duty which is either expresly or Synecdochically either directly or else interpretatively virtually and reductively I very well know that the Law is not in all particulars so explicitely and expresly delivered but that 1. The use and best improvement of reason is required to know what pro hic nunc is called for at our hands for duty The Law layes down rules in affirmative precepts in an indefinite way which we must bring home by particular application discerning by general Scripture Rules with the help of reason which sometimes is not so easie to be done when it speaks to us in a way of concernment as to present practical observation 2. That hints of providence are to be observed to know what in present is duty as to the affirmative part of the commandment of God If that man that fell among theeves between Jerusalem and Jericho had sate by the way on the green grasse without any appearance of harme or present need of help the Samaritane that passed that way had not offended in case he had taken no more notice then the Priest and Levite did But discerning him that case as he then was the sixth commandment called for that which he then did as a present office of love to his neighbour according to the interpretation of this commandment given by our Saviour Mark 3. 4. When the Pharisees watched him whether he would heale the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath day He demands of them Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day or to do evil To save life or to destroy It was not their minde that Christ should kill the man onely they would not have had him then to have cur'd him But not to cure when it is in our power according to Christs interpretation is to kill If diligent observation be not made the commandment may be soone transgress'd 3. Skill in Sciences and professions is to be improved by men of skill that the commandment may be kept The Samaritane poured wine and oyle into the travellers wounds knowing that to be of use to supple and refresh them Had he known any other thing more sovereigne which might have been had at hand he was to have used it As skill in medicines is to be used for preservation of mens lives so also skill in the Laws by those that are vers'd in them for the help of their neighbour in exigents concerning his estate and livelihood 4. We must listen to Gods mouth to learne when he shall be pleased at any time further to manifest his minde for the clearing of our way in any of his precepts There was a command concerning the place of publick and solemn worship Deut. 12. 5. Vnto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your Tribes to put his Name there even to his habitation shall ye seek and thither shalt thou come Now thou must depend on the mouth of God to observe what place in any of the Tribes he would choose for his habitation When God commands that all instituted worship shall be according to his prescript This is a perfect Rule implicite and virtual tying us to heed the Lord at any time more particularly discovering his will and clearing this duty to us Was not the Law of worship perfect to Abraham unlesse it explicitely told him that he must sacrifice his Sonne And if any take themselves to be so acute as to set up a new Rule as some are pleased to stile it then they antiquate and abolish the old Rule and singularly gratifie the Antinomian party Two Rules will no more stand together then two covenants calling it a new Rule men make the first old Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away Heb. 8. 17. It is added moreover doth not the Scripture call Christ our Lawgiver and say the Law shall go out of Zion c. Isa 2. 3. And was not the old Law his Saint Paul I am sure quotes that which belongs to the preceptive part of the Moral Law and calls it the Law of Christ Gal. 6. 2. His Laws were delivered in the wildernesse whom the people of Israel there tempted and provoked This is plain for they sinn'd against the Law-giver and from his hands they suffered And who they tempted in the wildernesse see from the Apostles hand 1 Cor. 10. 9. And as to the Scripture quoted the words are exegetically set down in those that follow them The Law shall go out of Zion and the Word of the Lord out of Jerusalem Which is no more but that the Name of the Lord which was then known in Judah shall be great from the rising of the Sun to the going down thereof It is further demanded And is he not the anointed King of the Church and therfore hath legislative power For answer I desire to know what King the Church had when the old Law was before Christ came in the flesh The Kingdom was one and the same and the King one and the same then and now as I take it Many shall come from the East and West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven The Gentiles coming in at the Gospel-call are under the same King and in the same Kingdom And if all this were granted which is here pleaded for it is no more then a change in some positive circumstantial Rites and what is this to the question handled by our Authour That our righteousnesse which is imperfect according to the old Rule is perfect according to the new when old and new in that which is naturally Moral is one and the same When the Law required heart-service and love with the whole heart upon spiritual ends and motives upon which account all fell short in their obedience and performance shall we say that Christ did dispense with any of this that so the Rule being lower our obedience now may answer Others that make Moses and Christ two distinct Law-givers and agents for God in holding out distinct precepts give the pre-eminence to Christ and account his Law to be of more eminent perfection This Authour on the contrary seems to make the Laws of Christ to stoop far beneath those of Moses 2. For Justification of this accusation of the Moral Law of imperfection it is added the Moral taken either for the Law given to Adam or written in Tables of stone is not a sufficient rule for us now for beleeving in Jesus Christ no nor the same Law of nature as still in force under Christ For a general command of beleeving all that God revealeth is not the only rule of our faith but the particular revelation and precept are part c. To this I say 1. As before I think I may answer out of his own mouth where he says Neglect of Sacraments is a breach of the second commandment and unbelief is a breach of the first If we break the commandment in unbelief then the Commandment
hath lost its commanding power then it can give sinne no more being yea it hath lost its own being power of command being of the essence of it If the Law Thou shalt not kill have no power of command then I sin not if I kill If that Law Sweare not at all have no power of commanding then our RANTERS high oaths are no more sinnes then our eating of swines flesh or 〈◊〉 not observing the Feast of the Passeover Where there is 〈◊〉 there is no transgression and a Law antiquated and repealed that the power of command is gone as in the Laws before mentioned is no Law If he still prâ—sse that similitude of the Apostle that a dead husband hath now power of command But the Law to a beleever is a dead husband First I say if he will be pleased to informe me how a dead husband rips up his wives faults how he curbs and keeps her in which he confesses is the Laws office to a beleever then I shall speedily give an account how this dead husband retaines power of command The Argument is as well of force The dead husband hath no power to discover his wives faults to restraine curb or keep her in But the Law is a dead husband to beleevers Therefore the Law hath no such power It lies upon him to answer this argument to free himself from self-contradiction And I would faine see this answered and the other maintained Secondly for more full satisfaction I say that some learned Expositors make the husband in that similitude not to be the Law but sinne which hath its power from the Law So Diodati in his Notes upon the place Man signifieth sinne which hath power from the Law the woman is our humane nature and of these two are begotten the depraved errours of sinne So also Doctor Reynolds in his Treatise of Divorce page 37. setting out the scope of this similitude thus expresseth it As a wife her husband being dead doth lawfully take another and is not an adulteresse in having his company to bring forth fruit of her body to him so regenerate persons their natural corruption provoked by the Law to sin and flesh being mortified and joyned to Christ as to a second husband Master Burges Vindiciae Degis page 218. saith Sinne which by the Law doth irritate and provoke our corruption that is the former husband the soul had and lusts they are the children thereof and this the rather is to be received because the Apostle in his reddition doth not say the Law is dead but we are dead But if he will still contend that the Law is the husband in that place which by reason of corruption hath so much power for irritation and condemnation over an unregenerate man I shall onely give him that advice which Doctor Reynolds in the place quoted gives Bellarmine upon occasion of his interpretation of this similitude Let Bellarmine acknowledge that similitudes must 〈◊〉 be set on the rack nor the drift thereof be streched in such sort 〈◊〉 â—f they ought just in length breadth and depth to match and sit that whereunto they are â—â—â—â—mbled And when he confesseth power in the Law notwithstanding this death to performe diverse offices in the souls of beleever◠〈◊〉 cannot affirme that the law is wholly dead nor deny but that it may have this office of command likewise The power which the Law loseth is that which corruption gave it which is irritation and condemnation Corruption never gave command to the Law and the death of corruption through the Spirit can never exempt the soul from obedience or take the power of command from it Let it be granted that the Law is the husband here mentioned the similitude is this That as the Law through our corruption was fruitful in mans nature to the bringing forth of sinne and condemnation So Christ by the Spirit is to be fruitful in our nature to bring forth works of grace to salvation and so the death of the Law is meerly in respect of irritation or inflaming to sinne and binding over to condemnation not in respect of command That this is the full and clear scope of this similitude beyond which it must not be stretched plainly appeares verse 5. For when we were in the flesh the motions of sinnes which were by the Law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death So that here is nothing against the commanding power of the Law God still keeps up his Sovereignty and by this Law he rules the regenerate I wish our Authour would sadly reflect upon that reason of his The Law is not authorized by Christ to reigne and rule in the consciences of his people For his Fathers peace his own righteousnesse and his Spirits joy There is none that speaks of the reigne of the Law in the consciences of the people of God but God in Christ reigns and by his Moral Law rules for all these reasons So farre are these from excluding his rule by his Law in his peoples hearts If this rule of the Law be destructive to Christs righteousnesse then Christs coming for righteousnesse must needs be to destroy the Law which Christ disclaimes And the rule of the peace of God in our hearts is so farre from excluding his rule by his Law that without it it can never be attained Great peace have they that love thy Law and nothing shall offend them Psalme 119. 