grant the Law to be a perpetual and inviolable Rule of Righteousness but that it is a Rule to a Believer quatenus talis he will not grant 2. It is true it hath vim praecepti as well as doctrinae and so it hath vim damnandi a power to curse as he there affirmeth and you neither have nor can refute M. B. What will he say to the Law given to Adam who yet was righteous and innocent and therefore could not be cursing or condemning of him Ans You mean not that the Law had no power to curse and condemn because Adam was innocent for you grant it had that potentially though not actually If then it did not actually curse it was not because the Law wanted that power but in that state of innocency there was no place nor reason actually to curse Henceforth wonder not at the Author for saying the Law hath power to curse which is denyed by Dr Taylor and your self but wonder at your own oversight who while you would oppose and confute your Adversary do grant and affirm all he requireth And yet in your Lect. 6. you deny this power to curse to be any essential part of the Law When Adam had sinned whether did the Law actually condemn or no If yes I demand then whether it were by that authority and power it had before or some new and further power was given it upon the fall Did not the Law say to him yet in innocency What day thou eatest of that tree thou shalt dye Gen. 2. How was it that it threatened death and forbad the eating under such a fearful penalty if it had yet no power to execute and inflict the same You must now yield and cease or fight on with your own shadow M. B. In respect of the Vse of the Law to Believers It hath this Vse 1. To excite and quicken them against all sin and corruption c. because none of the godly are perfectly righteous and there is none but may complain of his dull love and his faint delight in holy things therefore the Law of God by commanding doth quicken him c. Have not Believers Crookedness Hypocrisie Luke-warmness Ans The love of God in Christ revealed and shed abroad in the heart doth quicken but the simple Command of the Moral Law can never effect what you say He that loveth the Lord hateth sin but we love the Lord not by reason of the Law requiring it but because he hath loved us first 1 Ioh. 4.19 and that we be born of God and know God in his Son It 's strange Divinity that the flesh and wickedness of our nature should be cured or weakened by the Law It may discover the malady or disease but not remedy it Put the Law to the old man it will revive and quicken it indeed but not to goodness if we may believe either Scripture or our own experience The strength of sin is the Law 1 Cor. 15.56 And Rom. 7.9 When the Commandment came sin revived and I dyed Such is the poysonful enmity in us by the first Adam that it maketh head against the plaister of the Law being applyed unto it The old man or flesh is enmity to God and all goodness Rom. 8.7 and the more it is stirred and quickened by the Law the more it is enraged But contrarily the Head of the Body that is the Church is Christ from whom it hath nourishment ministred and so increaseth with the encrease of God and by this means the body of sin is weakened and abolished Colos 2.19 Our Sanctification is not begun nor perfected by legal precepts and pressings but by our true and effectual union with Christ Ioh. 15.4 As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except ye abide in me Verse 5. He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing M. B. In the third Use of the Law pag. 9. How absurd then are they that say the preaching of the Law is to make men trust in themselves and to adhere to their own righteousness Ans It may be truly said that too many so preach the Law that they establish mans righteousness for this is in the mouth of divers The Minister saith Do well and have well and we are taught That the way to come to glory in Heaven is to glorifie God on Earth by good works Christ saveth none but holy ones c. If the Law were used to discover sin not to cover it to weaken and destroy not to strengthen and build up to binde and cast out not to loose release and admit if the Vail were taken off Moses face and the glory of God in his fiery and terrible Law did break forth so that all found it to be a Ministration of death and condemnation this would be a mean to kill and overthrow all self-confidence and boasting But who doth make that use of it Not one of twenty and your self cannot receive the Law and digest it under such a terrifying and damning notion M. B. pag. 11. The Antinomian before he speaks any thing against or about the Law must shew in what sence the Apostle useth it Ans Your Antinomian is as good a friend to the Law as your self neither do you nor yet can you make it appear that he speaks one word against the Law You are too bold in saying that the Apostle argueth against the Law in any sence but if you so charge him your Conscience may give way to slander us M. B. 5 Caution pag. 13. To distinguish between a Believer and his personal acts Believers sins are condemned they are guilty of Gods wrath though not their persons Ans This your nice and groundless distinction was Dr Taylors shift as it is yours You might have seen the vanity of it in the Assertion of Grace or at least have considered how to satisfie the Objections against it before you present the world with it afresh 1. The Scripture maketh the guilt and curse to redound upon the person as Gal. 3.10 Cursed is every man that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them 2. In your dayly repentance or confession you make in your prayers do you not judg and condemn your self for your sins whereof Conscience doth accuse you What a strange expression is it that sins are guilty of Gods wrath 3. If no guilt redound upon the person there is no more need of Christs blood to cleanse acquit and justifie and to be a continual propitiation for sin The Promise is vain and Faith of no effect unless you will say that you believe dayly to secure not your person but your sins from wrath 4. And the true reason why the sin guilt and curse redound upon any person is because he is put and placed under the Law which revealeth wrath and why all is kept off the Believer it
is not because the Law hath lost its power to accuse and condema as you would bear us in hand but because he is not under the Law but under Grace Rom. 6.14 Gal. 4.4 Christ hath satisfied for him taking all his sins guilt and curse unto and upon himself and God hath justified and set him free so he liveth in peace and at rest by Faith in Christ who loved him and gave himself to redeem him Also the grace and benefit of his Justification doth in some sort redound upon the actions of a Believer For was it not by his Faith that Abels sacrifice pleased God Heb. 11.4 There is no such purity perfection or dignity in the best thing you can do which of it self simply considered can procure or finde acceptance with God The Scripture and all Orthodox Divinity do hold forth Christ only as the ground and reason of all acceptation of man his works and ways 1 Pet. 2.5 Ye are an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ You say Dr Crisp is wide and see not your self out of the way of Truth and Charity A man under grace is no more under the Law he is dead to the Law that he may live to God Gal. 2.19 M. B. 6 Caution Law is not to be decryed because we have no power to keep the Law Ans Who cryeth down or speaketh against the Law You cannot shew or name any And who are so much against the Law as your selves who are become vain and needless Advocates for it The blinde Pharisees pretended most zeal for God and his Law who were yet in the state of enmity and by reason of their inward malice and envy against Christ opposition and hatred of the truth of his Doctrine false accusations and seeking to entangle and bring him into danger they lived in the continual breach of the Law Well it is too evident that you with thousand others of your Fraternity cease not to quarrel with except against and to condemn us for Antinomians and yet no demonstrative proof is extant of any such Error or guilt It is easie to lay on load of accusation upon Innocency it self hence such aspersions and indignities cast upon David Paul and that immaculate Lamb Christ himself if the corrupt heart within give way and be bent thereunto How weak is thy heart seeing thou hast done all these things Ezek. 16. The weakest and worst sort have been the most zealous and confident accusers We know say the Jews that this man Christ is a sinner Joh. 9.24 yet they knew no such thing by him What accusation saith Pilate bring you against this man They answered If he were not a Malefactor we would not have delivered him unto thee Ioh. 18.29.30 If so many of that Religion say it it is unquestionably true though there be no reality nor jot of verity in the accusation yet know it that it is an Antinomian part to slander and miscal and to make no crime to appear Thus may the greatest delinquency and guilt of Antinomianism be layd at yours and your fellows doors There is one that accuseth you even Moses in whom you trust Joh. 5.45 M. B. Ibid. It is an expression that an Antinomian * Dr. Crisp useth The Law saith he speaketh to thee if troubled for sin Do this and live Now this is as if a Judg should bid a Malefactor If thou wilt not be hanged take all England and carry it upón your shoulders into the West Indies What comfort were this Now doth not the Gospel when it bids a man believe speak as impossible a thing to a mans power Answ Doth the Doctor in this saying decry the Law Your own words and judgment too do import the like impossibility What a sinister minde is this But all if voyd of prejudice and partiality may clearly see by this his expression that Doctor Crisps main desire design and scope was to instruct erect and comfort a poor distressed and troubled Soul and that therefore he so applyed and ministred Gospel-Cordials Observe the ground and reason of his words if thou be troubled for sin and then you have no cause so to reprove and censure him as you do 2. His counsel and direction differ much from theirs of your way who in such a case bid the dejected man to desire promise and endeavor his utmost to do and walk according to the Law and so put him in hope of mercy in that as it is taught the Law is mitigated Evangelized God accepteth the will for the deed c. The Doctor wisely telleth him of the impossibility of making his peace that way knowing also how apt every one is to take that course that so he may utterly despair of himself self-doings and active righteousness and more readily hearken to the voyce and tydings of the Gospel only And 3. though to believe be as impossible to mans natural power yet it followeth not but that he is rightly put upon the believing the Gospel as Paul did bid the Jaylor Act. 16. to believe in the Lord Jesus that he might be saved The believing way is the only way of life peace and Salvation and the Gospel is to be preached for the obedience of Faith Rom. 1.5 You seek a knot in a rush M. B. 7 Caution I much wonder at one speaking thus The Law doth not only deprive us of comfort but it will let no body else speak a word of comfort because it is a rigid keeper and he consirmeth it by that place Gal. 3.23 But how short this is appeareth 1. Because what the Apostle calleth the Law here he called the Scripture in general before 2. He speaks it generally of all under that form of Moses his Regiment so that the fathers should have no comfort by that means Answ Your Margin might have directed us to the Author or Book if not to the page and place where that had been candid for the circumstances there would have given much light Many sentences of your own if singled separated from what precedeth would speak strangely and make a harsh sound I think that the expression which occasioneth so much admiration in you is either D Crisps or some other reputed Antinomians and his words are Allegorical Though Pauls friends had free access and might minister unto him Acts 24.23 yet many a Martyr in Queen Maries time had not that favor So the Law being a spiritual Jaylor to the Conscience suffereth none in a Legal way to comfort it no work no duty performance or reformation nor man nor Angel The Law came by Moses but Grace Pardon Peace Favor Life Consolation by Jesus Christ 2. That place Gal. 3.23 doth sufficiently confirm it and hath been used for that purpose by such Divines as you have no exception against 3. Your Reasons are invalid For first That Scripture in general is the Law or nothing in the Scripture but the Law which concludeth all under sin Verse 22.
