception 5. Exception 6. Exception The Covenant of Works was entred into in mans state of integrity The Covenant of Grace was entered into in mans fallen condition The Covenant of Works was to mans preservation The Covenant of Grace was to mans restitution The Covenant of Works was first in time The Covenant of Grace in order of time followed after The Covenant of Works was a small time in force The Covenant of Grace is of everlasting continuance The Covenant of Works had no Mediatour Sol. Cujus enim participatione justi sunt ejus comparatione nec justi sunt Aug. ad Orosium contra Priscil cap. 10 Sol. The Covenant of grace is by a Mediatour Christ brings man into a capacity of covenanting with God Christ brings man within the verge of the Covenant 1. By his tender of it 2. By shaping the heart for it Christ brings up to the terms of the Covenant Christ crowns those that come up to the terms of the covenant Difficulties removed Faith is a duty of the moral Law The Covenant of grace not commensurate with election Conditions in the Covenant of works and the covenant of grace of Gods part seem to be the same Life promised in the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace is one and the same Death threatned in the Covenent of Works and in the Covenant of Grace is one and the same The conditions in the CovenaÌ„t of works were in mans power QuaÌ„ veluti aureo quodam fraeno pars inferior parti superiori pars superior Deo facile subjecta contineretur Bellar. De. Grat. primi hominis cap. 5. The conditions in the Covenant of Grace are not performed without special assistance Reasons Jer. 31. 33. cleared a Si filius miles acceptis à patre naturalibus ordine atque armis strenuè militaret sicque forsit an in superbia erigeretur inflatus quomodo in ipso cradicaretur superbia plantaretur humilitas Si ei ab aliquo diceretur Non glorietur omnis mile in conspectu patris sui Ex ipso enim est in militia ut qui gloriatur iâ— patre suc glorietur quid habes quod non accepisti Si autem accepisti quid gloriaris quasi non acceperis Posset enim rationaliter respondere dicendo quare non deberem de mea militia glâ—riari Accepi quidem à patre meo natural a mea quia nullus generat semetipsum accepi ordinem quia nulli conceditur infig nire semetipsum accepi arma qui a similitur caeteri militum non nascebar armatus nec sum fabor armorum debitum tamen usum istorum qui omnibus praevalet non accepi ab alio sed habeo me ex meipso crebas victorias fama celebri diâ—lugatas non accepi ab alio sed â—abeo ex mâ—ipso Pro hujusmodi igitur in me ipso merito gloriabor in alio autem nihil sic de quolibet milite Jesu Christi Necessity of the concurrence of grace Habitus infusi infunduntur ad mâ—dum acquisitorum The conditions in the Covenant of Works kept man within himself for righteousnesse The conditions in the Covenant of Grace carry a man out of himself to be righteous by anothers righteousnesse The conditions in the Covenant of works were for mans preservation in present happinesse The conditions in the Covenant of grace are for mans reparation Reasons convincing Faith to be a condition of the Covenant of grace In what sense faith is here taken Propositions tending to clear the point in hand The acceptation of Christ as a Lord doth not justifie Faith justifies as an instrument Fides percipit justificationem efficit sanctificationem a Quà m primum ergo instrumentum principali agenti non subservit instrumenti naturam a mittit Quae realâ—m evidentem mutationem extrinsecus nullam infert Transiens actio est quae revera mutationem infert A justified man is fitted for every duty to which God is pleased for to call Faith and Repentance are distinct graces and not one and the same Godly sorrow is a prerequisite to repentance Some degree of soul-shaking by the Law necessary Limits put to this doctrine of godly sorrow The essentials in repentance are 1. Privative Cessation from sinne 2. Positive A returne to God and an holy walking with him The Objection retorted Faith and repentance are our conditions not Gods Sol. Via ad regnum non causa regnandi Arguments evincing that Faith and Repentance are our conditions and not Gods in the proper conditional covenant In what manner Works are called for in the Covenant of Grace Repentance necessarily flowing from Faith is not thereby disabled from being a condition in the Covenant of Grace Perfection of degrees is not so called for of God in Covenant that upon failing it the mercies promised in Covenant are lost a Si quis dixerit baptizatos per baptisimum ipsum solius tantùm debitores fidei fieri non autem universa legis Christi