165. This is the confidence that we have in God that whatsoever we ask according to his will we shall receive because we keep his commandments 1 John 3. 22. A Commandment hath a commandâ—â—â— power and only they that keep them have this peace ruling in their hearts The Spirits joy and the power of the Law to command are so farre from opposing one the other that the Spirit gives testimony of Gods abode in no other but such as confesse and yeeld to this power He that keepeth his Commandments dwelleth in him and he in him and hereby we know that be abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 John 3. 24. And of like nature is that which he further hath Though the Law the former husband be dead to a beleever yet a beleever is no widow much lesse an harlot for he is married to Christ and is under the Law of Christ which is love If the moral Law respective to the power of command be dead then love is dead with it Jesus Christ reduces the ten Commandments into two Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self If then the Law be dead this love from the heart is dead and so a beleever is either a widow or an harlot Master Burges Vindiciae Legis page 12. shews at large that to do a thing out of obedience to the Law and yet by love and delight do not oppose one another which if the Reader consult with his enlargement of it he
shall need to go no farther for refutation nor his own satisfaction Men are wont to expect in children and servants much more in wives both love and obedience If this rule hold they must quit the one and cleave to the other Either they must take to love without obedience or obedience without love These two which cannot be severed if ye love and keep my Commandments this Divinity makes inconsistent God gave Laws saith our Authour to man to declare his own Sovereignty and his creatures duty And we must tell him that to keep up his Sovereignty and his creatures duty he continues his Law They that take power of command from it divest him of his Sovereignty and exempt the creature from duty I know there are many evasions if it might be to shuffle off and evade this doctrine if not wholly denying the Law yet weakening the power of it in Gospel-time Some say that it bindes us as creatures but not as Christians And then it is to be feared that they taking themselves to be above creatures in that they are Christians being raised in a neerer relation to God then meer creatures they will take themselves to be disobliged But if the creature be cast into hell for transgression as a drunkard an adulterer a covetous person what will become of the Christian But it bindes both as creatures and Christians Christ having put his sanction upon it Others say that it bindes the unregenerate part of man but not the regenerate part that is free Paul delighted in the Law of God after the inward man Rom. 7. 22. That is as Interpreters understand so fâ—rre as regenerate How could he delight in it as a Law and not subject to it It seems these think that only wicked ones are bound or rather wickednesse to be alone obliged It will shortly be a mark of unregeneration as it seemes it is with some already to be subject to it They that urge it upon men and presse it as their duty have the name of legal Preachers and stranger from Gospel-mysteries put upon them It is a wearisome thing to rake further in this puddle I hope it is plain in that which hath been said that God holds up this part of his Sovereignty in keeping up his commandment the authority of his Moral Precepts in the hearts of his people CHAP. XI The Moral Law is a perfect Rule of Righteousnesse AS God keeps up his Law for a Rule to his people so it is a perfect and a compleat Rule to those to whom it is given This is a doctrine unanimously heretofore maintained by Protestant Writers but opposed by Papists Arminians and Socinians Papists have their traditions added as well to the Law as to the Gospel which is an accusation of the written Law as imperfect They have also their Evangelical counsels which though they are not commanded yet as Bellarmine speaks are commended as raising Christians to an higher perfection then ever the Law required Socimans with whom many Arminians joyne affirme that Christ hath instituted new precepts of obedience in the Gospel and added them to the commands of the Law such as transcend and exceed all that were delivered in Old Testament times Gerrard having disputed for the perfection of the Law against Papists cap. 14. De Evangelio saith The Popish opinion of new Laws promulgated by Christ the Phoâ—inians which is an other name of Socinians greedily embrace making a fair way for Mahometisme seeing that in the Alcoran it is in like manner said That Moses gave a Law lesse perfect Christ more perfect and Mahomet most perfect of all Gerrard quotes this passage out of the Cracovian Chatechisme in the same chapter Christ came not only to fulfil the Law for us but added new precepts to it These new precepts the same Authour saith they make twofoldâ— Some of which do appertain to manners some to ceremonies or outward rites in worship He names three that appertaine to manners To deny a mans self take up his Crosse and follow Christ Which three precepts my Authour in way of opposition saith belong to the first commandment Peltius in his Harmony of Arminians and Socinians chap. 4 5 6. sheweth their combination against the Orthodox party as in many other things so in this proposition now controverted He there quotes from Socinians these positions That Christ in the New Testament did not only abrogate the Ceremonial and Judicial Law but did much encrease and adde unto the Moral Law That he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it which fulfilling saith he is nothing else but a perfecting of it and addition of what was wanting That we ought not only to observe those things that are given us of God and not abrogated by Christ but those precepts in like manner that are added by Christ Much more from many Socinians and Arminians may be seen in that Authour to that purpose Dr. Hammond in his Practical Catechisme speaking of Christs Sermon in the Mount agrees indeed with the Papists against the Protestants That Christ doth not here expound Moses and vindicate the Law from false glosses but that he addes to the Law and names many additions to the sixth seventh and other Commandments but dissents from them in that they make these Evangelical Counsels and makes them precepts not precepts of Moses but of Christ added by him to the Law but this with much modesty as though he would not be peremptory in his opinion So that Mr. Burges page 166. handling controversies about the Law saith I shall now handle the perfection of it and labour to shew that Christ hath instituted no new duty which was not commanded before by the Law of Moses And this question saith he will be profitable partly against the Arminians partly the Papists and lastly the Socinians He further saith page 169. That Christ did not adde new duties which were not commanded in the Law because the Law is perfect and they were bound not to add to it or detract from it Therefore we are not to conceive a more excellent way of duty then that prescribed Further if we speak of holy and spiritual duties there cannot be a more excellent way of holinesse this being an Idaea and representation of the glorious nature of God Dr. Ames in his Sciagraphia handling the Decalogue makes this his first doctrine The Law of God contained in the Decalogue is a most perfect Rule for guidance of the life of man He gives foure reasons with an use of information That we esteem this Law as it ought to be esteemed and that as the only Rule of our lives and such a Rule that hath no defect but is perfect in it self and requires all perfection in it Davenant de Justit actual cap. 40. pag. 463. saith The Law of God it self is a most exact and perfect Rule of Holinesse and Righteousnesse And in the proof of it saith This is every where confirmed in