exceedingly prone therefore saith I am thy God as I have made my self formerly known unto thee and thou shalt have no other as not worship stocks and stones so not form and conceive otherwise of me in thy heart and minde And verily as the heavenly light of this true knowledge of God which did appear in the word and work of atonement by Jesus Christ began to be eclipsed and darkened in the Church so idolatry and superstition crept in and prevailed till at last it became palpably gross by Images Pictures using of Saints for Advocates and the like And the bright and glorious arising and shining forth of the Sun of Righteousness who hath health under his wings Mal. 4.4 will prove the alone effectual means to disperse dispel demolish and abolish all that trash and superstitions vanities and to instruct and guide mens souls aright into the knowledge of the true God M. B. The practical use is to pray and labour for such a free and heavenly heart that the Law of God may not be a terrour to you Answ You have taken a course for that aforehand for how can the Law be a terrour while you teach that it cannot curse nor condemn but thus a mans heart may flatter him with a false peace in the way of legal conformity having not attained to the righteousness of Faith or of Christ Again that Spirit which maketh the heart so free and heavenly that the precepts of the Law are sweetness and delight cometh not by the Ministery of the Law but of the Gospel this is not the Spirit of bondage to fear but of Adoption Grace and love Therefore let us pray and labour that the Gospell may have a free passage and be glorified LECT VI. Rom. 2.14 15. For when the Gentiles which knew not the Law c. M. B. Pa. 58. OBservation There is law of nature writen in mens hearts How can the Antinomian think that the moral law in respect of the mandatory power of it ceaseth Ans Your Antinomian thinketh as you also know that the moral law is perpetual and inviolable in respect of the mandatory and damnatory power also within its own territories and dominion there is nothing taken from it thus you mistake him forget your self and abuse your reader and hearers M. B. Page 59. This is good to take notice of against a fundamental error of the Antinomians about the Law in general for they conceive it impossible but that the damning act of the Law must be where the commanding act of a Law is Answ If this errour be fundamental I muse you bring no stronger Artillery to batter and quite raze it 2. Your adversary speaketh of the power and you dispute of the Act there may be power where it is not alway acting 3. I say still The law hath power from the Author of it indifferently to command and to condemne If the Law of our Land should never condemne or punish actually for murder because no man-slayer is to be found yet it hath power to do it nvertheless when occasion shall serve M. B. There are only two things go to the essence of a law c. 1. Direction 2. Obligation Answ These are but your words without warrant or weight which can never carry it your part is to refell the contrary 2. If there be such a law which can onely direct and oblige to it the Apostles Argument may seem to be invalid Gal. 3.10 saying They that are of the works of the Law are cursed c. for a man may be of the works of the Law as it is of power to oblige to direct and oblige only say you and yet be exempt and free from the curse I much marvel that you or any can suppose a law obliging to it for obedience and yet not obliging or binding to answer for disobedience Whatever the Law saith it saith to them that are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty before God Rom. 3.19 Herein say you lyeth the essence of sin that it breaketh the Law which supposeth the obligatory force of it Answ Sin is a swerving from the rule of direction 1 John 3.4 But can there be sin and not guilt or can you suppose a man to be formally a sinner and yet out of condemnation by the law by preventing that consequence as you call it Lastly a man is properly odious and hateful to God in that he is a sinner and not as he is guilty and subject to the curse which be the effects of justice occasioned only by sin M. B. God by reason of the dominion he had over man might have commanded obedience and yet never a promise of eternal life Answ To what purpose do you here tell us what God might have done where the question is of what God hath done what a law he hath made and put man under which as it commandeth obedience so it condemneth disobedience Rom. 2.8 9. Who God will render unto every one according to his deeds to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life But to them who are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath Is not here the express and full minde of God in his law and will you curtaile or conceal any part of it Besides how can it stand with divine justice to constitute a Law without power to punish transgressors when he giveth his law in charge he saith That he setteth before them life and death blessing and cursing Deut. 30.19 You may long tell any sober understanding man that he may safely put his hand into the fire it cannot burn him for there may be a fire without power to burn before you can perswade him unto it And yet God hath sufficient power to do this also M. B. As for the other consequent act of the law to curse and punish that is but an accidental act and not necessary to a law for it cometh in upon supposition of a transgression and therefore as we may say of a Magistrate He was a just and compleat Magistrate for his time though he put forth no punitive justice if there be no malefactors offending so is it about a law Answ The Apostle in Gal. 3.19 doth strongly and convincingly conclude against you viz. that the moral law came in with power not only to direct but to reveal wrath curse and condemne for saith he It was added because of transgression that is to accuse and convince of it and to condemne for it that so it might be subservient to the promise in preparing the heart for Christ the blessed Seed This is plaine to be Gods intent in giving and bringing in his law at the first by Moses except you can since then let us see how it is altered or where and when the law was onely given to direct and oblige the other authority and power being denied it or rather taken away
mistakes First concerning the nature of the life of grace which is not in works nor the expressions of inherent holiness or sanctification for to move and walk in the law of works or of our own active righteousness is a legal life but that is the life of grace which reviveth quickeneth and comforteth the mortified Vita anima est sentire gratiam Dei mors animae est sentire iram Dei Scult dejected and distressed conscience which lay in extreme wo and in the shadow of death being apprehensive of the sentence of condemnation passed upon him by the law and the spirit of bondage If you know not yet what this life is and wherein it consists ask the condemned prisoner whose life is gone by the law and he will say his pardon would be his life which must come from the meer grace and mercy of his Prince Your great reading may tell you that when divinity was more pure and distinct then it is now repentance was said to have two parts Justificat vitae hoc est unde nascitur vita Pisc 1. Mortification 2. Vivisication and the object of both these is the man who is spiritually slain by the law as Rom. 7. and again quickened through the faith of the operation of God and so made partaker of the first resurrection Revel 20.6 hence it s said Col. 2.13 You hath he quickened together with him forgiving you all your trespasses and the efficient or worker of both these is God who killeth and maketh alive and man is the patient the soul receiving the pardon of sins hath entrance into the presence and favour also of God and in his favour is life and his loving kindness is better then life In his presence is fulness of joy saith the Psalmist Hence we read that justification is to life Rom. 5.18 and Christ is the bread of life whoever eateth of him shall live for ever John 6. and whosoever heareth his voice shall live John 5.25 Thus life cometh by believing but law is not of faith Gal. 3.21 If there had been a law that giveth life surely righteousness which is our justification should have been by the law Gal. 3.21 for righteousness and life come both one way but you confess our righteousness cometh not in that way of the law and so I hope hereafter you will say life cometh another way Here let me commend a sentence or two unto your self and the rest of the brethren yet for your sakes I will not English them Vos falsa imaginatione decipitis miseros homines quasi ex lege vivere debent eóque praetextu in lege ipsos detinetis Evangelio interea facitis invidiam quasi in nihilum justitiam redigat quam ex lege habemus atqui lex ipsa est quae nos sibi mori cogit Rom. 7. pulchre describit Paulus neminem legi vivere nisi cui lex est mortua hoc est otiosa fine effectu nam fimul atque lex in nobis vivere caepit jem nobis infligere lethale vulnus quo perimus c. ergò qui legi vivunt nunquam senserunt vigoram legis ac ne gustarunt quidam quid lex sibi vellet Calv. Paulus est hic haereticus omnium hareticissimus estque haereses ejus inandita quia dicit mortuum legi vivere Dēo Pseudo-apostoli docebant nisi vixens legi mortuus es deo hoc est nisi vixeris secundum legem coram deo es mortuus Panlus plane contrarium dicit Nisi fueris mortuus legi non poteris vivere Deo c. hanc doctrinam ratio sapientia humana non capit ideo perpetuò contrarium dicit scilicet si vis vivere deo oportet te legem servare c. Est que hoc principium una maxima omnium Theologorum vivens secundum legem vivit Deo Luth. Est omnino impossibile aliquem simul legi Deo vivere nunc cessante lege peccato morte adsit justitia Christi salus vita aterna Quicquid est in me gratiae justitiae vitae pacis ac salutis id omne est Christi haecn ipse mihi donat aboles legem damnat peccatum mortem mortificat ut ego vivam habeam in ipso aeternam pacem justitiam consolationem vitam Sed Christum intueor amplector qui crucifixus a me apprehensus mihi dat vitam sic viverit in me Christus Corn. He that hath any Christian experience knoweth that when the soul lyeth in death and darkness the apprehension and presence of Christ who is received and cometh into the heart by faith is the onely true light life peace and consolation of it What that law is David so commended to get life by is to be known hereafter together with your second mistake here viz. that the law is the instrument to beget life and to sanctifie for it is too irksome and vain a thing to speak to these every time you east them in our way M. B. p. 153. This is remarakble that though the former tables were broken yet now God enters into a covenant of grace with them as appeareth by proclaiming him self long-suffering gracious but yet God causeth the commandments to he written again for them implying that these may very well stand with the covenant of grace which opposeth the Antinomian Answ God entred into a covenant of grace with them not now but long before see Gen. 17.4 7. As for me behold my covenant is with thee and thou shalt be a father of many nations vers 7. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee 2. Though God in great wisdom gave the ten commandments to Abrahams posterity for special ends and purposes as now also it is continued in the Church yet it is not joyned to the covenant of grace as if it should perfect or alter it or adde any thing to it It being intire of it self and distinct from the law their natures offices ends and effects so much differing one from the other Read Gal. 3.15 16 17. A place full of light and satisfaction Brethren I speak after the manner of men though it be but a mans covenant yet if it be confirmed no man disannulleth or addeth thereto vers 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made c. vers 17. And this I say that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ the law which was four hundred and thirty yeers after cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect And note by the way 1. How the covenant or Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and promise are both one with the Apostle which you stumbled at elswhere 2. That there is not one word of truth in what you say to oppose your adversary but the text is directly against your self 3. Where you say the law may
stand with a covenant of grace your own words imply that it is not then a covenant of grace as you formerly asserted M. B. page 155. How necessary it is to have this law promulged if it were possible as terribly in our congregations as it was on mount Sinai this would make the very Antinomians finde the power of the law and to be afraid to reject it Answ 1. If it were so necessary that the outward promulgation or preaching of the law should be so terrible as your wisdom requireth surely God would have it so for he hath power to do it but the special power and terror is inward and spiritual God by his convincing spirit making the heart shake and tremble in the conscience of sin and a cursed perishing condition of this terrour and consternation your Antinomian may scon have much experience as you yea more for he findeth death in that ministration by the reviving of sin Rom. 7.9 10. and therefore is dead to it as Gal. 2.19 but you say life cometh by the law and so live by doing and working an assured argument that you were never truely slain by the law 2. Would you now have the law become so terrible in your congregations why then did you reprove them that made it like a horrid Gorgon c. you mean surely this terrour only for the Antinomians not for others you thunder against your adversaries but deal gently with friends Also you dash sin out of countenance which is well but do not throw down mans righteousness but establish it rather A little after you say The Antinomian counteth sin nothing because of justification But in what sense doth he so vilifie it I dare affirme that none hateth sin more is so weary of it complaineth so of its remaining and dwelling in the flesh and the sorrow it sometime breeds him c. And yet if he make light of it how can he prize justification from it he that accounteth nothing of sin cannot rightly esteem of a Saviour to save from it therefore contrarily our counting all things loss and dung even our best works legal zeal reformation and worship because mingled and defiled with the leprosie of sin for the excellent knowledge sake of Christ Jesus our desire ever to be found in him not having our own righteousness to know nothing but Christ crucified c. do argue sin to be our greatest and most fearful evil to our apprehensions but it is not so with you and your disciples who seldome or never preach or desire to hear of a Saviour of free justification and do so wrangle with the doctrine of grace and faith And lastly it is confessed that by faith in the blood of Jesus and the grace of justification raigning in the conscience sin Satan and hell be conquered defied and triumphed over Who can lay any thing to their charge Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ c. he that envyeth this in others is to be pitied because of his poor condition What account do you make of a debt you know is discharged It troubleth you little in reference to danger by suite or law Lastly That phrase of Gods not seeing sin in a believer is still an eye-sore to you and many other And to add this to the former It argueth that you make nothing of sin For 1. If you hated it you would seek to get your soul cleansed from it 2. If you loved God you would not come and appear in his sight untill you were washed from it seeing it is unto him so hateful and abominable that he cannot endure the sight of it and therefore calleth upon his people to wash and make them clean and then to come Or yet 3. If you feared God and stood in true aw of him knowing how terrible he and his presence is where he seeth and marketh iniquity for who may abide it Psal 130.3 or who then can stand you durst not abide in his fight without that faith and assurance that the blood of his Son Jesus hath washed and cleansed you from all your sinnes If as that Martyr said the vaile were taken off Moses face such a glory and dreadful Majesty would break forth as would confound your spirits and be intolerable your sins being set in the light of his countenance then you would not deal with God without faith in the blood of Christ Extrae Christum horrendum est imo de Deo cogitare Calv. nor durst entertaine a thought of him out of Christ in whom iniquity is done away never to be remembred any more Then you cry out Oh blessed man whose iniquities are for given and whose sin is covered and so use your own words say all that ever you preached or writ against this is false you knew not what you said Thus a day of temptation and trouble may come in which you all who have disparaged and despised this may be brought to acknowledge and embrace it as an useful and most acceptable truth of God full of soul-consolation which in your wretched security is now loathed and rejected the law is so mitigated and modified in your opinion and Ministery that Sinai is your Sion you are not afraid to stand there LECT XVII Exod. 20.1 And God spake c. M. B. THe Antinomian pleads for the universal abrogation of the law Answ He is an Antinomian that doth so but you cannot finde the adversaries you deal with guilty of such a crime yet you are no fit advocate to patronize or defend the law for it is abrogated by your self if that be true as it is most certaine that lex non damnans non est lex a law without power to condemn is no law for the law you would establish hath no condemning power as you say therefore the law is by you abrogated How fully satisfactory is Luther to any reasonable man Non quod lex pereat imo manet vivit regnat in impiis sed pius est legi mortuus sicut peccato diabolo Inferno mortuus est quae tamen manent mundus ac impii ea habebunt Ideo cum Sophistae intelligunt legem abrogari tu intellige paulum quemlibet Christianum universae legi abrogari mori tamen legem manere Sophisters do understand and take the law to be abrogated but the truth is the Christian is abrogated and dead to it and yet the law remaineth entire Henceforth correct your self and cease to slander or mistake your poor brethren and without cause so to embitter your words with gall and servour of spirit and the Lord forgive you What further is spoken in this Sermon against the Antinomians is either chargeable upon Islebius or some other not known to me or 2. Is grounded upon a meer mistake of our tenets or is answered elsewhere so that to avoide prolixity I meddle with no more LECT XVIII Mat. 5.21 22. Yee have heard that it was said by them of old time Thou shalt