servandae anathema fit Sess Sept. Canon Sex b Baptismus non id efficit ut homo solius fidei debitor â—it non autem implendae universae legis Duobus modis intelligi posse hominem baptizatum dici liberum à lege divina servanda uno modo ut facere contra eam legem non fit injustum nec peccatum quasi lex abrogata esset de hoc sensu non est controversia altero modo intelligi potest ut facere contra legem fit quidem peccatum tamen non imputetur iis qui fidem habent nec pendeat justificatio aut salus ab impletione legis sed à sola misericordia quae per fidem apprehenditur a Nam cum est aliquid carnalis concupiscentiae quod vel continendo foenetur nam omninò ex tota anima diligitur Deus b Diligitur tunc Deus ex toto corde cum quis ex intima sincera erga Deum affectione occupatur potissimùm in his quae Dei sunt prae omnibus illi placere studens ac sollicitus ut non tantum quaedam Dei mandata perficiat sed cuncta idque non seniter ex tristi animo sed gnaviter hilariter dolens ex animo si quid vel ab alliis vel à se per carnis infirmitatem admittatur contrium divinae voluntati Jansenii Harmon c. 81. The Law a rule of our duty not of our strength The Covenant of Grace doth not cal for perfection and accept sincerity Sol. Our Evangelical righteousnesse is imperfect Omnis humana justitia injustitia esse deprebendiâ—ur si divinitus districtè judicatur Gâ—egor Moral lib. 21. Cap. 15. Nostra fiqua est humilis justitia rectâ— forsitan sed non pura nisi fortè meliores nos esse credimus quà m patres nostros qui non minùs veraciter quam humiliter ajebant Omnes justitiae nostrae tanquam pannus meâ—stâ—utae mâ—lieâ—is Quo modo enim pura justitia ubi adhuc non potest culpâ— deesse Bern. in Serm. 5. de verbis Esajae pâ—ophetae The Covenant of grace requires and acccepts sincerity The Covenant of Grace defined Where a Ministery is not there is no Covenant-people Where the Gospel is tendered and refused there is no Covenant Where the Gospel is tendred there is a people in Covenant Reasons proving the establishment of a Ministery to be perpeâ—uated through all ages * There was an end of ages at Christs first coming Heb. 9. 26. There shall be an end of ages at his second coming See Gomarus Tom. 2. p. 530. Reasons evincing a necessity of such an established Ministery * Anglia bis 4. annis facta est colluâ—ies lerna omnium errotum sectarum nulla à condito orbe provincia tam parvo spaâ—io tot manstrosas haereses protulit atque haec Referunt Theoâ— Cestrens in attestatione sua excusa Anno Domini 648. Objections against a Ministerial Ordinance answered Joel 2. 28 29. vindicated Jerem. 31. 31 32 33 34. vindicated a Quòd autem fanatici homines hinc occasionem arripiunt abolendae exterrae praedicationis acsi sub Christi regno esset superuacua facilè corum insania rejellâ—tur Haec corum est objectio Post Christi adventum non debet quisque proximum suum docere sacessat igâ—tur externum Ministerium ut internae Dei inspirationi detur locus Atqui praeterâ—unt quod in primis animadversione dignum erat Neque enim in totum Propheta negat quin docturi sint alii alios sed haec sunt verbâ—â— non doccbunt dicendo Cognosce Dominum acsi diceret non amplius occupabit hominum mentes igneratia qualis antehac ut nesciant quis sit Deus Scimus autem duplicem esse Doctrinae usum Primò ut qui poenitus rades sunt a primis elementis incipiant deinde ut qui jam sunt initiati majores faciant progressus Quum ergo Christianis quam â—u vivunt proficiendum sit certum est ne minem usquo adeò satere qaiu â—oceri opus habeat utpars non postremae sapieriae nostrae sit docilitas Quae autem proficiendi sit ratio si velimus esse Christi discipuli Ptulus ostendit ad Eâ—â—es cap. 4. 11. Constituit Pastores Doctores c. Hinc apparet nihil minùs Prophetae venisse in mentem quà m spoliari Ecclesiam tam necessario bono Universities of necessary use Sol. Self-consecration to the Ministerial work unwarrantable A call from God to the Ministerial work must be expected The call of God is either extraordinary and immediate or ordinary and mediate by the Ministery of men The immediate call is by vision revelation c. The mediate and ordinary call is by Ordination Ordination described and in the several parts of it explained Men in Ministerial function are to act in it This Ordination is of Presbyters and Elders These Elders are the same with Bishops They are Elders of the Church universal Ordination is to be past on examination or trial To be solemnized with fasting and prayeâ—s Imposition of hands to be used in Ordination An Objection answered An Objection answered The danger of severing the promise from the duty Whole Christ must be received and all of his gifts embraced Promises are made to the wicked made good only to the beleeving and penitent The evil of breach of Covenant with man Breach of Covenant with God is a greater evil It brings National plagues It brings evil to eternity No Assurance of happinesse