bindes us to believe 2. Much of that which I have spoke by way of answer to the former may be applied to this likewise 3. I shall hereafter speak to this that faith is a duty of the Moral Law where the Reader may have further satisfaction 4. If Adam had no command for faith then he was not in any capacity to believe and by his fall lost not power of beleeving And consequently it will not stand with the Justice of God to exact it at our hands having never had power for the performance of it 5. I say there was power in Adam for that faith that justified but not to act for justification Adam had that habit and the Law calls for it from all that are under the command of it But the Gospel discovers the object by which a sinner through faith is justified 3. The same answer may serve to the third exception which indeed is the same with the former only a great deal of flourishing is bestowed in discourse of the understanding and will paralleling them with the Prefaces grounds and occasions of Laws not needful to be repeated And at last bringing all to the Articles of the Creed to which enough already is spoken 4. It is said But what if all this had been left out and you had proved the Moral Law the only Rule of duty doth it follow therefore that it is the only Rule Answ If the Moral Law be the only Rule of duty then I take it to be the only Rule for I enquire after nothing but duty and I take righteousnesse to be matter of duty and then the only Rule of duty is the only Rule of righteousnesse It is further said Sure it is not the only Rule of rewarding And I say Rewarding is none of our work but Gods and I look for a Rule of that work which is ours and that we are to make our businesse I confesse an imperfection in it to give life but assert a perfection as the Rule of our lives It justifies no man but it orders and regulates every justified man 5. It is further said The same I may say of the Rule of punishment To which I give the same answer It is not our work but Gods either to reward or punish And here he speaks of a part of the penalty of the new Law And I know no penalty properly distinct from the penalty of the old He is wont to compare it to an Act of Oblivion and Acts of Oblivion are not wont to inflict penalties but serve to remove them when another Law imposes them That of the Parable is instanced None of them that were bidden shall taste of the Supper when the sin for which they there suffer is a breach of a Moral command 6. It is said The principal thing intended is that the Moral Law is not the only Rule what shall be the condition of Life or Death and therefore not the only Rule according to which we must now be denominated and hereafter sentenced Just or Vnjust To this I have already given a sufficient answer and if I had not our Authour answers fully for me where he says The precepts of the Covenant as meer precepts must be distinguished from the same precepts considered as conditions upon performance of which we must live or die for non-performance And I speak of them as meer precepts and so they are our Rule of righteousness not as they are conditions either of the covenant of works or grace And a man may be denominated righteous by the Laws Rule when he cannot stand before the sentence of it as a covenant of which we have heard sufficient After a long discourse against all possibility of justification by the Law of works as though I were therein an adversary or that the Antinomian fancy were above all answer that a man cannot make the Law his Rule but he makes it withal his Justification he goes about to prevent an objection and says If you should say this is the covenant and not the Law he will reply 1. Then the Law is not the only Rule To which I say When my work is to make it good that the Law is our only Rule I marvel that he will so much as imagine that I will say that which makes it not the only Rule But perhaps he thinks I do not see how it cannot follow as indeed I do not neither can I see any colour for it 2. He replies It is the same thing in several respects that we call a Law and a Covenant except you mean it of our covenant-act to God of which we speak not who knows not that praemiare and punire are Acts of a Law And that an Act of Oblivion or general pardon on certaine termes is a Law and that the promise is the principal part of the Law of Grace To which I say that praemiare and punire are essential in a Law Some have power of command so that their words in just things is to be a Law where most deny any power of punishment as an Husband over the Wife Some parents have Authority to command children children remaining under the obligation of the fifth commandment as long as the relation of a childe continueth when they have neither power to reward or punish Jacob took himself to be in power to command Joseph among the rest of his Sons as appears in the charge concerning his burial Gen. 47. 29 30. and chap. 49. 29. So compared and yet he was not in power either to reward or punish him And though they be acts of a law where he that gives the Law is in power Yet they are no parts of a Rule nor any directory of life to him to whom they are proposed I know that an Act of Oblivion or general pardon may be called a Law as many other things are catachresticè and abusivè but that it should be a Law properly so called I know not The Romanes defined a Law whilest that a Democratie was in force among them to be Generale jussum populi aut plebis rogante magistratu Afterwards when the State was changed and the Legislative power was in other hands they defined it to be Jussum Regis aut Imperatoris And Tully's definition of a Law is that it is Ratio summa insita in natura quae recta suadet prohibetque contraria Here jussio suasio and prohibitio are express'd which are not found in Acts of Oblivion That every man who is within the verge of such an Act may be said to be acquit by Law I willingly grant seeing that act takes off the force of the Law condemning him But that it is a Law strictly so taken I know not CHAP. XII The Moral Law bindes as it was delivered by the hand of Moses A Third branch of the general Proposition before delivered follows which is that the Moral Law as delivered by the hand of Moses is obligatory to Christians This I
from him did repeal it but instead of a repeale did put a new sanction upon it Christ indeed as soon as he publickly appeared in the work of redemption was charged that he came to destroy the Law But this he did utterly disavow and men of faith in Christ should believe him professing that he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it Yea that there is a greater stability in the Law in every tittle of it in regard of the permanency then is in heaven and earth then is in the whole frabrick of the world And whereas the Scribes and Pharisees were then thought to be the only strict observers of the rule of the Law and the alone men that kept up the honour of it Christ asserts a necessity of a higher degree of obedience then the Scribes and Pharisees ever taught or practised Except your righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees c. which must be understood of righteousnesse inherent in conformity to the Law as appeares in the precedent words where Christ holds discourse about the Law and is more fully confirmed in the words that follow Christ on this occasion openeth the commandments of the Law shewing how farre Scribes and Pharisees went in their righteousnesse how farre we must transcend them if ever we come to the Kingdome of heaven Neither did the Apostles by any Commission from Christ repeal it but they add the same sanction to it Paul foreseeing that this very thing would be charged upon him as it was upon Christ saith Do we make void the Law through faith yea we establish saith he the Law Rom 3. 31. Our doctrine is a confirmation and no abolition of it And both he and other Apostles frequently in their Epistles urge precepts of the Moral Law as in force and having power and command over men in covenant Paul laying a charge upon children to obey their parents Ephes 6. 1. urges it from the fifth Commandment which he there sets out with a mark of honour as the first Commandment with promise and paraphraseth upon the promise annexed to it against which children might enter their challenge if in Gospel-times the Law had lost its commanding power And requiring obedience from wives to husbands the Law is quoted for it 1 Cor. 14. 34. Having proved the equity of Ministers maintenance by an argument drawn from civil right and common rules of equity in three particulars he adds Say I these things or saith not the Law also the same And so quotes a Text of the Law the Law as delivered by Moses for it is written in the Law of Moses Thou shalt not muzzle the Oxe that treadeth out the corn 1 Cor. 9. 9. and then cleareth it from an exception that might be taken against it So James 2. 8. If ye fulfil the royal Law Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self ye do well The Law is of force in that grand duty so in other precepts there mentioned Do not commit adultery Do not kill verse 11. yea it is of force in the least duties ver 10. He that shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point is guilty of all 1 Thes 47 8. We have the seventh and eighth Commandment quoted as of force with Christians As also Rom. 12. 19. Avenge not your selves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord quoting the Law Deut. 32. 35. Neither is it capable of any repeal being the Law of nature written in the hearts of heathens Rom. 2. 15. more clearly therefore in the heart of Adam These are of those things that are prohibita quia mala The transgression of them was forbidden because evil of their own nature The Creation standing the Law could be no other If no Law had ever been promulged or given of God to man yet murder and adultery had been sinne Christ not changing the Law of Creation but taking to himself the nature of man the same as it was first created when he came to save man must of necessity keep on foot that law that was from the beginning stampt upon him So that we see it is not abolished but ratified neither is it in a capacity of abolition It is confest by a great party of those that in this appeare as adversaries that there is no liberty to sinne in the dayes of the Gospel There be not many that will avouch the contrary if they do they must know that they have the Gospel against them that hath in a readinesse to avenge all disobedience 2 Cor. 6. 10. The Apostle writes to beleevers that they sinne not 1 John 2. 1. And this is the definition of sinne 1 John 3. 4. Sinne is a transgression of the Law As for those that 〈◊〉 beleevers have no sinne cannot sinne it is to little purpose to speak to them or having any thing to deale with them If they believe not John they will not beleeve me telling them that that there is no truth in them 1 John 1. 8. He that pleaseth may see a large confirmation of this truth in Mr. Burg Vindiciae Legis and Master Boltons Treatise of the true bounds of Christian freedome page 77. to 88. Therefore one much forgets himselfe who in a Treatise of the two covenants bespeaks his Reader in these words Consider this seriously that if you be beleevers and married to Christ the Law hath no more power over you then a dead husband hath over his relict and living wife which he presently interprets of a commanding power and denies that the Law hath any commanding power over a beleever Which assertion of his that it may be the more observed he puts into his Index The Law hath no commanding power over a beleever The same Authour yet says that the Law is a discoverer of and convincer of sinne to beleevers It is a curb to the pride and presumption of beleevers as well as of unbeleevers But if a husband cannot by reason of death command his wife how can be convince her of her faults or be a curb or restraint to her Job was in right of command over his wife as long as he had power of reproof to tell her of her folly and to endavour to put a stop to it In his answer of an objection he yeelds that though the Law should be dead to a beleever and a beleever dead to the Law yet it doth not thence follow that they should sinne must sinne or will sinne Upon this supposition I say there is not in them a capacity of sinne or possibility of sinning He further sayes There would be no sinne were it not for a Law for the Law gives if I may so terme it a being to sinne and therefore is called the strength of sinne for if a man should swear covet or kill and there should be no Law prohibiting the same doubtlesse it would not be evil for the Law makes it evil And if the Law