contradiction but it is in your own tenets which cross and overthrow one another And you deny God to have any Soveraigne or Reigning power in his Law but onely a Ruling and that also with much mitigation and abatement of rigour in his justice which yet is as indefinite as unwarrantable In ruling and commanding by his Law he may promise no peace life nor good say you unto the obedient nor threaten and condemn the disobedient Thus you exauthorize God in the Kingdom of his Law and put him down from two parts of his justice and power regall Mr. B. The Law is no more abrogated to a believer under the old Testament then to one under the new Answ You mean it is as much abrogated that is nothing at all Mr. B. They carry it as if it were abrogated onely to believers under the Gospel Now how can this ever be made good for either they must deny that there were any believers under the old Testament or if there were then they are freed from it as much as any man Answ Indeed we hold and teach according to the Scriptures that in the daies of the Gospel God calleth unto and maketh his elect partakers of a far more free excellent and comfortable state and condition then was before Christ as Galat. 4.1 2. Now I say that the Heire as long as he is a Child differeth nothing from a servant though he be Lord of all But is under Tutors untill the time appointed by the Father You say Either we must deny that there were any believers under the old Testament or they were freed as much as any now Let any of a mean capacity but mark the Apostles words The Heir so long as he is a Child differeth nothing from a servant c. this representeth the state of believers in that Infantile age which differeth not from a servant how then say you that they were freed from the Law as much as now will you make the condition of the Child being six or seven yeers old and so kept under his Guardian and Tutor to be as free as when being of full age he is at his own disposing You say If the Law be taken for the whole administration you grant it was Pedagogicall and more servile But was not this servility principally yea and as concerning the conscience and the spirituall state of the soul solely caused by the Morall Law which like a thick cloud and dark of sin and wrath Rom. 3.21 Rom. 4.15 did interrupt and hinder their light and make the Heavens black over their heads so that they could not all that while break perfectly thorow that veil which lay so on them the sacrifices and other ceremonies indeed were a burthen and bondage in respect of the outward state but not as pertaining to the conscience which is chiefly intended by Paul And therefore it must be understood of that servility they were in by the Morall Law more then now and in regard of this Morall Law especially saith Calvin were they said to be under a heavy yoke as Act. 15.10 And how can the Law Pedagogically taken be the same to them as to us in respect of justification and salvation as you tell us whereas you granted this Administration to be altogether antiqnated pag. 205. l. 20. Mr. B. If then we speak of the Law in regard of the essential parts of it which are directing and commanding threatning and promising life upon perfect obedience these are still equally in power or else equally abrogated to all believers under the old or new Testament Answ If these all and every of them be now confessed to be essentiall parts of the Law then none of these be appendices or meer accessaries as D. Tailer accounteth them and you in pag. 59. do make direction and obligation the onely essentiall parts of a Law and threatnings and premises to be but consequences required ad bene esse so inconsistent and mutable are you in your positions And if these also be essentiall why did you oppose it in the Assertion of grace Againe then to abrogate any of these is more then to diminish one Apex or Iota of the Law and so who now is become least in the Kingdome of God But lastly the Law in regard of these is not equally in power to the faithfull under both Testaments for it is more then evident that the believing Jews were put under the teaching and government of it as a Child in non-age is made subject to his Schoolmaster or Tutor and that by the will and appointment of God Gala. 4 13. Gala. 3.23 Before faith came we were kept under the Law c. 24. Wherefore the Law was our Schoolmaster unto Christ 25. But after faith is come we are no longer under a School-master Now the time appointed by God the Father was till the resurrection of Christ which he calleth the coming of faith or tempus Evangelii the time of preaching the Gospel to all for the obedience of faith and hereby he calleth and bringeth his Church into a more fice and happy condition therefore now is the Church said to receive the Adoption of the Sonnes Gala. 4.5 that is say Interpreters The liberty and right pertaining to Sonnes which was not granted before Christ was exhibited And saith Calvin Truly Paul doth not speak here only of the ceremonies nor of the Morall Law severally but comprehendeth the whole oeconomy or Ministery of Moses by which God then governed his people And if the whole then it followeth that the Law Morall is not now equally in power as then Also do not you say that the Morall Law is onely now of force to a believer in the mandative and directive part but not in the promissive or threatning So that it concerneth you to consider that those Arments for subjection under the old Testament are not so strong and valid against believersnow sith the Church is in the condition of the Heir that is grown up and of ripe age Mr. B. Therefore it is wild divinity of an Antinomian Hony C. pag. 6. who makes three different estates of the Church 1. Vnder the Law 2. Vnder John the Baptist 3. Vnder the Gospel Answ Why is it wilde In that it groweth not in your Garden or liketh not your fancy so also there are other pretious truths like choice flowers which are disliked and cast out as unsavory weeds by your Doctrine and Ministery You should have shewed some cause of distaste which you do not unless you include it in these words He compareth these together and sheweth how we under the Gospel exceed those of the Law c. but here I see that as you cannot receive it for truth so you dare not plainly reject it for errour The Authour in that point hath given full satisfaction to the indifferent Reader otherwise I should adde much more There is great difference between the time of promise and of exhibition or performance It was revealed unto the Prophets that
in the ceremonies then used as you imply Mr. B. In what sense the Apostle argueth against the Law Answ Truly he argueth not against it in any true sense at all but for it to give and maintain all its rights Mr. B. The proper state of the question in those daies appeareth Act. 15. where you have a relation made of some believing Jews of the sect of the Pharisees who pressed the necessity of circumcision c. Answ See Act. 15.5 There arose up certain of the Sect of the Pharisees which believed saying That it was needfull to circumcise them and to command them to keep the Law of Moses Note that expression which believed So that the question was then Whether that circumcision and the keeping of the Law were needfull to be conjoyned with the faith of Christ in the point of salvation and ver 11. makes it more plain We believe through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to be saved even as did they also I confess your first words might import as much but you are not constant but shrinke much from this And tell us what opinion the Jews were generally of who thought that the observation of the morall Law without Christ was enough for their peace and comfort In your prosecution of it you sejoyne what in the proposition was rightly conjoyned Those Jews who thought as you say That the external performing of the ceremonies and a life outwardly conformable to the morall Law would secure them they did oppose Christ and perfecute his Gospel as 1 Thes 2.14 15. But the other mentioned Act. 15. did receive and preach the Gospel though not according to the simplicity that is in Christ 2 Cor. 11.3 but added and mingled other things to that of faith and so overthrew the whole Gospel and salvation also Hence it was the Apostle peremptorily said that If they were circumcised Christ profited them nothing implying that they would have Christ and circumcision too Your words are That the Apostle speaketh seemingly derogatorily to the Law because they took it without Christ But he indeed derogated not from it but acknowledged it to be good if used lawfully but they did otherwise not in taking it without Christ as you affirm but in conjoyning it with him as if he alone were not sufficient to salvation as well as to righteousness without the works of the Law Take you heed of this way and kinde of teaching Mr. B. Now where the Law seemeth to be abrogated it is taken either 1 Synecdochically put for that part which actually condemneth as Gal. 5. Against such is no Law for he speaketh as if there were nothing in the Law but condemnation Whereas we may say the Law is by way of direction and prescription for a thing as well as against it by accusation Answ If it be said the Law of our Land hath nothing against you or to accuse you of in point of homicide Is this any seeming abolition of the Law while your innocency is cleared and justified the Law suffereth no diminution by it how tryfling and childish is this your discourse 2. If the Law be for a thing in direction and against it by accusation then by Pauls doctrine still it hath lost nothing of its power Thus the constant mistake is not ours but yours who most abolish the Law indeed Mr. B. First He is without the Law that is without the understanding of it thus the Gentiles Secondly Without the sense and experience of the terrifying power of it as Paul Rom. 7. Now the godly though they be denied to be under the Law yet are not said to be without it Answ It is true the faithfull have both understanding and experience of the Law but now faith Luther It is their cheif point of wisdom to be ignorant of the Law Is not this a Paradox or Parable You say Paul Rom. 4.14 cannot mean the Law of Moses for that was long after a poor reason Doth he not in Gal. 3. deny the blessing and inheritance of Abraham to be by the Law but by promise and yet ver 11. he saith The Law was 430 yeers after When the blessing was promised to come in that way to Abraham there was no question but now since the circumcision and the Law were after added to the promise and have been of so long continuance is that question thereby occasioned In the fifth Interpretation of what it is to be under the Law your words are nothing against us but rather confirme that exposition of Rom. 6.14 which is in the Assertion of grace against D. T. But observe withall how here you oppose Law and grace in sanctifying and healing which formerly you so much contradicted You say The Law is never so much alive as in the godly who most obey it But I say It is the spirit of Christ that quickeneth them by the Gospel to love and obey the Law and their obedience floweth from this life of faith as an expression of it He that liveth by faith as Gal. 2.19 20. keepeth the Law joyfully and freely LECT XXIIII Deut. 4.13 And he declared to you his Covenant c. Mr. B. I Have already handled the Law as a rule and now come to consider it as a Covenant that so the whole Law may be fully understood Answ Your undertaken be great and your promises sat and fair but never knew I worse success nor less performance I muse that these points so weighty and so much controverted should be so sleightly handled and your Affirmative part so weakly confirmed by a man of your learning Suppose all be clear and unquestionable to your self which I cannot believe now yet others need more light then as yet you hold forth And your Adversaries see nothing to convince and satisfie them You tell us He that is so blinde that he cannot see by the light of one Sun would not see any more if there were a thousand Suns Alas do you think that he that readeth then shall find these your elaborate and judicious Lectures so clear and beyond exception that he is like unto him that hath the nooneday to walke in and is strangely blinded if any thing be rejected as erronious or questioned as obscure To give you my ingratefull opinion I neither see light of one Sun nor yet of one beam of it I fear you are too self-conceited and self-confident I say no more but Aliorum esto judicium We are now being made publique to be censured by others Now you come to consider the Law as a Covenant c. Answ Then it is not simply a rule but it may be you will help this somwhat by telling us of a more large acception of the Law yet that is not to speak precisely to the point in controversie also though your considerations be divers yet the Law is constantly the same Your doctrine that the Law was delivered in Mount Sinai in a Covenant-way or it was a Covenant God made with his people I list not
to meddle with by-matters You then shew what a Covenant is And as here you say You find much difference of judgement so I say You are unhappily perswaded to incline to the most unlikely unfound and palpably erronious opinion of all others if yet you have any to travel and go with you in your way but you love cross and by-wayes that you may be better noted to become famous or infamous Mr. B. The Law as to this purpose may be considered more largely as that whole doctrine delivered on Mount Sinai with the preface and promises adjoyned and all things that may be reduced to it or more strictly as it is an abstracted rule of righteousness holding forth life upon no terms but perfect obedience Now take it in the former sence it was a Covenant of grace take it in the later it was not of grace but of works Answ This is first to be premised and we take it as granted by you that however you consider the Law yet you mean onely the moral Law Yet you will not be contented with the simple and entire law as it is an absolute law in it self but do take in also unto it the preface promises and all things reduceable your extent of it is now become large indeed and to me indefinite What you draw in and reduce to it who knoweth But I smell some feare and diffidence in this great enterprize your own thoughts being apprehensive of the unjustifiableness of this strange and bold assertion you would not therefore be too narrowly kept in but will take more scope and ground then is allowable but let this pass and to come to a more particular reply Methinks the Pieface it self should have been sufficient to have stopt you in this your way or opinion Thus it is recorded Exod. 20.2 and Deut. 5.6 I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out c. out of which I collect and it is plain and undenyable That God was their God and Israel his people before the giving of the Law and that he did not in these words express his wilingness and consent to be their God if or upon condition they will keep these his Commandments which you call the first thing belonging to a Covenant therefore he saith Hear I am thy God that is I am now already thy God namely by free promise in the seed of the woman Gen. 3. or as it was made to Abraham and his posterity Gen 12.3 Gal. 3.6 To Abraham and his seed were the promises made And unto this promise or Covenant of grace then which I know no other in simple nature and essence or substance they had given and professed their consent formerly by their faith and externally by receiving circumcifion the signe of the Covenant and so avouched God to be their only God in Christ and themselves his people through him And he being their God and King it pleased him now to deliver unto them his will in this way and form of Government according to which he would rule them and they were to conform themselves to his pleasure herein 2. And this promise given by God and believed on by them so long before this promulgation and solemne delivery of the Law was entire of it self containing perfection of