but in performance of the termes of the Covenant The office of the Spirit in the work of Assurance The immediate teste of the Spirits examined The Old and New Covenant The method followed in the ensuing part of the Treatise Agreement between the Old and New covenant in six particulars The Old and New Covenant in substance one Differences between the Old and New Covenant The Jews were in a state of light comparative to Heathens In a state of darkneâ—s comparative to Christiâ—ns Moses delivered a Covenant from God to Israel in Mount Sinai Mâ—ses delivered a Covenant of Grace to Israel The ten Commandments delivered by Moses were of this Covenant of Grace Being a Covenant of Grace it could by no means be a Covenant of Works What this Covenant is to any it is to all Under Moses his administration commands were frequent and full spiritual promises were rare and more obscure There was so much of Grace and Christ held out in the Old Covenant to leave them without excuse Many phrases in use under the Old Covenant-administration seemingly holding out a Covenant of Works according to Scripture use hold out a Covenant of Grace Though Moses delivered a Covenant of Grace to Israel yet the Law is sometime taken in that restrained sense as to hold forth a Covenant of Works The first imaginary difference between the Old and New Covenant Ad literam non fuisse promissionem remissionis peccatorum sed peculiaris protectionis gubernationis
making blessed There are many promises in Scripture made to Abraham and the seed of Abraham and there is much difference among interpreters to which of these promises this text refers The Reader if he please may consult Paraeus on the words and Junius in his parallels but to what text soever it is that these words do refer I am confident that the Apostle speaks not of any blessednesse received by covenant but a promise of making Nations blessed and this is not indeed to seeds as of many but to seed as of one which is Christ which I gather by comparing the words in hand with v. 8. of the same chapter and the Scripture foreseeing that God would justifie the Heathen through faith preached before the Gospel to Abraham saying In thee shall all Nations be blessed This is the promise that this Text holds out which is not a covenant for blessednesse but a promise to make blessed repeated againe verse 19. The Law was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made which is not Christ collectively or mystically but personally considered not entring covenant but as Mediatour of the covenant So that this text serves nothing for this purpose A learned Writer indeed sayes It is beyond my brain to conceive that God should immediately make a Covenant with us who were children of disobedience and of wrath who could not be capable of any such covenant and conditions That Christ hath a hand to bring us into covenant before was yeelded and how far he hath a hand further to carry on the covenant may be yet further considered but man is a party in covenant and as God may make promises and give good things to fallen man so he may enter covenant with him likewise CHAP. V. The outward and not the inward Covenant is a covenant properly so called WHereas there is an usual distinction almost in all that write or speak of the covenant of a double covenant between God and his people one external and the other internal one passing outwardly and the other inwardly kept and observed Or as Dr. Preston expresseth it a single and double covenant which I shall forbear to examine seeing I know there is a right meaning though I much doubt whether there be in the Reader a right understanding My second Proposition shall be that it is the external Covenant not the inward that exactly and properly is called by the name of a Covenant and to which priviledges of Ordinances and title to Sacraments are annext This Proposition occasioned by this received distinction is of three heads which in case the Reader please he may subdivide into three distinct Positions 1. The outward and not the inward Covenant is most exactly and properly called by the name of a Covenant which I thus make good 1. That covenant to which the definition of a covenant doth belong hath exactly and properly the nature of a covenant this none can deny The definition sets out the nature of the thing defined But the definition most actly belongs to the outward covenant not to the inward This is plain An agreement of parties on tearms and Propositions is the definition of a covenant Now the outward covenant is an agreement on tearmes and Propositions as I have abundantly declared in that covenant God engages himself to man for his happinesse and man engages to faith and obedience The inward covenant hath no tearmes or Propositions at