confesse is more disputable then either of the former before spoken to In those we had to deale with Antinomians on the one hand Papists Arminians Socinians on the other hand with some few others that are pleased in those points alone to strike in with Arminians and Socinians and in other things to oppose them But in this Papists agree not among themselves but one is against another neither is there that agreement amongst Protestant Writers that might be desired which must not be concealed some are for the affirmative and some for the negative and some seem to stand in a neutral indifferency Bellarmine among the Papists is for the affirmative lib. 4. de justificatione cap. 6. and takes up Soto for the contrary tenent who affirmes as he quotes him that Christians are not only delivered from the Ceremonial Law and the guilt and terror of the moral Law but from the whole Law as written in the books of Moses with this caution as he reports him that we are to keep the Law of Moses as it is natural and as it is in the Gospel and in the Epistles of the Apostles but not as it was written by Moses for Moses saith he could not binde us but it is Christ that bindes us for we are Christians and not Jews Soto hath Suarez and Medina as Master Burges observes with him and among the Protestants Zanchius de redemptione lib. 1. cap. 12. and Musculus in his common places go the same way affirming that the Moral Lawes which go under the name of the decalogue as they were delivered by Moses to the Israelites do not concerne Christians but as they are agreeable to the Law of nature and confirmed by Christ Paraeus as is observed by Rivet in his Explication of the Decalogue page 11. giving in his judgement of the differing opinions of Bellarmine and Soto affirms that the opinion of Bellarmine is most safe to be followed Rivet himself in the place quoted takes it to be a strife of words and the difference to be inconsiderable and in case the authority be granted there seemes indeed lesse danger though the Minister be waved The Antinomian as others have observed is by both parties opposed Some may think that the Law thus gaines in its authority in as much as Christ is of much more excellency then Moses when the Master of the Vineyard saw his servant neglected he said They will reverence my Sonne Mat. 21. 37. But if the servant be once despised and set so light by as we read from some hands Away with stammering Moses it may be feared that the Sonne will not long remaine in honour when servants fared so ill we finde that the Sonne had little better entertainment And in my thoughts there is scarce a readier way then this to strip us of the whole of the Law of God Keeping up to their own principles they can look on no more of the Law as binding Christians then that which is held out to us in New Testament-Scriptures If this be granted we must have a New Testament Text for every Moral duty yet to gratifie adversaries in this particular we may safely yeeld that the Law concernes not Christians as it was delivered by Moses only to the Israelites and so Zanchy's Position keeping strictly to the termes may happily be defended The Moral Laws as delivered by Moses to the Israelites do not appertain to Christians so neither doth Lukes Gospel or the history of the Acts as from him to Theophilus nor yet any of Pauls Epistles as from him to any particular Church or to Timothy Titus or Philemon But looking on Moses as employed of God with his Church with which he was in the Wildernesse Acts 7. 38. and upon his writings as a depositum left with the Church they are of equal concernment to us as they were to the Jews if we be as the Church of the Jewes was a Church of God This to me is plaine not only by those Texts of Moses quoted in New Testament-Scriptures as we heard before but quoted also as from Moses The Apostle pleading for Ministers maintenance saith For it is written in the Law of Moses 1 Cor. 9. 9. How were this argument of force if Moses his writings were not of use That of Peter is convincing 1 Pet. 1. 15 16. But as he which hath called you is holy so be ye holy in all manner of conversation because it is written be ye holy for I am holy This was written by Moses Lev. 11. 44. Lev. 19. 2. Lev. 20. 7. and why should we be engaged to holinesse eo nomine because Moses writ it and gave it in charge in case Moses his writings do not binde Christians This also to me is plaine in reason Christ was King then as now his Church is the same now as then we and they make up one Kingdome Matth. 8. 11. The Lawes of Christ therefore unlesse they appear to be repealed are now in force as in former times There is not a temporal Obligation saith Master Burges Vindiciae Legis page 162. laid upon a perpetual duty The duties are confessed to be perpetual why should Moses then deliver them to be only of temporal permanency Neither is there any thing brought by Soto or any other hand to evince the contrary In the close of the words already quoted he sayes Mose-could not binde us but Christ for we are not Jews but Christians To this we say He could not binde us authoritatively but ministerially and because Christ bindes therefore Moses bindes seeing Moses was a servant in that house where Christ was a Sonne Christ was King of his Church in Moses his dayes Israel tempted Christ in disobeying Moses 1 Cor. 10. 9. He commanded for Christ when he gave command to the Israelites and these commands are of concernment unto Christians who are their fellow subjects The Arguments produced by Soto are satisfyingly answered by Bellarmine Soto saith that the Preface of the law leads to the Israelites onely I am the Lord thy God that brought thee out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage But it was the Jews and not Christians that were in Egypt This is false as one of these Jesuites truly answers the other we were in Egypt as well as the Nation of the Jews They were our fathers and we their children 1 Cor. 10. 1. It was once indeed otherwise with us being branches of the wilde Olive But the natural branches being cut off we are grafted into their stead that mercy of deliverance from Egypt being a Church-mercy is our mercy He further objects that of Luke 16. 16. The Law and the Prophets were until John and is answered that that is understood of the Law prophecying by figures and not instructing in manners which is further explained Matth. 11. 13. For all the Prophets and the Law prophecyed until John that is all the prophesies of the Messiah to come whether delivered in words by the Prophets or by signes
and Law-ceremonies did not reach beyond John who was the last of the Prophets who did bear witnesse of Christ Some say that in case the Law bind as it was delivered by Moses then all that Moses did deliver is obligatory to Christians Quâtale is omne and so the ceremonial Law bindes as doth the Moral and we shall bring our necks under that yoke To this answer all that Moses did deliver doth binde unlesse we have a release or discharge from the same authority by which he spake and hence an argument is drawn for proof of that which we have in hand If the ceremonial Law had bound Christians to this day had it not been revoked and abolished then the moral Law which is no where revoked or abolished as hath been shewn doth still bind Christians This is plaine there is no reason that the ceremonial Law should be obligatory above the Moral But the ceremonial Law had bound Christians to this day had it not been revoked and abolished This is as plain when the great question was in the primitive times whether the ceremonial Law did binde Christians whether they were to circumcise their children after the manner of Moses and consequently to observe other Rites This is decided in making it appear that these were abolished as being shadows of good things to come and an end put to their obligation It may be further objected that if all be of force that Moses wrote as from him then that of divorce of the wife on any cause is of force likewise That was commanded by Moses as the Pharisees Mat. 19. 7. tell the Lord Christ from Deut. 24. 1. To this Chemnitius hath answered that Moses delivered this Tanquam legislator as one that gave orders to that people as to their political estate not Tanquam Theologus as a Prophet raised up to deliver the minde and will of God unto them Moses his writings therefore are in force not onely ratione materiae as containing such precepts upon which Christ in the New Testament hath put a divine sanction but by vertue of a sanction from heaven put upon them as delivered by him and the obligation still remaining If Moses once be neglected I shall fear that Peter and Paul will not long be honoured Moses being a servant in the same house with them and the rest of the Apostles and pen-men of New Testament-Scriptures CHAP. XIII God entring a Covenant of Grace with his people keeps up his Sovereignty in exercise of discipline in the correction and chastisement of his people for sinne AS God holds up his Sovereignty under the covenant of grace in keeping on foot his commandments so also in his exercise of discipline upon those with whom he is in covenant He neither suffers them to be without Law nor to go on in transgression of his Law with impunity and freedome As they have his precept to keep from sinne so they are in danger of his hand in case of sinne Those that are against us in the former are our adversaries in this likewise As they plead a manumission of Christians from the mandatory power of the Law so they will also have them exempted from all chastisement or correction Against these we maintaine that the people of God in covenant even those whose hearts are stedfast in covenant do suffer under the covenant of grace in case of sinne and that for sinne For proofe of this I shall bring Scripture of three sorts 1. Giving instances of the Church and people of God under sore and great afflictions for sinne and these places are even without number Esay 42. 