doctrine and holding out a free and clear way to pardon reconciliation and life And therefore it was singly made preached at first to Adam and Abraham with his posterity so that Paul saith Gal. 3.18 God gave the Inheritance that is all the blessedness belonging to a Child bylpromse denying and excluding the Law in this And hence is it that to prevent all objections against the doctrine of free grace Paul saith Rom. 5.20 Moreover the Law entered that the offence might abound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Law entered besides the promise of grace which was the prime and principall doctrine and it entered into the Church or among the people of God and yet neither to disannull nor to adde any thing unto the former Covenant or promise Gal. 3.15 as if of imperfect before it was to be perfected thereby Nor yet as if it were to be mingled with the promise and so to adulterate it but it was to be kept distinct from it as being of another nature and for another end contrary to that of the promise The Law was to uncover sin terrifie the conscience exclude the soul from Gods favour and presence the promise to cover to pacifie and comfort and to admit or give entrance again with confidence through faith in Christs blood The Law was to make sin abound that upon that occasion the ampleness and efficaciousness of the grace promised in Christ might be more abundant And as for the promises of the Law Piscator telleth you That they are to be excluded the Covenant of grace as being of a diverse nature or quality from those promises of grace The promise of grace is Nuda simplex gratuita the legall promises are Conditionales But now we will consider by what Scriptures and Reasons you would confirm it First you say Mr. B. There is nothing more ordinary with Paul in these controversies then to consider the Law so differently as take this instance Rom. 10.5.6 where he descibeth the righteousness of the Law from these words Do and live c. We find this in effect Deut. 30.16 and yet from this very chap. The Apostle describes the righteousness which is by faith And Beza doth acknowledge that that which Moses speaks of the Law Paul applieth to the Gospel Answ We might expect a more plain and clear text then this which is so knotty and difficult that it hath troubled the best commentators if yet you could produce any â—er verbum entelligit M. Legem quam Dominus voce sua promulgavit P. autom ad praedicationem Evangelii quae fuit Legis perfectio accommodat B. but your poor shift and nakedness is manifest If you stand here to Beza his words make directly against you What Moses speaks of the Law Paul applieth to the Gospel saith he Moses said thus of the Law and Paul of the Gospel Thus then by his interpretation 1. The Law is not one with the Gospel nor doth it comprehend it but containeth a doctrine in kinde differing from the Gospel or Covenant of grace 2. He seemeth to be of that judgement with many others that Paul doth but allude to that place in Moses and doth not directly and purposely cite Moses for confirmation and this is most probable in that something is added some left out and something altered Calvin thinkes the knot may easily be untied Sed totam in genere doctrinam quae â—vangelium sub se compreâ—endat c. thus If by the word we understand not the law but the whole doctrine of God in general as it comprehendeth the Gospel for saith he The word of the Law never cometh of it self to be in the
Ministerii sumpla and the express words in the text do make it more then manifest that the Apostles comparison is taken from the very substance of Moses Ministery to wit the Morall Law and not that part onely which is Ceremoniall as you would have it for verse 7. it is called that Ministery that is written and engraven in stones Whence it is easie to gather that Paul speaketh not of the Ceremoniall Impressum insculptum ex hoc locoisacile colligitur Paulum non agere de Ceremoniis sed de ipse Decalego B. but Morall part for it was the Decalogue that was so written and delivered in Tables of Stone 2 Your words imply that there is no difference in truth and strict sence between Law and Gospel so that the Spirit be taken with them both which directly contradicteth the Apostle who calleth one the Ministery of death and condemnation and the other of life and righteousness for the Spirit working by the Law doth kill and condemn and therefore is also called a Spirit of boudage Rom. 8.15 but the Spirit by the Gospel quickneth and giveth life being a Spirit of Adoption and liberty The Spirit is one and the same but the Ministrations be different and so are the effects produced by either You say the difference is because Christ the Author of the Gospel is the fountain of Life But is not Christ the Author of the Law also He is called the law-giver And though Christ be the Author of Life yet you cannot shew wheâ—e the Law is called the Ministery of Life as if Christ did use it to convey and give Life Also to say that the Spirit quickeneth by the Law is to enforce a sense flatly against the Apostle Moreover your expressions do make the place more obscure dark in telling us that the Gospel also without Gods Spirit is the Ministration of death because it is as impossible to believe as to obey the Law Whereas Paul therefore calleth the Gospel the Ministration of righteousness and life in that the Spirit thereby begetteth faith in the hearts of the Elect whereby they come to righteousness and life So Piscator The Law then having the Spirit working by it killeth as we see in Paul Rom. 7. But the Gospel maketh alive justifying all the Elect of God 2. You fail much in your second respect also for 1. as is proved and cleared that the opposition is chiefly between the Morall Law and the Gospel 2 However in a proper and true sense the Law is done away in the kingdom of Christ yet where infidelity is the Law remaineth but where the word of righteousness and life is there can the Ministery of sin and death have no place even no more then the darkness of midnight hath at noon-day but spirituall things are spiritually discerned 3. Paul intends that glory to be of the Law whereas you interpret it to be that accidentall glory which did shine upon Moses A word of these things shall suffice LECT XXIX Matth. 5.17 Whosoever shall break one of these least c. SEe and consider the words of the Prophet Psal 7.14 15 16. This Lecture above all yet sheweth much gall to be in your ink Now your task is neer an end The residue is but to make a grave or ditch for your Antinomian and to describe and delineate the man that all mistake being prevented he may forthwith be sentenced and sent to his appointed place but stay Where or who is he You are in a golden dream Mr. B. When there shall be a reformation and truth break forth c. then those corrupt Teachers who would poyson men should be discovered and be of least that is of no account Answ Seeing this will be when the truth breaketh forth Now Lord send forth thy light and thy truth that all false teachers and doctrines of lies and vanities may be put to shame and confusion And if your dream be true look to your self You fear not perhaps presuming upon your own supposed innocency externall sanctity the present state of our times the reputation you are in the authority and multitude of your combined fraternity c. as being now set upon a mountaine that will never be moved But the Church the Truth and quarrell is Gods He is strong that is Judge to put down the mighty from their seats to scatter the imaginations of the proud and to returne all the intended evill upon the head of the authors and devisers In him the fatherless find mercy he preserveth the simple and meek that trust in him Read Isa 66.5 Hear the word of the Lord ye that tremble at his word Your Brethren that have cast you out for my Names sake said Let the Lord be glorified but he shall appear to your joy and they shall be ashamed and Joh. 16.2.3 Some look for no better from your hands if left unto your will and have already sound the like dealing for the Scripture must be verified Mr. B. They overthrow the law when they hold such principles that will necessarily by way of consequence inferre the abrogation of the Law And thus though some Antinomians do expresly and boldly assert the abolishing of it at least to believers Yet others c. disclaiming it held such assertions as necessarily inferre the abrogation of it Answ You cannot prove and make it appear that any do assert the abolishing of it so it may be taken for a slander and false accusation 2. In way of correction as having overshot your self and would eat some of your Words You say At least to believers Now first What need believers a Law so farre as believers they live by Faith and walke by Faith yea and warre by Faith 2. The Law affordeth nothing to nourish or supply any defect in the Christians Faith 3. Yet you nor none can directly and duely inferre hence that they do abrogate the Law so much now to vindicate them But to returne your words upon your self I think that you do hold such principles that necessarily by way of consequence at least do abrogate the Law yea and make void repentance in great part after Faith is come and bring in carnal security and a false peace into the soul for one principle of yours is That direction and obligation to obedience be the sole essential constitutes of the law So that that which condemneth justifies promiseth and threatneth is not properly the Law but it hath been not onely asserted but proved already that these are as assential to a Law as the former Again What will you call that which doth condemn and promise favour and peace to the good if it be not Law I am sure it is no Gospel have you a third name for it 2. Whence have these power to condemn c. if no Law be in them The Scripture faith The Law doth curse reveal wrath c. I argue thus Whosoever denieth the Law a power to condemn and justifie he destroyeth the Law But Mr. Burg.
So in the Closure of your said Preface is a too over-weening conceit and high esteem of this your elaborate and profound Treatise which is become as a Sun newly risen in our Church the which if it let us not see what is Truth what is Error a thousand Suns cannot It had been well if you had brought one of the least beams of the true Sun In Iob we read of one who darkned knowledg and I am sure the true Sun of Righteousness doth not shine forth to the world any more clearly by these Lectures To say no more I could reduce all your Exceptions and the Points in controversie to a few Heads which I find dispread and infinitely repeated but then perhaps you would think your self somewhat wronged or else the Reader would not be so fully satisfied Therefore as you do so I am enforced to set before him the same dish of sodden Colworts usque ad nauseam and yet leasure will not serve it would prove also too tedious to speak to all your Book My intent then is only to examine what you writ against your special eye-sore the Antinomian how candidly you deal with him and how solidly you confute his Positions or Tenets LECTURE I. Mr. B. Text 1 Tim. 1.8 9. Knowing the Law is good if a man use it lawfully Answer In Page 3 and 4. you say the Law is good in three several Respects in the prosecution of all which I could except against divers things but that I shall have often occasion and a more proper place to speak them all afterwards Mr. B. pag. 4. It the Law is good in respect of the Sanction of it for it 's accompanied with Promises c. and therefore the Law doth include Christ secondarily and occasionally though not primarily Ans I stand musing at this your Novel-assertion That the Moral Law for of this you will have us to understand you not of the Ceremonal doth include Christ whereas the Apostle saith Rom. 3.21 That the righteousness of Faith is revealed without the Law And Gal. 3.11 The Law is not of Faith Now if the Doctrine of Christian Righteousness and Faith be not contained in the Law I see not how Christ should be there included And yet you presently add It 's true the righteousness of the Law and that of the Gospel differ toto coelo We must place one in suprema parte coeli and the other in ima parte terrae as Luther Now I thus argue 1. Christ and his Righteousness are inseparable If Christs Righteousness which is the only Righteousness of the Gospel be as far above and out of the bounds of the Law as the highest part of Heaven is distant from the lowest part of the Earth then it is impossible that Christ should any way be included in the Law Or 2. You will make the Law more capacious and of far larger extent then is the righteousness of it so that the righteousness of the Law must be kept below but the Law it self filleth Heaven and Earth or is above as well as below even where Christ is This is your New Divinity a late Upstart It is strange to see what shifts you are often put unto and how to strain your wits if not conscience also for as you want no good-will to maintain and uphold the tot ring Ministry and Doctrine of your Party so perceiving Dr. Taylor and others in a way scarce justifiable and to use Arguments and distinctions not solid and ineffectual to convince the Adversary or to confirm your Opinions you are thus resolved to go in an unbeaten and new-found path in hope to effect your desire But to proceed And know also that your said Author Dr. Luther saith That Christ is no more in the Law nor yet the Christian then Christ is now in the grave or Peter in the Prison Again saith he A believer is out of the limits of the Law in another Kingdom c. How far your secondarily and occasionally shall be made to extend or how you will expound them I know not you promise more hereafter that is a supersede as now M. B. It 's the hardest task in Divinity to give them Law and Gospel their bounds Ans Yet you have undertaken that task and presume to have done it magnis excidis ausis M. B. It 's true if we take Law and Gospel in this strict difference as some Divines do that all the Precepts where-ever they are must be under the Law and all the Promises be reduced to the Gospel whether in the Old or new Testament in which sence Divines then say Lex jubat Gratia juvat and Lex imperat fides impetrat then the Law can have no Sanction by the Promise But where can this be shewed in Scripture Ans What struggling is here to evade Your reading exceeds mine I remember none who so reduced and marshalled Precepts and Promises If I credit you in this it is not material I am sure that all Orthodox Divines I read Promiss aliae conditionales viz. logales Evangel gratuitae Mela. and the Scripture do witness That there be legal Promises which be conditional As He that doth these things shall live in them Gal. 3.12 And to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality is promised eternal life Rom. 2.7 And that the Gospel-Promises are absolute and free being onely founded in Christ in whom they have their sanction and establishment 2 Cor. 1.20 All the Promises of God in him are Yea and in him Amen unto the glory of God by us Secondly August Luther Calvin Zanchy Melancthon with others in whom we read those expressions and the like viz. That what is only propounded and commanded in the Law is obtained wrought and established by the grace and faith of the Gospel according to that in Rom. 3.31 We through faith establish the Law These Authors I say do yet make a clear difference between Evangelical and legal Promises and therefore cannot be understood in this your sence But lastly If the Spirit do convert quicken and give power by the Precepts and in and by commanding God do convey his grace of Regeneration which is your Opinion then this question is to no purpose Whether all the Promises be reduced to the Gospel or not Neither can it be truly affirmed then That the Law is established by the grace and faith of the Gospel which yet is both according to the verity of Scripture and the Testimonies of all Authors as is already shewed Now let the Reader judg or your self whether the Law can have Sanction by promise or no. M. B. I wonder much at an Antinomian Author saying It cannot be a Law unless it also be a cursing Law Assert of Gr. p. 31. For besides that the same Author doth acknowledg the Moral Law to be a Rule to a Believer and regula hath vim praecepti as well as doctrinae Ans The Author you mention doth