all for man to make good upon account of his covenanting seeing the performance of the conditions of the Scripture-covenant is his very entrance into the inward covenant He that believes and repents keeps covenant nothing more is expected of God or promised by man But beleeving and repenting is the first closing with God in covenant according to them that speak of an inward covenant 2. A covenant to perform conditions is a covenant properly so called But the outward covenant not the inward is a covenant to perform conditions This is plain The conditions in the inward covenant are the covenant 3. That which confounds entrance into covenant and keeping of covenant is no covenant properly so called In a covenant properly so called these are distinct But the inward covenant confounds entrance into covenant and keeping of covenant and therefore in exact propriety of speech is no covenant 2. The outward and not the inward Covenant is most usually in Scripture called by the name of a Covenant which is plaine in that they that have no part or portion in the inward covenant are yet still spoken of in Scripture as people in covenant God calls all Israel his people and that upon covenant termes Deut. 29. 10 11 12 13. Al of those that thus covenanted with God were not in the inward covenant This people at their worst and the wrost among them are called the people of God as by those that were strangers to this covenant These are the people of the Lord say the men of Babylon and are gone forth out of his land Ezek. 36. 20. so also by the Lord himself Jer. 2. 32. Can a Bride forget her attire yet my people have forgotten me dayes without number How often doth God own Israel as his people when he yet brands them as a rebellious revolting stiff-necked treacherous and adulterous people They that forsake the covenant of God that break covenant that deale falsely in it upon whom God brings a sword to avenge the quarrel of his covenant are in the outward not in the inward covenant But such there be among Gods covenant-people as he frequently complaines that break covenant c. These are not then in his inward but outward covenant The great objection is and all that carries colour against this Jer. 31. 32 33. where the Lord differencing the Old and New covenant saith This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt which my Covenant they brake although I was an husband to them saith the Lord But this shall be my Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people That is alone the inward covenant and the elect regenerate are alone within it The inward covenant then is called in Scripture a covenant and is in exact propriety of speech a covenant For answer I shall have further occasion to speak to this Text. In this place I shall only put some Queries 1. Whether those that carry this Text to an unconditionate covenant and restrain it alone to that which they call the inward covenant do not make the covenant in the time of the Law and that in Gospel-times essentially
different and consequently either make two covenants of grace distinct in kind or thrust all that were under the Old covenant out of all hope of salvation contrary to all Interpreters who make these covenants one in substance See the last larger Annotations on the words 2. Whether such an Interpretation do not utterly contradict New-Testament-light which holds out the New covenant in like latitude with the former in which many are called but few are chosen and where conditions are as explicitely and fully required as in Old Testament dispensations 3. Whether when Scripture speaks of things in opposition to mens erroneous conceits for a further Explanation of them and rectifying mens judgements in them it do usually lay down a full compleat and formal definition to which nothing is to be added or whether it doth not usually supply that in which men through mistake were defective and short And whether those Texts Esay 58 6 7. Is not this the fast that I have chosen to loose the bands of wickednesse to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoak Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out into thy house when thou seest the naked that thou cover him and that thou hide not thy self from thy own flesh Jer. 22. 15 16. Did not thy father eat and drink and do justice and judgement and then it was well with him He judged the cause of the poor and needy and then it was well with him was not this to know me saith the Lord Jam. 1. 27. Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherlesse and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world are not parallel to this text in their way of delivery And in case we cannot finde a full definition of a religious Fast in that of Esay nor the whole of it that makes up saving knowledge in that of Jeremy nor the whole that makes Religion compleat in that of James why is it that we should earnestly contend that the full nature of a covenant is in this text exprest being fully parallel in the way of delivery to those other texts Thirdly it is upon the account of the outward Covenant and not the inward that men enjoy priviledges of Ordinances and interest in Sacraments Men that are so far honoured as to enjoy an outward covenant have just title to these priviledges It is in behalf of the Jew outwardly that the Apostle having so decryed his condition respective to the approbation of God puts the question What advantage hath the Jew what profit is there of Circumcision Rom. 3. 1. The Jew and Circumcision are there one A Jew outwardly and circumcision in the flesh go there in equal latitude He that by nature is a Jew as Paul speaks Gal. 2. 15. is of the circumcision And to these the Oracles of God are committed The instruments deeds and evidences of the covenants say the last Annotations It was the priviledge of Israel Psal 147. 19. Rom. 3. and then the priviledg of no other Nation Now it is the priviledg of all ingraffed in their stead This is confest even by a great part of those that understand the inward covenant or covenant keeping to acceptation almost whensoever they mention a covenant in that they baptize infants upon covenant grounds even all their infants that make a covenant profession and that upon just warranty It is further plaine in reason The outward covenant must have priviledges suitable to it self otherwise there is no manner of benefit or advantage of it This priviledge of the Sacrament is suitable being outward as the covenant is outward This is elsewhere spoken to at large and therefore I shall hear forbear I have indeed been challenged for this distinction of an outward and inward covenant as though I had been the sole Authour of it when all know that it is a distinction that of a long time among Divines hath been in common use and in case it had not been commonly received I should have forborne the use of it As I heard Mr. Ball once in discourse say that he denyed any such distinction of an outward and an inward call to the Ministery all calling being external unlesse the man called were a Prophet that which men terme an inward call being onely qualifications fitting for the work So that I deny in exact propriety of speech the inward covenant is any covenant but the answer of the soul unto that which the covenant requires And whereas it is said of me by way of conjecture It is probable that he thus distributes them from the blessings promised whereof some are inward and some outward for though he explain not himself fully yet I know no other sense that it will bear To this I say that I thus distinguish them to apply my self to the Readers understanding that hath been accumstomed so to call them and further I say that men that barely covenant and keep not covenant have onely priviledges that are outward They are visible Church-members and they have visible Church-priviledges and those who answer to covenant engagements which usually is called the inward covenant have priviledges both outward and inward A Jew outwardly had outward priviledges A Jew inwardly that is he that answered to his outward profession that worshipped God in spirit hath both those that were outward and inward It is further said It is evident that his outward Covenant hath no seal for it is a Covenant de sigillis conferendis If therefore it have a seal it is either the same which is promised or some other What this Authour means when he says it is a covenant de sigillis conferendis I am to learn If he mean that the seal follows the covenant and is put to after the covenant so it is in all covenants whatsoever He sayes they no where tell us what is the seal of their outward covenant me thinks we had no need to tell what the seal of that covenant was that the Jew entered was it not circumcision and did there not another follow viz. the Passeover Now I tell him that Circumcision and the Passeover were and Baptisme and the Lords Supper are seales of this covenant The Nation of the Jewes were in covenant as our Authour though he would yet must not deny They were not all in the inward covenant and yet they had these seales He says we are bound to give the seals to such Vocation which is effectual only to bring men to an outward profession of saving faith is larger then election and makes men such whom we are bound to baptize And such we say have right to them And to help him a little further Those men that he sayes the Church must baptize though without right we say are truely in covenant and have right when he knows what a childe he is to baptize he