24. Lam. 1. 8. 3. 39. 5. 16. Micah 1. 5. Yea they lie under sufferings till they acknowledge sin till their stomacks are brought down and they humble themselves for sin Lev. 26. 41. Against this is objected that among these afflicted ones there were reprobates as well as elected ones and Elect ones in the state of unconversion and they might suffer for sinne which the childe of God does not nor can not To this I answer 1. There were true converts among these or else the whole world had no converts in it 2. These in their confessions and humiliations involved themselves among the rest and make themselves of the number of those that by sinne draw down sufferings as we have Ezra Daniel and others for examples 2. Instances of the most precious Saints sinning and suffering for sinne 1. Moses and Aaron Numb 20. 12. The Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron because ye beleeved me not to sanctifie me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this Congregation into the land which I have given them Both their sinne and their sufferings are noted there which Moses seems never to have done with Deut. 1. 37. Deut. 3 26. Deut. 4. 21. Deut. 34. 4. 2. David his sinne we finde 1 Sam. 11. at large related his sufferings in the next chapter he suffers in all his relations 1. As a father his childe dies 2. As an husband his bed is defiled 3. As a Prince the sword is brought upon his land 3. Solomon 1 Kings 11. 11. For as much as this is done of thee and thou hast not kept my Covenant and my statutes which I have commanded thee I will surely rend the Kingdom from thee and I will give it to thy servant 4. Hezekiah 2 Chron. 32. 25. 26. But Hezekiah rendred not again according to the benefit done unto him for his heart was lifted up therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the dayes of Hezekiah In which words we see his sinne his suffering for sinne and his humiliation upon account of his sinne Here also exception is taken These here mentioned say some lived under Old Testament dispentations To this I answer 1. We may take up Pauls words in behalf of these 2. Cor. 10. 7. If any man trust to himself that he is Christs let him of himself think this again that as he is Christs so they were Christs Moses that suffered as we have heard upon the account of sinne esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches then the treasures of Egypt Heb. 11. 26. And David that suffered in like sort in spirit called him Lord Matth. 22. 43. 2. That we may not lose Old Testament-Scriptures for if we lose them here we shall hold them no where let us look upon Prov. 3. 11 12. My sonne despise not the chastening of the Lord neither be weary of his correction for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as the father the sonne in whom he delighteth In which words we see 1. The sufferings of the people of God thrice repeated 2. The impulsive cause implyed in the word chastisement which ever is for some fault Psalme 39. 11. 3. The hand that
thorow with it here is pure justice without relaxation as to the value confest by those who yet contend whether idem or tantundem be paid by Christ the same in kinde as was owing by man or the like in value and estimate He that is brought under a divine attachment must not come out till he have paid the uttermost farthing which man in torments is ever in discharging and never can discharge It is as easie to make a world as by way of ransome to deliver a soul Christ therefore that knew no sin is made sinne that is an offering for sinne God manifest in the flesh he that was God and man hath undertaken the work man to suffer and God to satisfie in suffering and so God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself 2 Corinth 5. 19. The immediate effect or result of this price of mans redemption I suppose is the putting of man into a capacity of a covenant with God yet when this is done till more be done by Christ in the way of his Mediatourship for man men are not yet in covenant not the Elect among men This is evident in those Ephesians that were raised up together and made sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Ephes 2. 6. There was no time in which Christ had not paid the price of their ransome yet there was a time and then but lately over that they were without Christ being aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of promise having no hope and without God in the world Ephes 2. 12. Elect Infidels are not till their call in covenant they stand not actually reconciled and one with God before Faith for then there needed no Ministery of reconciliation to follow If this were granted then Christ did the whole for mans salvation on the crosse by himself and doth nothing now in heaven by way of intercession nor any thing by his agents in a ministerial way upon earth neither could man before faith be underwrath in which he is yet concluded by our Saviour himself John 3. 36. A state of wrath and an actual reconciled estate cannot stand together There is a price paid and as I may say in the Fathers hand but to be applyed according to the good pleasure of the Father and the Sonne A man may purchase a prisoners liberty so that he hath it in his just and legal power to set him free and yet take what time he pleaseth in discretion to impart it to him and actually deliver him In this work there are three parties God the Father as Creditor Christ Jesus the Surety Man the Debtor The Father might have refused this discharge from the hand of Christ and exacted it of the principal Christ might have refused to have made such payment he was not in the Obligation There was a relaxation of the person as is agreed on all parties Man must come in and manifest his acceptance Till he is content to leave his old master sin and Satan This new Lord gives him no entertainment he must be content to come out of bondage or else he can enjoy no freedome 2. The next work of Christ is to bring man within the bond of the covenant professedly to accept it for which there is yet a double work First to make tender of it this hath been Christs work as the Prophet of his Church in all ages In what latitude in was carried in the dayes of the fathers before the flood it is rather obscurely pointed at then plainly shewed yet there was then a distinction between the posterity of Seth and that of Cain and so contiued till the dayes of Noah when the sonnes of God saw the daughters of men children of the covenant saw those out of the covenant Men within the visible Church saw women without the Pale and joyned themselves in marriage with them From Abrahams dayes it was confined to his posterity and held within his line and those few that as proselytes joyned themselves unto them In Gospel times it is enlarged the tender is made not to Jewes only but also to every Nation under heaven the Commission being to preach the Gospel to every creature none by Nation so contemptible that is to be excluded In Christ Jesus there is neither Barbarian nor Scythian Jew or Gentile Col. 3. 11. And as there is to be a tender so also it is his work to shape the heart for acceptation of it to embrace the terms and enter into it God shall perswade Japhet and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem Gen. 9. 27. The inhabitants of the Isles peopled by Japhets posterity shall become the Israel of God shall succeed the Jewes in a Church-state and vissible profession of the name of God The hand of the Lord was with them namely those that preacht at Antioch and a great number beleeved Acts 11. 21. where beleeving after the manner of the History in the Acts is no other then embracing the Doctrine of Faith they were made Disciples many of which after fell off even from their profession A third work is to enable those whom he brings to glory those among them in covenant that are called according to his purpose to performe the duties of the covenant to be stedfast and upright in it and this is by Circumcising their heart giving them a new heart writing his Law in their hearts putting it into their inward parts keeping them by his mighty power through faith unto salvation of which more hereafter The last work is to crown with glory those that by grace he raises up to the termes of the covenant thus qualifying them he crowns them I have fought a good fight I have finished my course henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousnesse which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to my self John 14. 2 3. Here some difficulties offer themselves If the covenant of works past between God and man in his integrity were immediate and the transactions of it without reference to Christ then if follows that faith in Christ is not commanded in that Law Obj. which was given to man for a rule There being no possibility of it there could be no command for it and there was no possibility of Adams beleeving it seeing Christ was not revealed and was not as Mediatour of any use This opinion is strongly maintained by Arminians Armin. in resp ad artic decimum nonum Corvinus Contr. Molin cap. 11. And to this end that they may make it good that God cannot in justice require faith in Christ from man in his fallen condition unlesse he withal confer upon him abilities to believe seeing he never had that power from him in his integrity and state of purity and upon this supposition