you know many a mans Ministry guilty herein and about twenty years ago there were fourty for one now So hath God been pleased to cause the Sun of righteousness to come from under the clouds But be bold and let them hear it again they take you to be one of them a fellow-worker a friend your reproof will be well taken and digested much rather now then heretofore Mr. B. 2. Another end may be to have these truths beaten out more the grace of justification because not only of Papists but Antinomians Ans And why because of the Antinomians For their sakes doubtless it is that the most acceptable Doctrine of free grace doth so gloriously shine forth and also if the world have any more insight into that mystical Article of Justification by these labors of yours or of others of this kind thanks may be given to the Antinomians as you still call them Some preach Christ even of envy and strife and some also of good will the one preach Christ of contention not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my bonds but the other of love Philip. 1.15 16. Mr. B. Luther speaks in his Commentary on Genesis much against Antinomists Answ But how unlike are your Antinomians to those even as you are to Luther Mr. B. But yet because people are fallen into a formality of truths it is good to set up Christ Answ Then if other truths were in power you see no need nor would have any care to set up Christ And what availe all other truths besides Christ who is all in all The great Apostle Paul desired to know among the Corinthians not any thing save Jesus Christ and him Crucified 1 Cor. 2.2 All other learning will spoile us if it be not after Christ Colos 2.8 Is there any foundation but Christ doth not all light life power peace consolation goodness felicity flow from Christ What a god or Idol rather do you or your people worship draw nigh unto know put confidence in out of Christ All religion and performances be as a dead and stinking carcase without faith in him Paul counted all other things but losse and dung for the excellency of the knowledg of Christ Jesus Philip. 3.8 But give ear you fellow-Ministers and professors all to what your Champion here saith If Christ had been truly set up such falling into formality would have been prevented and now no remedy against this grievous malady but the advancing of him Law and preaching of works never so zealously cannot effect the cure And yet observe how in the closure and first Use of this Lecture he saith How uncharitably and falsely many men charge it generally upon on our godly Ministers that they are nothing but justiciaries and leagal-preachers for do not all sound and godly Ministers hold forth this Christ this righteousness this way of justification c. may not these things be heard in our Sermons daily Now Sir compare that with this your own charge in this place also how then is it you so complain of formality for which cause you would have Christ set up how it is with you now I know not but let me add this That where I have been and there was no want of outward profession and zeal your choice professors etiam Theologi were so ignorant of justification the righteousness of faith and Christ that they sayd they never heard that Doctrine before And being examined further they replyed that their duties and serving of God was their faith and way of peace c. These were men of greatest note and long standing and seeing their error laid open their foundation sandy and their Babel like to fall many of them began to oppose and persecute some are yet alive And I continuing through the good hand of God in Lancashire where I frequented their monthly Exercises at two places yet did I never hear one Sermon of Christ or his righteousness nor no other way to peace and life but to Reform and Conform attending to the rule and precepts of the Law and this was for about the space of eight years In the same twentieth page you misinterpret that place Augmentum gratiae est in illa eminenâ— scientia Filiâ— Dei c. 2 Pet. 3.18 Grow in grace and in the knowledg of our Lord Jesus Christ expounding grace to be the effect of grace or inherent holiness whereas the Apostle would have them to grow up and increase in that excellent knowledg of Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the world and of that grace and favor of God that is revealed and manifested in him LECTURE III. 1 Tim. 1.8 9. Knowing the Law is good if a man use it lawfully Mr. B. While our Protestant Authors were diligent in diging out that pretious gold of justification by free-grace out of the mine of the Scripture see what Canons the Councel of Trent made against them as Antinomian You may gather by these their Canons that we hold such opinions as indeed the Antinomian doth Answ The like is our case now For 1. As Luther seemed to have prophecyed truly of our times when he said that after his dayes the Doctrine of free-justification would be lost again as we know it so came to pass and of late years through the preaching and writing of some few it hath been happily revived and brought out of obscurity to open and clear light again yet what Cannons have been both made and shot off against those men and thousands cease not still to consult how to extinguish and suppress the same And 2. of what other spirit can you judg your selves to be then that Councel was led by while you account the same Doctrine Antinomian as they did and also practise to your utmost against it And yet whereas you grant that you hold such opinions-indeed which they condemned you confess your self an Antinomian indeed and cannot so clear your self as your Adversaries do M. B. But our writers answer Here they grosly mistake us Answ And if you do not yet the world may plainly see how you mistake and scandalize us And so ignorant are the most of free-grace and so legally principled that where the Papists stumble there they are offended also M. B. In 2 S. Now if all this were spoken to take men off from that general secret sin of putting confidence in the good works we do it were more tolerable Answ You love not the truth for it self simply but for some end that you like it may be tolerable 2. Yet if you hold and teach good works to be necessarie to salvation yea in regard of presence and that the promise of life is made unto them as you tell us I see no how that sin of confidence in them can be avoided For as my soul thinketh any thing needful to save me so far I will trust and lean to it But the truth is that Christ hath saved us the work is finished and done 2 Tim. 1.9 And God sendeth his Messengers
Sion-Colledge But this I am bold to say that this is not that Law or Doctrine which came first out of Gods Sion Isa 2. If you teach thus then no man can dare to beleive or receive remission of sins through Christs blood till he be sure he finde first the presence of good works and when will that be that a man can finde good works before he believe or what are the good works he must so necessarily finde and unto which the pardon is promised you might have done wisely and it had been a special work of charity to have given instance in some and then to have shewed both how those good works may be done in the state of unbelief and also how they may be certainly known to be good before faith O poor sinful and trembling soul into what an inextricable labyrinth will this bring thee and when thou shalt be deeply plunged into temptation how to prevent thy fearful desperation by this doctrine is utterly impossible 2. By this you will make people look more to good works then to Christ present and formed in the heart the only hope of glory Col. 1.27 And he that hath Christ hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life whatever works he may pretend to have 1 Joh. 5.12 3. Yea a legal Ministery exhorting to duties performances and conformity to the Law of works will be held sufficient and men need not be bid to examine themselves whether they be in the faith and Christ dwell in them or no 2 Cor. 13.5 but whether they have store of good works and so they may be sure of pardon and salvation But Sir If you will have your Doctrine to have a free passage why do you not prove clear and confirm it your word will not bear and warrant a Tenet of this weighty importance and consequence Where finde you God speaking to the work or not rather to the worker and if the promise be made also to him of pardon or life it is for his faith or rather for Christs sake in whom all the promises are yea and Amon unto the glory of God 2 Cor. 1.20 Gal. 3.16 On that ever such a Doctrine should see the Sun be heard out of any our Pulpits and be suffered to pass the Press and with such applause to be published That good works must necessarily be present when we be justified and God should so respect and love them that he promiseth pardon and eternal life to them or to their presence you mean sure to the man for their presence sake for if they be so good and holy Etiam bona opera egent remissione they need no pardon or if they were not first pardoned by what art become they good If you say yet you will have Christ present too he need but stand as a cypher the promise is not to his presence but to the presence of holy duties Mr. B. Lastly Their ground is still upon that false bottom because our sins are laid upon Christ Answ You need wish to have your words well taken if you dare not build upon it as an infallible verity that your sins are laid on Christ yet others dare and the bottom is firm even a sure Rock when you have done all You add May they not be laid upon us in other respects to heal us and to know how bitter a thing it is to sin against God Answ 1. If the laying of sin on us will heal us what did make us sick or sore the wound is by sin 2. Then our health is not by laying them on Christ and discharging of us or by faith in him by the means of whose stripes we are healed Isa 53.5 2. That phrase of Gods laying of sin upon the justified in any respect is no Scripture-phrase but it is full of danger and most agreeable to the principles of reason a natural conscience and the Law 3. How bitter sin is may best be seen when we see and consider it upon Christ who under the heavy weight of it sweating water and blood cryed so out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me I grant the afflicted conscience knoweth some little of it and if ever God lay sin upon you and let you not see it laid on Christ for your full and final discharge it will then be intolerable Mr. B. 4. In denying them to be signes or testimonies of grace or Christ dwelling in us And here one would wonder to see how laborious an Author is to prove that no inherent grace can be signs c. Answ 1. They can be made no further evidences then it is evident and plain that they arise from true faith and then I must first know that I have faith and be assured I am justified else all such signs will leave me uncertain and may prove to be counterfeits For as this Argument holdeth not Here is light therefore the Sun is up for all light is not from the Sun the Moon and the Candle have proper lights also so all that we call graces and holy duties come not from faith nor are not only found to be in him who is in a justified estate and therefore cannot convincingly argue such an estate VVhat can you instance in being materially good that was not in Paul while he was a Pharisee who was blameless as touching the Law I fear me that it contenteth us that we know teach and profess a Christ crucified and come not to finde Christ truly formed and dwelling in the heart whose presence is the only light peace consolation and rest to the Soul and that is the reason of our eying and requiring of works and graces for testimonies and assurances of a good estate M. B. In answering the Author We may shew briefly how many weak props this discourse leaneth upon 1. In confounding the instrumental evidencing with the efficient Not holy works say they but the Spirit How he doth oppose subordinates Answ The Spirit and works are not subordinate for as is shewed works may be where the Spirit of adoption and faith is not 2. Neither can they be subordinate except the Spirit do infallibly reveal and confirm a good estate by them which you cannot make good Again you say Every man is in darkness and like Hagar seeth not a fountain till his eyes be opened Answ That is true but where do you read that our duties or works do open the eyes and clear this unto us The opening of the eyes is a good work indeed but it is Gods work and not ours Eph. 1.17 M. B. We say that a Christian in time of darkness and temptation is not to go by signs c. Answ And out of darkness and temptation what need is there to put them to that use will you light a candle at noon-day when there is light enough 2. when there is no temptation occasioning the questioning of faith or the estate what need is there to prove either M. B. 3. His arguments go
You may seem to disparage the learned too much as if confining or ascribing all the promises to the Gospel or accounting them to be Gospel they should deny any promise to appertaine to the law Whereas I think you cannot alleadge one learned Author who doth not grant the law to have its promises also yea and to make this difference also between legal and Evangelical promises that the Evangelical are free and absolute the legal conditional Promiss alia conditionales aliae gratuita yet never read I of any hard or undue expressions cast upon the law as you insinuate If the curse be not sometime expressely set down yet it is implicite and necessarily included wher-ever the law is mentioned taking it for law moral but you reserve this to a future time and so it is referred M. B. pa. 141. In the moral law is required justifying faith and repentance c. the second commandment requireth the particular worship of God insomuch that all the ceremonial law yea our Sacraments are commanded in the second commandment Answ 1. You may as well say also that the judicial law is included in the first commandment and the second table and so jumble and confound all in one law which in their delivery nature use and end are so distinct 2. Justifying faith is so called only from the object of it unto which it hath respect Non aliunde nos salutem quam ex evangelio consequi quoniam non alibi suam nobis justitiam Deus patefacil quae sola nos ab interitu leberat Calv. but this object is not propounded in the moral law for the soul to have respect unto therefore it is an error to teach that justifying faith properly so called is required in the moral law and a confounding of law and Gospel The righteousness of God is the object of justifying faith therefore it is called the righteousness of faith also Rom. 10.6 and that in opposition to the righteousness of the law v. 5. and it is only revealed in the Gospel whence Paul inferreth it to be the power of God to salvation Rom. 1.16 17. and the Gospel is preached for the obedience of this faith Rom. 1.5 that is to call and bring men unto this justifying faith but if the law do it it is not the proper office and end of the Gospel 3. What requireth repentance must necessarily propound a promise of pardon and acceptance unto the penitent but the moral law knoweth nor offereth no such mercy to any sinner 4. God cannot be rightly worshipped nor known but in Christ the Mediator by whom alone we have access with boldness and confidence Deus nisi in Christo suo coli nec cognosci Eph. 3.12 but the law teacheth not Christ 5. And if our Sacraments be commanded in the second commandment then they were commanded the Jews for whatever the law requireth it is of them that live under it as did the Jews Rom. 3.19 but I hope our Sacraments were not commanded them to use yea and we by that are to be circumcised who now have the second comman dment 2. If all the ceremonial law be commanded there then the ceremonial doth not differ in nature and kind from the moral but as a part from the whole Where is the specifical dissirence then so that you have vainly distinguished the law into moral ceremonial and judicial many other arguments might be used to let you see your great mistake but I forbear in a case so clear M. B. The moral law hath more particulars then can be in the law of nature hence the Apostle saith he had not known lust to be sin had not the law said so c. Ans As the moral law is not so comprehensive as to containe justifying faith and repentance so neither do you evince it to be more extensive or large then the law of nature having more particulars then be in that these be your private crotchets How will it stand with the justice of God to require more then was given to our nature at first And the invalidity of your reason is evident for though the Apostle had not known lust by it yet you know that much of that law lyeth dead and obscure in us there be many seeds and remanents of it which to us be imperceivable till the Ministery of the moral law do fetch those sparks from under the ashes revive and bring them to light And lust lurketh in our corrupt nature as fire is in the slint not known nor taken notice of till the law as the steel beat it out and cause it to sparkle abroad but it followeth not that the moral law containeth more because it revealeth more 2. You take the natural law as it is obliterated and imperfect in our corrupt nature and the moral law in its perfection an unequal comparison 3. The sin of lust was there before the law came now if there were not a law of nature or in nature against which it was how came it to be sin by what law had it a being for the knowledge of it you say was only by the moral law As you pass along you are ever and anon like a rash and passionate Schoolmaster lashing your adversaries without cause accusing them as guilty of crying down the law preaching against it reviling it c. and the like aspersions you cast upon them which argue and bewray too much gall and distemper in you but such passages I pass over being minded not to reply to every extravagant expression but only to give satisfaction in what is material LECT XVI Exod. 20.1 And God spake c. LAstly observe in general that God did not give them his law till he had humbled them Answ The principal end of giving the law is that by it as an instrument God may humble us beating down that pride and presumption in our spirits conceiting and boasting of what we neither have nor are M. B. p. 151. To signifie that the law could not be a way of justification Ans And yet you said but lately that the law requireth justifying faith to what end is it if it show no way to justification nor cannot justifie as you say afterward or how can it then be a covenant of grace M. B. God doth use the law as he doth his whole word to beget and increase the life of grace in us and in this effect of the law to increase life David doth often commend it Ans 1. There be two principal and essential parts of the Covenant of Grace 1. To hold out the way of justification peace and life 2. To promise and give the Spirit of regeneration and renovation So Jer. 31.33 34. and Ezek. 36.25 26. And the law doth neither of these therefore it is no covenant of grace 2. There is nothing more against Scripture and the maine current of all true divinity then to teach that the life of grace is begot by the law Here are two great
what Gospel what then doeth it But who will regard how promiscuously he preach seeing if he desire and intend either regeneration healing or conversion of the soul or yet as pag. 192. the increase of grace and holiness the Law as Gospel may indifferently be preached by him and blessed by God And though in respect of the use and end intended the law be subservient yet in their way propounded Gods and mans righteousness and of the effects produced by either viz. life and death they are and must be contrary M. B. And this must needs be the opinion of all sound Divines whatsoever may fall from them at other times as appeareth by their common answer to the Papists question If the Law and the commands thereof be impossible to what purpose then doth he command them Then we answer That those commands are not onely informing of a duty but they are practical and operative means appointed by God to work at least in some degree that which is commanded Answ You know they do not plainly and professedly say this is their opinion and therefore without alledging one sentence out of any directly to second this of yours you labour to derive and infer it as busily as you may such poor shifts are you put unto 2. Neither is it the opinion of all for those are as sound whose answer is That the law doth therefore command things now impossible that we may see our great loss by the fall with our present disability that so we may be humbled a viled and confounded in our selves 3. To incline and dispose the soul to look into the Gospel-way in which all cometh as to beggers by faith and prayer Therefore Augustin saith God commandeth things impossible not as you say that in commanding he may give power but that we thereby feeling our owne utter insufficiency may be occasioned to turn precepts into prayers saying Da quod jubes God bids us turn not thereby to enable us but that finding thereby both the necessity of it and also our inability we may cry Turn thou us and we shall be turned Thus we see whose hand worketh the will and deed 2. You also still mince the matter saying At least in some degree you love to play at small games rather then sit out you are uncertain not resolved as yet what to affirm and stick unto this being a fiction of your owne and no Scripture or Author can be produced to confirm or countenance it It was never questioned but what is wrought by the ministry of the word is to be attributed to the Spirit as the principal efficient and other passages of which he still giveth some verbal touch being already cleared I now proceed to his Arguments M. B. I bring these Arguments to prove the Law and preaching of it the means of Conversion 1. That which is attributed to the whole word of God as it is Gods word ought not to be denyed to any part of it Now this is made the propertie of the whole word of God to be the instrument of conversion 2 Tim. 3.16 Answ 1. Your proposition is unsound and will not be granted many things are often attributed to the word in general which canot be affirmed of every part of it Rom. 15.4 Whatsoever things are written were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope that is saith Piscator through patience arising from the comfort of the Scripture viz. that be written aforetime Now in the second premise page 188. you tell us that however the law may be blest to conversion yet it cannot be the ground of our justification adoption and consolation nor a man cannot have hope nor comfort in whatever he doth but it must be the promise onely of the Gospel See how your self will not have righteousness comfort and hope from every part of the word no from no part of the law but do restrain it to the Gospel onely and yet the greatest part of what was then written was law 2. Your Assumption is denyed also viz. That it is the property of the whole word to be the instrument of conversion And your place 2 Tim. 3.16 will not conclude it For first the Apostle speaketh not there of conversion but of conversation manners and life to the converted Secondly If all Scripture were to reprove correct then none is to comfort but one part is to reprove and another for consolation a third for doctrine c. law is to kill and Gospel to make alive what part is for one effect and purpose hath not formally any partial ability or fitness for another let the eye see the tongue speak and the feet walk as being purposely made and fitted for their proper offices The whole Scripture is as a promptuary or full Treasury out of which may be drawne and taken what is needful for faith and manners but what is for manners will be unaptly used to build up in the faith Also Matth. 13. the word compared to the seed is vers 19. called by Christ himself the word of the kingdom or note of distinction and by it is meant the Gospel as all know Lastly for that place Heb. 4.12 let Piscator satisfie you if the context will not serve you he saith it is Sermo Evangelii the word of the Gospel which is effectual to pierce the heart and convince the minde of the truth of the heavenly doctrine in it so that none can with a quiet conscience derogate from the credit or verity of it And he addeth that usitatissimum est c. It is a very usual thing with Paul by the word of God in general to mean the word of the Gospel M. B. 2. Argument is taken from those places where the law is expresly named to be instrumental in this great work not to name that place Rom. 7.14 where the law is called spiritual in that respect as well as in others because it is that which worketh spiritually in us as Paul was carnal because he wrought carnally Answ Indeed that place might well have been spared in this controversie for you finde nothing in it for your turne It is called spiritual because of the spiritual nature of it in opposition to Pauls which was carnal and because Paul was carnal therefore he wrought carnally but his working carnally did not make him carnal Also the law is called spiritual because of its spiritual discovering and convincing power or efficacy but not because of any spiritual change it wrought upon Paul as the whole context and every circumstance there maketh it plain the law let him see the vitiousness of his nature what repugnancy and contrariety was in him to that purity holiness and perfection held forth in the law and so occasionally by the commandment sin became exceeding sinful vers 13. M. B. The places are clear out of Psalm 119. and Psal 19.7 The Law of God is perfect converting the soul That which the Antinomian objecteth
it M. B. A third and last instance out of Scripture in answering of which all is answered from Gal. 3.2 Received ye the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of Faith that of the Gospel or doctrine of Faith In the opening of this Text we must take heed of three errors Answ A Caveat against all error is necessary but it is well that you accuse your Antinomian of none of those three And it had been wisdom in you to have taken heed of affectation of singularity for in rejecting all other of the Orthodox you substitute a most doubtful opinion of your owne as may appear by and by M. B. First I may demand whether any under the old Testament were made partakers of Gods Spirit or no. If they were how came they by it there can be no other way found but that God did give his Spirit in all those publick Ordinances unto the believing Israelites so that although they did in some measure obey the Law yet they did it not by the power of the Law but by the power of Grace Answ You might beware of co-incidency with the first error you named of having Faith before the Spirit for ever we come not to Faith by our reason and will yet you grant a giving of the Spirit to believers as if they first believed then received the Spirit but the gifts and operations of the Spirit are divers It s by the Spirit that the soul cometh to union with Christ and after the woman touched the hem of his garment she received a healing vertue but let this pass 2. By your next expression you might seem to be an Antinomian for They obeyed the Law say you but not by the power of the Law but by the power of Grace what difference now but I like not to force the joyning of hands where the parties hearts be not first linked yet the Reader may take it as if you contradicted your self for why are your words so exclusive but if it be not by the power of the Law originally as by the first and principal efficient yet you mean still it is a subordinate and secondary cause or mean of conveyance Egregie sane M.B. Again in the next place which hath alwayes much prevailed with me did not the people of God receive the grace offered in the Sacraments in the Circumcision Paschal Lamb They were partakers of Christ as well as we and yet the Apostle doth as much exclude Circumcision and these Jewish Ordinances from grace as any thing else wherefore that there may be no contradiction in Scripture some other way is to be thought upon about the exposition of these words Answ When a man willingly of himself is going down a steep place every thing will further him If you had not first conceived this silly and weak opinion of your self out of a humour of contradiction and desire to be accounted the vindicator of the Law you needed not to be so puzled and put to such shifts nor to seek out such sandy grounds and tottering Pillars to support what you see cannot be upholden I may so far credit you that this hath prevailed with you as you tell us but I cannot think it alway did so for you have not alway thought of this nor alway been of this private opinion that the Law is the doctrine of regeneration 2. Grant that this prevailed to keep and continue you in that minde yet would I learn if I might be so bold what brought you into it at first sure it came by some immediate inspiration for I see neither clear Scripture nor Author for it 3. As it hath so prevailed with you so I am sensible of no force at all in it whether to incline or carry the judgement unto it at first or to keep the minde the same still Consider better of it It is granted the people of God did receive the grace offered in their Sacraments c. and were partakers of Christ as well that is as truly and as really as we now what is this to your purpose I ingenuously profess I see not wherein it maketh one jot for you or to confirm your tenet what would you infer hence you say the Apostle did as much exclude these ordinances from grace as any things else and as well as much as the Law that must be your meaning Answ Your self have seemed still to exclude the Law from Grace and to make a direct opposition between them 2. As for Circumcision and these Ordinances being in their prime institution types yea signes exhibitive of Christ and if not essential parts yet appendances of their Covenant of Grace which cannot be said of the Law it being a doctrine of another nature and use therefore neither the Apostles nor Prophets in that case and sense did exclude them from Grace but onely as the hypocrites Ceremonia Legis in sua natura consideralae non autem quatenus suo tempore Sacramenta erant gratiae Pisc Gal. 3. and unbelievers did use them as resting in the things done or using them being antiquated and our of date or joyning them with Christ and Faith as necessary observances to salvation c. Now as this assertion will be too bold as unjustifiable That the Apostle doth as much exclude the Jewish Sacraments in their prime pure and right use from Grace as he doth the Law so that Argument is too childish viz. If the believing Jewes were partakers of Christ and did receive grace by these Ordinances so did they receive grace by the Moral Law also If you look again there is neither contradiction in Scripture nor occasion given to seek out such an uncouth and unwarrantable exposition of the words M. B. Some there are that understand by the Spirit c. Answ Here you first present your Reader with Beza's interpretation but that is misliked as not to your purpose Again say you thus it may be explained As by faith is meant the doctrine of faith so by the works of the Law is to be understood the doctrine of the works of the law thus far I approve which the false Apostles taught viz. That Chrict was not enough to justification unless the works of the law were put in as a cause also Answ If you look into Act. 15. and compare vers 1. and 5. it seemeth that they taught Christ for justification for it is said vers 5. they believed and what should they believe in Christ for but for righteousness and yet they required Circumcision and the keeping of the Law of Moses as necessary to salvation vers 1 5. when we are justified we must work to get heaven So many now hold and teach that good works and observing of the Law are not needfull to justification but they are to salvation of which sort you will prove one if I mistake not Contrary to Act. 15.10.11 Now why tempt ye God to lay a yoak on the Disciples necks c. that is as though he
could not save by faith and salvation now not to be sought by grace onely in Jesus Christ saith the Margent But we believe through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to be saved even as they Fathers do Learned Zanchy stateth the question between Paul and the false teachers to be An praeter Christum c. whether besides Christ good works also be necessary to salvation Mr. B. And if this should be the sense of the Text then it was clear that the Galatians were not made partakers of Gods spirit by the corrupt doctrine that was taught them of late by their Seducers but before while they did receive the pure doctrine of Christ and therefore it was their folly having begun in the spirit to end in the flesh this may be a probable interpretation Answ Yet these exceptions may be against the latter part 1. The question made by the Apostle is divisive whether they received the Spirit by the doctrine of faith or by the other for by one they must needs have it And not whether they received the spirit by both doctrines conjoyned and confounded so that you mistake the form of the question 2. They begun in the spirit while they abode in the doctrine of Christ for righteousness and salvation onely and their folly in ending in the flesh was in that besides the righteousness of faith they would have also works of the law for salvation for this is to end in the flesh that is in themselves having begun in Christ by the spirit or as saith Piscator this is called an ending in the flesh because it is a way both heavy and impossible Mr. B. That which I shall stand upon is this The Jews and false Apostles when they went furthest joyned Christ and the observance of the moral Law equally together for justification and salvation whereas the Law separated from Christ did nothing but curse and condemn not being able to help the soul at all Answ It is as probable if not more as I said that they held Christ sufficient to justifie but not to save without works 2. They joyned Christ and the Law for justification and salvation say you And you joyn them for sanctification and salvation so no such great difference 3. If the Law separated from Christ did nothing but accuse and condemn then it seemeth if it be joyned with Christ it will acquit and justifie or you think it hath left that power to condemn being joyned to Christ Came Christ to take that power from the Law or to mitigate and meeken it by uniting it to himself or to redeem his elect from under the Law to live and abide where no Law is to accuse Rom. 8. Who can lay any thing to their charge Is not Christ also our sanctification and redemption as well as our justification without the Law 1 Cor. 1.30 This doctrine is of God saith Paul there but yours is but of man Also you disclaim that the Law of it self is able to stirre up the least Godly affection in us but Christ and Law together can and not Christ without it If the soul be married to Chist her husband he cannot make her to bring forth fruits to God but Moses the former dead husband must be raised up again and so the beleiver hath two husbands to make him fruitfull and both at one time a thing utterly against the Law and the Ordinance of Mariage civill or spirituall for as in the civill two are thereby become one flesh so they that are joyned to Christ are one spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 Mr. B. More places of Scripture are brought against this but they will come in more fitly under the notion of the Law as a Covenant Answ It 's true there are many more pag. 165. of the Assert unto which as many might be added but you have enough of these the rest you reserve to a more fit occasion And I had thought to have enlarged this point but that it is lost labour and I may ill spare any Mr. B. Thus therefore I shall conclude this point acknowledging that many learned and orthodox men speak otherwise and that there is a difficulty in clearing every particular about this question but as yet that which I have delivered carrieth the more probability with me Answ I thank you for your ingenuous and free acknowledgement I am not alone in this my opinion as yet I think you are in yours for any thing I mean that can be read in the Orthodox for otherwise the whole Colledge would not have given you such hearty thanks and your book so superlative commendation if they inclined not your way 2. Whereas you find difficulty that is because you have taken the staffe by the wrong and worst end contending against the clear truth I will not say against the light and checks of conscience But the more difficult the more fit for one of your quality and parts to encounter with that so your victory might happily have been more glorious Yet you have brought it no further even in your own thoughts but to be questio probabilis and you found it in as perfect condition and state when you entred upon it nay I say more I never read that it was controverted by any Protestant till now but your words imply that you may be of another mind to morrow The Lord instruct and establish us Mr. B. And I will give one Text more which I have not yet mentioned that is Act. 7.38 where the moral Law is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the lively cracles that is not verba vitae but verba viva vivificantia so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 giving life not that we could have life by vertue of obedience to them but when we by grace are inabled to obey them God of his mercy bestoweth eternal life Answ Before you were onely defensive sheilding your self as busily as you could against those Scriptures that fought against you but now you are disposed to give your adversary one stroke and yet the arm or weapon rather will not serve to fasten one blow either to hurt or fright this is but a childish skirmish or flourish It is granted the moral Law may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lively oracles or words and so it is in its own nature yea and in the Ministry of it life is propounded as Deut. 30.19 I have set before you life and death and Levit. 