not necessitated Upon these grounds it is that I finde no reason to widen the differences between these promises and priviledges in either covenants The identity of conditions in the covenant of Works and Grace on Gods part we have seen The great diversity in the conditions called for from man comes to be spoken to And in the first place this difference offers it self The conditions of the covenant of Works were in mans power being left to the freedom of his will he had abilities in himself without seeking out for further assistance then a meer general concurrence to perform them This ability in man to answer whatsoever was called for at his hands from God appears First in the integrity of his nature Being made like God his principles must needs carry him to a conformity with God and these principles were connatural to man in his first being and beginning Man being made of God to contemplate his glory and to enjoy communion with himself he made him not defective in any of those noble qualifications that serve for it or have a tendency to it Papists indeed will have this to be a supernaturall gift of grace and above the glory of mans first creation Bellarmine compares it to a bridle given to curb that lust which riseth against reason in us That rebellion of lusts in man they conceit would have been if man had not fallen which as it layes a high charge upon God in such an aspersion of his pure work drawn after such a patterne so it makes way for other opinions that the first motions without consent are no sins and that lust in the regenerate is not sin But as the bottom is rotten so also the building that is raised upon it is ruinous There was an happy agreement in man as well with himself as with his Creatour The fall brought in a necessity of support and supply of Grace Secondly this appears from the equity which must be granted to be in the command of God which requires that the work given in charge be not above his abilities that is charged with it The Arminian argument from a command to abilities to keep the command from a threat to conclude a power to keep off from the thing threatned is of force as long as the person under command keeps himself in the same station and strength as when the command was given But applying this to man in his fallen estate who had sinned away his abilities the strength of it is wholly lost The command of God retains its perfection when we are under the power of corruption The Law is nothing abated though we be weakened 3. It appears in the work it self which was charged upon man upon performance of which he was to expect happinesse There is no more explicitely mentioned then that negative precert Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die This all may yeeld might easily have been kept if the command had been heeded or the menace observed The Jews at their worst could observe the commands of non-licet meats and this was a command of like nature yet this was not all unto which man was tied Being made in the image of God he had clear light to discern good from evil and as all yet retaine darkly and obseurely so he had the Law written in his heart clearly Adultery Murder though no otherwise condemned then by that light which he had by creation in that estate had been sin The former positive Law was evil because forbidden take away the prohibition and there had been no sin in eating These are forbidden because evil The Law imprinted by creation being presupposed there needed no further Law to make them sinful They that never had the written Law are condemned for these practices by that Law which by nature is written in their hearts But against these there was in nature an Antipathy Mans pure nature had them in abhorrency As now there needs no Law more then nature doth suggest to forbid the eating of poyson feeding on dust or carrion So then there needed no more Law to condemne these practices so that obedience in that state was in mans power must necessarily be yeelded The conditions of the covenant of Grace are not performed but by special grace a power from God must concurre for their work in man Man hath no abilities in himself to answer what God requires and if he rise not up to the terms of this covenant till he raise himselfe he will for ever fall short of it As the covenant was vouchsafed of grace so grace must make us meet to partake of the benefits of it This appears 1. In the state and condition in which God findes man when he first enters covenant with him yea after covenant entred till a change be wrought and abilities conferred to answer that which God in covenant requires This state of man the Apostle expresses Ephes 2. 1. Dead in trespasses and sins alive and in power for nothing at all but sinne This was the condition of Heathens never in covenant and so of the Jews who were a people in actual covenant and owned of God as his inheritance as God willing shall be shewn Their conversation was the same as the Apostle there confesseth Among whom we also had our conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the minde and were by nature the children of wrath as well as others This in abundant other expressions in Scripture is discovered holding forth the same thing Rom. 5. 6. For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly That infant Ezek. 16. 4 5. had no more possibilities of life then is to be found even in the state of death Reas 2. It appears in that power which is exercised by God in the change of those in covenant with him whom he fits for himself for Eternity This power in Scripture is set out in several expressions First Creation Ephes 2. 10. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works All ability to good is from the frame into which grace puts us As there is a power out of man which gives him Being So also there is an answerable power for his new Being He that is begotten of God keepeth himself and the evil one toucheth him not 1 John 5. 18. Secondly Quickning The dead have not power to raise themselves without a further power for their Resurrection Neither is it in the power of man Who is dead in trespasses and sinnes Eph. 2. 1. Thirdly Taking away the heart of stone and giving an heart of flesh Ezek. 36. 26. To change the nature of things which is here done is the work of an Omnipotence which was Satans argument not denied by Christ If thou be the Son of God command these stones to be made bread Mat. 4. 3. Fourthly Causing
Exod. 34. 7. when he sets out his name in several particulars this is one by no means clearing the guilty Some indeed have said conceiting with themselves thereby to promote free grace that God justifies sinners as sinners which as it must needs if true bring in the salvation of all à quatenus ad omne valet argumentum then a man need no more but sinne to conclude his salvation and the more sinne the stronger evidence so it is utterly destructive to the Gospel and overthrows the whole work of Christs merit as the Apostle saith If righteousnesse be by the Law then Christ is dead in vaine Galatians 2. 21. So we may safely say If a man be justified as a sinner without a righteousnesse So that the truth is God justifies as righteous what he esteems as an abomination in man that he doth not himself but this in man is an abomination to him He that justifieth the wicked and condemneth the just even they both are an abomination to the Lord Proverbs 17. 15. Secondly Man hath no righteousnesse of his owne to bring in plea for his justification in which he can appeare before God in judgment This will be plaine if we consider the wayes of acquital where proceedings are just and legal This must be either as innocent when a man can plead not guilty to that which is given in charge So did David when Cush the Benjamite did traduce him Psalm 7. 3. If I have done this if there be iniquity in my hands And so did Paul to the charge of Tertullus Acts 24. 13. Upon this account Pilate was willing to have acquitted Christ I finde no fault in this man Luke 23. 4. Or else by way of satisfaction or discharge of the penalty which the Law imposeth so in all penal Lawes when the penalty is borne the delinquent is discharged Man cannot be acquitted as innocent his guilt is too palpable There is no men that sinneth nâ—t saith Solomon 1 Kings 8. 4 6. The Scripture hath concluded all under sinne Gal. 3. 22. The Law speaks that language that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God Rom. 3. 19. Man is under that guilt that he is wholly silenced which renders the way of salvation by works impossible Neither can he be acquitted by way of satisfaction where the way of pure justice is held the debtor under charge can never come out till he hath paid the uttermost farthing Mat. 5. 26. Which here amounts to such an heighth that man may be ever paying but never able to satisfie Our guilt is according to the majesty of him whose Law is transgressed and wrath incurred This is seen in Devils and damned souls who bear in their own persons the reward due to their sinnes That man that must suffer it in his own person may well say with Cain My punishment is greater then I can bear Gen. 4. 13. Thirdly Man in this sad and perplexed estate hath yet a righteousnesse of grace tendered him a righteousnesse without the Law but witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Rom. 3. 21. And this is by way of discharge of his guilt by anothers suffering Our name was in the Obligation in case of sinne to suffer death Christ was pleased by consent and covenant with the Father to put in his and as he was thus obliged so he suffered the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God 1 Pet. 3. 18. We brake the Law and he bore the penalty whether idem or tantundem the same in specie or the same in value is scarce worth dispute So that it be yeelded that justice was answered and the Father satisfied and that we come out not on our own but our sureties account And this as I yet conceive is by Christs passive obedience His suffering in the flesh is our freedom his death is our ransome There needs no more than innocency not to die and when guilt is taken away we stand as innocent no crime then can be charged upon us But to reign in life as the Apostle speaks to inherit a crown there is farther expected which we not reaching Christs active obedience imputed to us not adding to ours but being in it self compleat is accounted ours and we are discharged And whereas some say Object that being freed from death upon that very account we reigne in life and therefore in case his sufferings deliver us from death they necessarily confer upon us life there is not nor can there be conceived any medium between them I answer Answ It is true of our natural life and death A man not dead is alive But taking death in Scripture-sense for the wages of sin which comprizes as we have heard all misery and life for an immarcessible crown of glory there may be a medium conceived between them and is not onely conceived but assigned by Papists in their Limbus infantum Neither will it serve to say that Christs active obedience served onely for a qualification to fit him for the work of suffering none but innocent man free from sin could be a sacrifice for sinne seeing Christ had been innocent though he had never come under the Law to have yeelded that obedience His person had not been as ours under the Law unlesse of his own accord he had been made under the Law Gal. 4. 