18.5 Ye shall keep my statutes and my judgements which if a man keep he shall live in them but this life it promiseth to give is upon such tearms and impossible conditions that as yet none was quickned by it but contrarily it brought death upon all by reason of that poysonfull enmity and maliciousness of our common nature whereupon Paul is bold and peremptory to affirm that all that are of the works of the Law are cursed Gal. 3. this inbred enmity is discovered but not cured by
not unto themselves but unto us they did Minister the things that are now reported unto you 1 Pet. 1.12 Mr. B. There are two notorious falshoods 1. That God indeed saw sin in believers in the old Testament but not in these of the new Answ To see sin is as an Act of Gods justice in the legall Ministration under which they were in the old Testament but now as is cleared we are not under that Ministration as sometime you yeeld so that it may follow that God might see sin in those and not in these You conceive and think of God without reference to his word and would have sin the object of his eternall and incomprehensible sight in a carnall sense and imagination Can you believe that God remembreth the sinnes of his people no more as his Covenant is Heb. 8.12 And why not then be perswaded of this Mr. B. Was not that place God seeth not iniquity in Jacob spoken of the Church in the old Testament and besides If the Godly were in Christ then doth it necessarily follow by his principles That God must see no sin in them Answ The Authour took that place as I remember to be a Prophesie of a future state 2. Though they were in Christ yet not being adulti but in their time of minority under that legall government God might see and impute sin temporally unto them so there appeareth no absurdity or contradiction but that you love to have your own words Mr. B. The second difference he maketh is that God seeing did therefore punish and afflict for it but he doth not so now So Moses was stricken with death c. Now who seeth not how weak and absurd these Arguments are for doth not the Apostle 1 Cor. 11. speaking of those under the new Testament say That some were sick some did sleep were not Ananias and Sapphira struck dead immediately Answ Your words indeed are that his Arguments are weak and absurd but you make no such thing to appear As for that of 1 Cor. 11. his Answer to it still may suffice for you shew not any invalidity of it nor regard his distinctions there given Besides It will not be granted that those Corinthians nor yet Ananias and Sapphira were believers And so your reason falleth short of the point in question Mr. B. The Arguments of the Antinomians for the greater part do not onely overthrow the use of it to believers but to unbelievers also Answ Their Arguments if rightly conceived of and used do not overthrow the use of the Law to either but then you must keep it within its own proper limits and use it lawfully I grant if you understand those words The Law is a Schoolmaster to Christ historically onely for some make a mysticall and spirituall sence of them also then the meaning is that the same believing Jew who before was under the Law yet since Christ is freed from that servitude and so his state is changed that Pedagogy is no longer yea and believer or unbeliever in the daies of the Gospel we are not to meddle with that administration by Moses but onely to give care to the Gospel which is preached to all for the obedience of faith Rom. 1.2 5. but then it will necessarily follow that he that believeth is actually freed from the yoke of the Law if from the whole occonomy then from every part And he liveth by his faith onely under meer free grace Rom. 6.14 Mr. B. We will grant that to a believer the Law is as it were abrogated in these particulars 1. In respect of justification 2. Condemnation 3. Rigid obedience 4. It s no terrour nor are the godly slavishly compelled to obey 5. It doth not work nor increase sin as in the wicked 6. It is abrogated in many accessaries and circumstances Answ You say you had rather use the word Mitigation then Abrogation as being proper c. And I mislike both as they are used in reference to the Law for both Scripture and experience shew that neither word is incident nor can possibly befall the Law of God for it is inviolable If the Fire burn you not not Sea drown you it s not because they have lost that naturall power to do it but in that you happily are kept out of either such as abide under the Law find no true abrogation or mitigation And if the Law justifie not it 's not because the power of it to do it is lost or lessened for then it could not promise life to the observers saying Do. and live but in that it doth not justifie and give life actually to any that weakness is not in the Law but in man through the flesh Rom. 8.3 for the Law neither can nor ever yet had power to justifie a sinner nor one that failed the least in the observance of it And the like may be said in respect of condemnation The Law curseth and threatneth upon Sinai but cometh not on Mount Sion In Christ we are freed from the Law and so from its Condemnation so the change is in the state of a Christian but no alteration in the Law at all Your own expression cleareth it While the Law by reason of sinne doth pursue me I runne to Christ for refuge and seek to be found in him this I implyeth that the Law hath not lost any of its threatning or cursing power and that my security is not that the Law wanteth power to condemn but that I am in Christ and under his protection Phil. 3.9 As for your third respect of mitigating the rigid obedience as you call it yet I see you are forced to yeeld what D. Tailer and others did not that it cannot be maintained If we fail in the least tittle we are presently gone by the Law And as Christ hath not obtained at Gods hand that the Law should not oblige and tye us to a perfect obedience so you might as truly say he hath not procured that the Law should not justifie us being sinners for this it could not do before But I am glad to have such words from you that all our obedience is accepted not because of any mitigation in Gods justice or for dignity in the duty but onely in and through Christ 1 Pet. 2.5 the best piece of Divinity I find in your Book but then there is no mitigation of rigid obedience in the Law To the fourth To speak properly the Law is therefore no terrour because a believer is not under it for it is a terrour to all that be under it the Christian being under grace is free from terrour And if he be sometime or something afraid that is not because there is not fulness of security in his condition but through the imperfection of faith as children we fear where and when we have no true cause neither doth it argue any less terrour in the Law And you have some strange add unsound expressions in this Section for grant a regenerate and ungenerate part
the consent or opinion of Divines as the best yea sole reason and warrant you have for this whereas you regard not their concurrence in other things 4. Your inference is as strange viz. That there must then necessarily be grace included in the morall Law for suppose your reducement be true yet the same grace was still contained and kept in the ceremoniall as before and it could import no whit of its native vertue or as a physicall ingredient infuse its spirit strength or force to alter and qualifie the Law of works for then grace were no more grace nor works no more works If you make the morall so capacious as to receive into it the other as a greater Orbe the lesser or as your Chest doth a box of oyntment or the Ark the Pot of Manna yet there is no necessity of any influence from one into the other or of any thing to be poured out of one vessell into another but all that grace of remission of sins c. was still preserved and kept in the ceremoniall Law and so no grace in the morall 4. If the Apostle did speak as much against the ceremoniall as morall Law was it not because the people had no further respect then to the act observance or thing done resting in the bare use without faith in Christ the onely treasure hid and propounded in and by them and so they made that to be worke which was grace and so no difference between ceremoniall and morall things Sincere accepâ—â— non sunt proâ—â—ie opera hoâ—â—num sed â—â—ei nam niâ—â—l agimus sed â—â—ferimus nos â—â—eo ad recipiâ—â—ndam ejus â—â—vatiam Cal. And being thus perverted the continuance and use of circumcision and the sacrifices did oppose Christ and grace though they did not so as they were instituted and commanded by God to be used Sacrifices and Sacraments be Gods Ordinances which rightly understood and taken and purely used are not properly mans works but Gods He propoundeth and commendeth thereby unto us his grace and the work of redemption by Jesus Christ the sole object that our faith is to look at and to be exercised about in the use of them If we handle them sincerely we bring no work nothing for acceptation with God but onely are receivers of what he freely giveth unto us It s an easie and too common an errour to turn all into works even Baptism and the Lords Supper whereby the simple nature and verity of them is extinguished and lost Christ profiteth none but such as despairing of Law and works do by faith she onely unto the promise of his grace If a man seek help or comfort in any one act or work he is then bound to seek the same in all the works of the Law and so is a debter to fulfill the whole Law and is quite fallen from grace so is it Gal. 5.2 3 4. Behold I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised namely in that perswasion that that act will avail you any thing Christ shall not profit you at all c. 5. Lastly This say you hath been alway a strong Argument to perswade you c. And there appeareth no strength in it but it is as weak silly and poor as any and whereas you say alwaies I understand you thus viz. since you entertained that conceit that the Law of works is a Covenant of grace by a mistake herein you might be confirmed in that errour but what bred or occasioned that opinion at first And we now having the same morall Law how is it if the ceremoniall be included in that second Commandment that it doth not bind us also to sacrifice be circumcised c. as it did the Jews else we have not all in the Law Mr. B. This will appear from the visible seal to ratifie the Covenant Argn. 5 which was by sacrifices and sprinkling the people with blood and this did signifie Christ the Mediatour of this Covenant Answ Interpreters vary about the meaning of that Covenant-book or Testament that was sprinkled with blood Exod. 24. If you will contend it was the Law largely taken even for what was delivered on Mount Sinai In which large acceptation that Law blood of sprinkling and other ceremonies then used were typicall and shadows of future good things Heb. 10.1 then you exclude the Morall Law strictly taken as a rule of righteousness for it was not typicall And now what have you gained by making this a Covenat of grace which the Jews lived under or where or what grace is found in the morall Law But when Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said Behold the blood of the Covenant which the Lord hath made with you Exod. 24.8 your Marginall note telleth you It was to signifie that the Law being broken by us could alone be satisfied by the blood and death of Christ Let Moses be typicall Mediatour yet it followeth not that it was not a covenant of works if you take it for the Law morall but contrarily that it was no other for a Mediator was therefore needfull because by the Law the people were convinced that there was dissention and variance between God and them in that they were proved to be transgressors of that his Law and the enmity was to be slain and abolished and a reconcilement made by a middle person Argn. 6 The residue of this Section I leave as dubious and obscure of whom you mean I know not Mr. B. If the Law was that same Covenant with that Oath God made to Isaac then it must needs be a Covenant of grace But c. Therefore God remembers what he had promised to Abraham Deut. 7.2 It shall come to pass if ye hearken to these judgements and do them that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the Covenant and mercy which he sware unto thy Fathers Answ Nothing is more evident by this place then that the Law requiring these judgements to be hearkened unto and done was a distinct doctrine from that Covenant made with them in their Fathers For 1. God requires of them the doing of the one but promises that he himself will keep the other the Covenant and the mercy so that this wholly rests and relyeth on him 2. He calls and commendeth himself first to be the Lord their God not upon condition of their doing or obedience but before he required it and as the ground of commanding it 3. The Covenant and mercy was made long before and confirmed by Oath in the dayes of their Fathers these stand all in that text fully against you and for us Yet he dealing with them as a Father with his Children is willing to manifest his faithfulness and love in keeping Covenant and promise made long before in that way of their obedience and dutifulness but that he made that Covenant the same with the Law is denied as utterly false If you say to your Child he shall find you a loving and kind