4. Somewhat might be said for the subjection of the humane nature in Christ the manhood of Christ which was a creature but the person of Christ God-man seemes to be above subjection Much may be said for the subjection of the Sonne of David so considered he may say with David I am thy servant and the sonne of thy handmaid but not so of the Lord of David had he not for our sakes made himself a servant We know the mortality of the humane nature yet Christ had never died unlesse he had made himself obedient unto death neither needed he to have served unlesse he had humbled himself Phil. 2. to take upon him the forme of a servant See the confession of Faith agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines chap. 8. sect 5. and Dr. Featlies speeches upon it Fourthly This righteousnesse of Christ whether passive or active or both passive and active is made ours by faith This is our way of interest and appropriation of it to our selves Faith and no other grace this grace and no other Gospel-work gives us title and therefore as it is called the righteousnesse of God so also the righteousnesse of faith These two are promiscuously used and taken for one another Rom. 10. 3 4. Phil 3. 8. Called the righteousnesse of God being the free gift of God wrought by Christ who is God denied to be our own righteousnesse being neither wrought by us or inherent in us called the righteousnesse of faith not of works not of love not of patience or meekness It is alone faith and none of these graces that puts out it selfe to receive it
the first and great Commandment in the Law in this life can be fulfilled and charging it with blasphemy Luther having Austins authority in several places as Jansenius confesses for to second him affirming with him that this Commandment in this life cannot be perfected or fulfilled but it is to be fulfilled in the life to come giving his reason As long as there is any thing of carnal concupiscence to be restrained God is not with the whole heart loved The good Bishop knows how by distinction to salve Austin and maintaine his doctrine to be good divinity and denying Luther that favour to leave him under the brand of blasphemy so that the result of all with him is this God is then loved with the whole heart when any one out of inward and sincere affection to God is principally exercised in those things which are of God studying above all things to please him and carefully to observe not one but all his Commandments and that not slothfully and against heart but diligently and cheerfully grieving from the heart if any thing by others or himself through infirmity of the flesh be admitted contrary to the will of God So that some might think all controversie in this point may cease and that the difference between us were no more than a strife of words seeing we do not only confesse that this ought to be done but also urge a necessity of doing of it and they say the Law is fulfilled when it is done But here 1. Much wrong is done to the Law as though it were a rule of our strength not of our duty that it answered and might be applied to each mans impaired strength and weakened abilities or that the Gospel-grace of godly sorrow for sin against the Law were the keeping of the Law making repentance a satisfactory discharge for disobedience When these men cannot bring up mans nature to the streight line of the Law they bring down the Law to the crooked nature of man 2. It is injurious to man puffing him up with conceit of answering the Law setting him up as high as he should be laid low ready to say with the young man in the Gospel All these have I kept from my youth when holding out the Law in its just latitude as it was happily brought home to the Apostles conscience sin would revive and he would see himselfe in a lost condition A second opinion is that the covenant of grace requires perfection in the exactest way without help of these mens distinctions in an equal degree with the covenant of works but with this difference In the covenant of works there is no indulgence or dispensation in case of failing but the penalty takes hold the curse follows upon it But the covenant of grace though it call for perfection such is the exactnesse of it yet it accepts of sincerity such is the qualification of it through grace or the mercy in it If I should take up any opinion in the world for the Authours sake or those that have appeared as Patrons of it then I should embrace this The reverence deservedly due to him that I suppose first manisted himself in it hath caused it to finde great entertainment but upon more than twenty yeares thoughts about it I finde it labouring under manifold inconveniences 1. It establishes the former opinion opposed by Protestants and but now refuted as to the obedience and the degree called for in covenant And if I should be indulgent to my affections to cause my judgement to stoop Dislike of the one would make me as averse from it as an opinion of the other would make me prone to receive it Judgement therefore must lead and affections be waved 2. If this opinion stand then God accepts of Covenant-breakers of those that deale falsely in it whereas Scripture charges it only upon the wicked upon those of whom God complaines as rebellious Deut. 29. 25. Josh 7. 15. Jeremy 11. 10. Jeremy 22. 8 9. Yea it may be charged on the best the most holy in the world lying under the guilt of it according to this tenent 3. Then it will follow that as none can say that they have so answered the commands of the Law that they have never failed they have not if put to answer in the greatest rigour once transgressed so neither can they with the Church make appeale to God That they have not dealt falsely in the Covenant nor wickedly departed from their God Psal 44. 17. Every sinne according to this opinion being a breach of it and a dealing falsely in it 4. Then that great promise of mercy from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousnesse unto childrens children to such as keep his Covenant and to those that remember his Commandments to do them Psalme 103. 17 18. only appertaines to those that so keep the Law that they sinne not at all against it 5. Then our Baptism-vow is never to sin against God and as often as we renew our covenant we do not only humble our selves that we have sinned but we afresh binde our selves never more to admit the least infirmity and so live and die in the breach of it 6. Then the distinction between those that entered covenant and broke it as Jerem. 31 32 33. and those that have the Law written in their hearts and put into their inward parts to observe it falls all standing equally guilty of the breach of it no help of grace being of power to enable to keep Covenant Each of these five last arguments are replyed to by a distinction of the precept and conditions of the Covenant Men that are sincere break the precept as is said but not the conditions But I know no precepts in covenants which are not conditions Faith and Repentance are Precepts and I think the alone Precepts and I know not neither do I heare of any other Conditions 7. Then it follows that Sincerity is never called for as a duty or required as a grace but only dispensed with as a failing indulged as a want It is not so much a Christians honour or character as his blemish or failing rather his defect than praise But we finde the contrary in Noah Job Asa Hezekiah Zachary and Elizabeth Nathaniel an Israelite indeed that entered covenant and kept covenant Sincerity is a degree towards perfection in obedience and if the command looks no lower than perfection in degree the imperfect degree is not commanded though it be indulged And therefore I conclude that as in the Law there was pure justice as well in the command given as the penalty threatened without any condescension or indulgence So in the covenant there is mercy and condescension as well in the condition required as in the acceptance through grace The Covenant requires no more than it accepts The alone Argument Object so farre as ever I could learn that hath brought some of reverend esteeme heretofore into this opinion is That if
do them that ye may live and go in and possesse the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you Deut. 5. 33. You shall walk in all the wayes which the Lord your God hath commanded you that ye may live and that it may be well with you and that ye may prolong your dayes in the land which ye shall possesse Deut. 30. 16. In that I command this day to love the Lord thy God to walk in his wayes and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgements that thou mayest live and multiply and the Lord thy God shall blesse thee in the land whither thou goest to possesse it Deut. 6. 24 25. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always that he might preserve us alive as it is this day And it shall be our righteousnesse if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as he hath commanded us We may so interpret those Scriptures and the Jewes as it appears for a great part did so interpret them that they hold out a covenant of Works when Grace was not at all acknowledged to assist in doing nor Christ known at all to satisfie for failing and to expiate for transgression These seeing nothing but a reward upon labour and punishment in case of transgression They may yet be so interpreted as taking Grace in the Work for change of the heart and putting it into a posture for obedience according to that even in Moses Deut. 306. I will circumcise thy heart and the heart if thy â—eed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live and so these duties are only Gospel qualifications of truth and sincerity of obedience In this sense which they may well bear and I take to be their native sense here is no more than what we finde in the Gospel from Christ and the Apostles They that have done good shall rise unto the resurrâ—ction of life John 5. 