taken somtime largely and somtime strictly Answ By what is said It is apparent that repentance may be taken as it is often for the whole turning to God because after the soul apprehending its danger and seeing no hope of safety any way else yet hearing what is reported of Gods Grace in Christ to poor wretched and lost sinners It is moved drawn perswaded through the hand and mean of Faith taking hold hereon to repent and cry unto God for mercy and pardon so that sorrow and tears arising from the sight of his forlorn condition is but the pining away in their iniquities doth hasten death and to tend utter despair 2. Your second position as it may be construed shall pass now somwhat being before to like effect and the subserviency of the Law as preparatory being now granted by you 3. Your third conceit is ambiguously and confusedly set down but enough hath been said about it viz. That neither repentance nor the Faith of the Elect can be said to be wrought by the Law As for that legall Faith you mention it may be in a Reprobate and of it self it is the mother and breeder of despair If you or others will have a legal repentance meaning thereby that conviction fear or trouble wrought by the Law when it reviveth sin or at most such as is ascribed to Judas from whom by inward force and violence was squeezed out that confession I have sinned c. by a heavy hand upon his conscience as to clear the innocency of Christ so partly may be in hope by that venting to find some ease and mitigation of anguish within which yet is not that in question I shall not much contend about words so we accord in the thing but then you are to know this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also besides that Faith or perswasion of mercy in God according to his promise there is also another speciall Faith after the soul is come in to God which is an effectuall that the parties sins are done away God reconciled and he accepted and so this being the end of his coming his desire is satisfied and now followeth as it is called another Repentance upon this for now the love of God entreth and is shed out into the soul by the Holy Ghost which doth marvellously refresh and stablish the heart and renew and inflame it with love reciprocal unto God who hath appeared in such mercy and kindness and thus is the soul in love gained and given up to be the Lords and to serve him in holiness and righteousness without fear all the days of his life thus Luke 7. she loved much in affection and expression who had received forgiveness of many sins and this renovation and change of mind doth farre exceed your legall reformation which you so much press and stand for Mr. B. 4. Vnbeliefe is a sin against the Law as well as against the Gospel The Gospel declareth the object of justifying Faith but law condemns for not believing in him c. Answ I question whether the Law condemn for positive infidelity or for not believing in Christ Under favour I am of that mind that the Law onely condemneth for the not believing or obeying of those things which the Law propoundeth Now the Law propounds not Christ to be believed on besides your doctrine is that Christ is to be propounded to none but the broken in spirit the penitent and I know not how otherwise qualified And I see not then but the Law should condemne for not being broken and penitent first and for not believing after I confess the same God requireth Faith to whatsoever he shall speak by Law or Gospel but by the Law I can be bound onely to believe those things the Law declareth unto me Legall doctrine requireth a Legall but not an Evangelicall Faith Whatever the Law saith it saith it to them that are under the Law But you present us with much strange divinity so this is most uncouth to me and untrue That the Law should be enlightned by the Gospel and so fasten a new Command upon us how differeth this opinion from that of theirs who say Christ added to the Law which you say yet is infected with Socinian poyson page 243. LECT XXVIII Rom. 10.4 Christ is the end of the Law c. Mr. B. TAke notice of a foul errour of an Antinomian who denying assurance and comfort by signes of grace laboureth to prove that an unregenerate man may have universal obedience and sincere obedience bringing in this instance of the Jews Rom. 10.3 Your answer is that the Jews zeal was not Hypocriticall because they did not go against conscience but it was not sincere in that it was not a true gracious zeal Answ The Authour you mean would have you leave the streames and those waters which are questionable and impure and to seek to the first rise and Spring-head where the water floweth out freely purely and in an undoubted truth What foul errour is this if prejudice be not 2. He speaketh of Legall obedience such as was this their zeal in seeking to establish their own righteousness and you tell of sincerity taken for the truth of grace whereby the soul is freely subjected to the Gospel and submitteth to the righteousness thereof for so I would fain understand you which is passive and not active thus farre then you are wide Mr. B. pag. 257. I shall explain that place 2 Cor. 3.7 because it may be wrested by the Antinomian as if the law were to be abrogated Answ I wish the Scriptures were not more perverted by your self you pretending to fear others are too confident in your self you may see if ye will the men you fear are better establishers of the Law then who opposeth them How is it that still you so mistake both them and your self 2. You give an undue exposition but explain not but rather do involve the place in greater obscurity for say you Mr. B. The intent of the Apostle is to shew the excellency of the Ministery of the Gospel above that of the Law and that in three respects 1. In regard one is the Ministery of death and condemnation the other of life and righteousness therefore one called Letter the other Spirit which you must understand warily taking the Law nakedly without the Spirit of God and the Gospel with the Spirit for as Beza observeth Gospel without Gods Spirit is also the Ministration of death c. and what good is wrought by the Law it cometh from the Spirit of Christ 2. In regard of continuance The Ministery of Moses understanding it of the Jewish pedagogy was to be abolished not the Morall part which still obligeth Christians but Gospel abideth for ever 3. In regard of glory God caused some material glory to shine upon Moses c. but what cometh by the Gospel is spiritual Answ Both Beza Piscator and Augustin Collatioâ—st cb ipsa substantia
through Christ we have entrance unto the Father and Eph. 3.12 By him we have boldness and entrance with confidence by faith in him If Mr. Rutherf object But these are not in full and absolute perfection where yet true faith may be Who saith so or who but Mr. Rutherf would so closely pervert the truth that I may retort his owne words Being justified by faith we have peace c. In whom believing ye rejoyce c. God hath begotten us againe to a lively hope c. Rom. 5.1 1 Pet. 1.3 8. Nay saith Mr. Rutherf This is a close perverting of the truth for he doubts not but that there are many weak believers of a trembling timerous and troubled spirit whose faith is not yet able to over-master their fears which cause torment and disquietness but I cease And Mr. Rutherf hereby smels our faith Reply Naribus utilis yet no unsavory errour And know it that it is the effect of the law of works upon the natural conscience and the unbelief of the Gospel that keep the soul in bondage through that slavish fear Mr. Rutherf ibid. The covenant of grace commands faith and also good works as witnesses of faith but Mr. T. will have good works in any Notion of an Evangelick command to stand at defiance with the covenant of grace Repl. What contend you for if you grant grace to be the fountain-cause of all holy walking then not the law 2. If it be a lively and free fountain then doth holiness issue out of it as a pleasant stream and how now do good works stand at defiance with the covenant of grace Besides it is said Catachrestiâ—â—s abusively and not properly that the covenant of grace commands faith and good works for it promiseth to give both to them who have power to neither Lastly these works are not done as conditions to obtain eternal life for that is said passim to be by faith without works faith for salvation good works for conversation Mr. Rutherf ibid. The man under the law cannot give himself to be ruled by the law after the minde and will of God as Mr. T. saith except Antinomians be Pelagians Reply It s a palpable wrong I have no such words as that a man under the law can give himself to be ruled by it after the mind and will of God you have a strange conscience that no better bridleth you though your affections be void of love to your Adversary I might more truely reply by your doctrine That a man under the law can do it for you free none from under it or else you are not ruled by it after the mind and will of God And that is most propable who now is the Pelagian But to deal plainly what say you of Paul and many zealous Jews who in earnest applied themselves to do the things of the Law so that Paul saith touching it he was blameless and that before his conversion to the faith To do it after the mind and will of God is your addition Mr. Rutherf Paul speaks of a man under the Law in the flesh and in opposition to that under Grace married to Christ he that is dead to the Law married to Christ and serves God spiritually And it 's clear the Apostle counts it a part of deliverance from the Law and a fruit of our marriage to Christ that we bring forth fruit to God walk holily and serve in newness of spirit Reply Jam convenimus What contend you for all is granted that I desire or said for 1. then Christ and not the Law as a husband makes fruitfull 2. Then there was a serving of God under the Law in the oldness of the letter 3. Where or how then find you me to be against holy walking and according to the rule of righteousness Is not this your false slander Assert How can Christ redeem us from the Law except in the same sense and extent that Christ was under it Mr. Rutherf 1. Christ was under the Law of Ceremonies I hope Gentiles were not under that Reply The question is of the moral and you talk vainly of ceremonial Mr. Rutherf If Christ was under the Law as a rule to free us from it why commands he to imitate him Reply Christ was under the Law for life even to obtaine favour and salvation for us so he is in the end of the Law for righteousness to all that believe 2. It is by his spirit and power any imitate him walking as he did and so do keep the Law as he did freely in love not for self-life or self-ends for so did Christ who sought not himself Assert pag. Mr. T. hath a strange evasion The spirit is free why will you controle and rule it by the Law whereas the nature of it is freely to conforme heart and life to the outward rule of the law without the help of the law as a crooked thing is made straight c. Mr. Rutherf To do the will of God meerly as commanded from the power of an outward commandment is legal saith Saltmatsh and Mr. T. saith it is to controul the free spirit Three means saith T. are passive to hear read receive Sacraments are so many restraints laid on the free spirit Reply I say again If the spirit rule you according to the Law then neither Law nor you do rule it but the Law is onely the rule or pattern according to which the Spirit formeth you What can be more plain to him that will see and grant any truth And this makes no contrariety but a sweet harmony between the word and the spirit yea and establisheth the Law by the faith and Spirit of the Gospel And here you would range us among the old Anabaptists Enthusiasts c. and love to expatiate having burst the banks and bounds of charity and truth I am not more strange to you then this is to me That you are of such a spirit 2. Where say I that meanes are passive The Spirit is pleased to blow sweetly by all Evangelical meanes as Preaching Prayer Sacraments c. and we rightly using them do carry our selves passively that the Spirit may thereby breath and give life to our Spirits and that we may have it more abundantly Mr. Rutherf What T. meaneth in saying The spirit freely conformeth the heart to it Reply The sense is easie and plain if your mind were not finister Mr. Rutherf If the meaning be that the Law of it self cannot convert a man to God Antinomians father most falsly such dreames on us but if the Spirit conform us to the outward rule of the Law then must the Law be yet a rule to our obedience Reply When you please you can spell out my meaning But 1. Whether it be your dream or no I leave it Yet you know that your Brethren so hold and teach and may be forced to own this brat or novell-assertion of theirs 2. As if Mr. Rutherf were in a dream he in his other book would seem
to affirm and maintain it and with a smal touch he there passeth it over And here he saith The Law it self converts not No more doth the Gospel it self as he often saith without the spirit This is as if with Mr. Burgess he meanes that either Law of Gospel is the Spirits instrument for conversion and that we may preach either for that end Mr. Rutherford is unwilling to speak out Loquere ut videam 3. If the Spirit by the Gospel conform us to the rule of the Law It s then true that the Law is a passive rule but not active as actuating to effectuate this thus you grant what I asserted and oppose without cause But at last you tell us the Apostle never speaks of our freedom from the Law as it doth regulate direct and lead us Reply Now this overthroweth what you said even now viz. That the Spirit by the Gospel doth direct and lead us in the way of the Law for then the Law doth not actively lead us Mr. T. pag. 9. What freeth a believer from the curse but because he is a new Creature Mr. Rutherf That new creation is sanctification 2 Cor. 5.17 not justification If any be in Christ that is if he be justified he is a new creature that is sanctified or else by the Antinomian gloss the meaning must be If a man be justified in Christ he is justified in Christ Paul speaks not so non-sense Reply This new creature is the man changed in himself and his state Sanctification is not a new creation but a new qualifying of a man It begets him not nor recreates him not to God nor yet delivereth him from under the curse makes him not the child of God restoreth him not into favour nor doth make him Heir Co-heir with Christ c. See your errour 2. To be justified and to be in Christ is not all one as your gloss is they differ as the cause and the effect or as the antecedent and consequent To be in Christ imports union which is before justification Or it is insition that work of the Father Joh. 15.1 that being ingrafted into him he may partake of his righteousness and holiness both imputatively and inherently if I may use the Aristotelian word More sound or probable is their judgement who teach that regeneration includeth both justification and sanctification Mr. Rutherf How shall it follow that Christ hath loosed us from all debt of active obedience because he hath loosed us from a necessity of perfect active obedience but the Law is spiritualized and lustred with the Gospel Law and free-grace and drawn down to a Covenant of free-grace requires not nor exacts upon perfect obedience under pain of losing salvation It requires obedience as the poor man is able to give it by the grace of God that the man may enter in the possession of eternal life Reply I Reply You can shew no text nor reason why Christ looseth not from imperfect as well as perfect obedience and that from active as well as passive Nay if from prefect much more may we argue from imperfect 2. If our state and case be well considered we are spiritually so poor that we are as unable to pay pence as pounds It is all one to a dead man whether life be tendered unto him upon condition of moving his least finger or the removing of a great Mountain and this is our case Again you can produce no Law 1 That requires not perfect obedience 2 That calls not for obedience as a proper condition of life Do and live 3 That threatens not death upon the least failing in any Iota But you let all see your new divinity 1 I must obey but not perfectly 2 The Law is spiritualized c. drawn down to a Covenant of free-grace 3 No more is required of the poor man then he can give c. Vltra posse viri non vult Deus ulla requirt Thus grace is abrogated promise made void and faith is of no effect Mr. Rutherf Paul sheweth what Law we are freed from of sinne and death and saith Christ died for this end Rom. 8 4. That the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us Whence I argue Those that ought to fulfill the righteousness of the Law by walking after the Spirit and mortifying the deeds of the flesh are not freed from the Law as a rule of righteousness Reply The strength of sinne is the Law 1 Cor. 15.56 2 Christ dyed that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us imputatively or grant inherently yet if this be the end and fruit of Christs death as you say then the Law is no active cause of it but the power of Christs death effecteth it And though this righteousness be for matter one with the Law yet still the Law is but a rule passively according to which the believer is conformed and regulated it not actively regulating Also active walking in the Law is but the expression and effect of sanctification and not properly sanctification it self Adam made holy lived accordingly from that inward form his holy life made him not holy Neither is our holy life to procure or preserve peace favour life as the Law propoundeth requireth it for these consist in faith alone which findeth and enjoyeth Christ to be such a true fulness and All-sufficiency to the soul that self by him and with him is satisfied and so needs no ends of its own in working and obeying Joh. 6.35 He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst Mr. Rutherf We are freed from the Law being once justified so the Antinomians whatever we do is not against a Law or rule the law gives a dispensation to do those things being justified which the unjustified cannot do but in doing it they sinne because the unjustified are under the law as a rule of justice which we are not under We have an Antidated dispensation to sinne Reply You straine your wit if not conscience to make quidlibet ex quolibet But I say Take justification in the full latitude and extent of it or consider a Christian still as justified and so he is freed from under the Law but if you speak of or consider him in his active righteousness of works so as you bring him under the Law so he sinneth yea and is judged and condemned by the Law and you must raise him and bring him up to his justified state ere he can be free and secure from the curse Justification extends to all sins at all times throughout the whole life But it s false that I give an Antidated dipensation that is your indirect inference If you put the believer under the Law as he sinneth like the unjustified so the Law threatneth and curseth both equally Though you tell us unwarrantably of your bare word that the Law hath power to rule where it hath no power to condemn then we may live securely in sin or the works