28. To them that by patient continuing in well-doing seek for glory and immortality eternal life Rom 2. 5. Where as in many other places we may see that according to the New covenant a man may make the attaining of life the end of his work and the Reader may see phrases of his nature to be New covenant New Testament and Gospel-language unlesse they will charge Christ and the Apostles to have Old Testament-spirits To save a mans self may be so understood as to bear a sense purely legal anti-Evangelical and opposite to Grace or Faith in Christ and so it is used by the Apostle or a phrase very near it For by Grace ye are saved through Faith not of your selves it is the gift of God Eph. 2. 8. Not obscurely shewing that if we are saved of our selves it is not of Grace not of Faith and not the gift of God Yet the phrase may be understood in a Gospel-sense as requiring and implying no more than our endeavour in a state of grace through the assistance of the Spirit to walk in Salvation-way To strive to enter in at the strait gate and to seek the Kingdome of God and the righteousnesse of it and so we finde it used and that more than once in Scriptures 1 Tim. 4. 16. Take heed unto thy self and unto the doctrine in so doing thou wilt save thy self and them that hear thee Ministers taking heed to doctrine save hearers and yet are no saviours in opposition but in subordination to the Lord Jesus Ministers and others taking heed to themselves save themselves and yet are no self-saviours in opposition to free grace the merit of or faith in Christ Jesus Peter in his first Sermon after receiving of the holy Ghost preâ—cht the Gospel yet he urg'd this which some will have to be no other than a covenant of Works Save your selves from this untoward generation Act. 2. 40. And the Apostle preacht no other thing than Christ and him crucified when he called on the Philippians to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2. 12. To be found in our own righteousnesse in that sense that Paul uses it Phil. 3. 8. doth exclude the righteousnesse of faith that was no bottom on which he durst stand yet in the sense that Ezekiel uses it the soul is delivered by it Though Noah Daniel and Job stood before me they would but deliver their own soules by their righteousness Ezek. 14. 14. so Ezek. 18. 22. In his righteousness that he hath done he shall live Noah was an heir of the righteousness of faith Heb. 11. 7. as the Holy Ghost himself witnesseth yet the same Holy Ghost tells us that his own righteousness delivers his soul So Solomon saith Righteousnesse delivers from death he doth not only say it would deliver were it exact and compleat but such as it is it doth deliver Prov. 20.2 David as Paul observes describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works Rom. 4. 6. Yet the same David puts blessednesse upon works Psal 112. 1. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord that delighteth greatly in his commandments Psalme 119. 12. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the Law of the Lord Blessed are they that keep his testimonies that seek him with the whole heart Ps 128. 1. Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord that walketh in his wayes And so also the Apostle James Who so looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty and continueth therein not being a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word that man shall be blessed in his deed James 1. 25. The Apostle Peter tells us We are kept by the mighty power of God through faith unto salvation 1 Pet. 1 5. Our salvation is not in our own keeping It is not our own care that frees us from destruction yet John saith He that is begotten of God sinneth not and keepeth himself that the wicked one toucheth him not 1 John 5. 18. Here are the same words affirmed and denied and both from one and the same mouth of truth a different sense therefore is to be enquired after A righteousnesse which is the condition of the covenant of Works out of our own inherent strength and abilities in an exact perfection is denied a righteousnesse not of us but through grace wrought in us in sincerity which the covenant of Grace calls for is asserted and required Ninthly Though the whole Law that Moses delivered from God on Mount Sinai to the people and is among the sacred Oracles of God for posterity do containe a covenant of Grace yet the Law is taken sometime in that strict sense as containing a covenant of Works and holding forth life upon condition of perfect obedience So the Apostle Rom. 10. 5 6. puts an opposition between the righteousnesse of the Law and the righteousness of Faith So also Gal. 3. 18. If
faith that they must receive them giving this reason for God hath received them Rom. 14. 1 3. we may apply to those that make profession of the faith being able to make application of his reason God takes them into communion unto visible fellowship we are not then to reject them Is the necessary qualification of a member of the visible Church universal one thing and the necessary of a member of this or that particular congregation another and may one be fit to be a member of the universal visible Church and yet not qualified to be a member of a particular congregation saith Master Wood Append. p. 169 170. If I should enlarge this to heathens brought to a profession of the faith and argue their right to baptisme upon profession and by baptisme their right to Church-fellowship in any visible Church-society I should finde the Scriptures abundantly to favour it Of so many thousands myriads of thousands of converts Acts 21. 20. which were added to the Church and received by baptisme baptized the same day for a great part sometimes as appears the very houre of their conversion there is not one that we reade refused but all received yea not a scruple raised save of one only as I remember which was Saul when he offered himself into Church-fellowship and that not upon this account that we are now upon but good Ananias fearing that he came not to joyne with them but to seise upon them knowing that at that time he had authority from the chief Priests to binde all that call on Christs name Acts 9. 14. If the competentes as they were stiled in the primitive times viz. men that offered themselves for Church-fellowship had then entred at so strait a door as now in some places they are put to passe where a glib tongue is in a farre fairer way to take than an upright heart we should have heard of no small bustle about it When we finde murmurings of Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration Acts 6. 1. we should sure have heard of it had they been neglected in Church-fellowship and communion But when no such thing can be found in the practice of the Church after the Holy Ghost was given which is called by way of eminence the Kingdom of Christ or the Kingdom of Heaven yet they think they finde exceptions taken and some refused by the forerunner of Christ John Baptist One laying down this Proposition That men seeking admission into the Church are not to be received without farther satisfaction gives instance in no other but John Baptist and saith The Baptist did not admit all that sought it unto baptism and proves it from no Text either of Matthew or Luke which give us the narrative but by the authority of Pareus The Pharisees saith he did seek baptisme but John did not admit them being unworthy to whom he adds Aretius who sayes They sought baptisme but he seems to think saith our Authour that they were not by any means baptized But how eminent soever their authorities are their reasons are very weak The Baptist reproved them called them to repentance and therefore did not baptize them when the text seems to speak the contrary For as soon as his reproof with his exhortation is ended there follows I indeed baptize you with water verse 11. And it seems by Saint Luke that those Pharisees and Lawyers that were not baptized of John were not refused but did refuse Luke 7. 30. But the Lawyers and Pharisees rejected the Councel of God against themselves being not baptized of him When the same learned Authour cannot instance any precedent or produce any Scripture-Ordinance for it he endeavours by arguments drawn from the forme of a particular Church the way of reformation of Churches the relation of inferiority and superiority among those that are free and such like reasons to evince it To which but that I will not here make it my businesse an easie answer might be given it is more than strange that when the Apostles had by Commission from Christ planted Churches and were to leave them to be propagated in future Ages and knowing a covenant to be essential to the constitution as now by some is asserted would yet wholly be silent in it especially when no such thing was known in Old Testament-Scriptures that we might gather it by analogy and through all Ages till this last Age had lien hid and never discovered and leave us by our reason to discover it In which we are in danger to set our threshold by Gods threshold of which he so sadly complains Ezek. 43. 8. or rather justle out his threshold with ours denying baptisme to be any door for admission at which the primitive Saints entred and setting up a covenant of which Scripture speaks nothing and Master John Goodwin was sometimes as confident as confidence could make him that it had no ground in the holy Scriptures But to leave heathens haply called by Gospel Ordinances to speak a word or two to our own case who are a discipled Nation a Kingdom subjugated to the yoke of Christ Jesus enjoying saving Ordinances and therefore have a Church of Christ fixt among us Here we might lay down divers positions for the regulating of our judgements First where nothing is wanting to the being of a Church God having a people owning him in covenant yet much more may be required for the well ordering and regulating of it where a people accept of a King and receive his Lawes there he hath a Kingdom and is a Monarch yet much more is required for the ordering of such a Monarchy for the publick weale and safety so it is where there is a Church of God accepting the Lawes of heaven there the Lord Christ reigns as a Monarch yet farther care must be used for the right regulating of it according to his Will and the Lawes tendred by him and received by them Secondly a people in a vicinity or neighbourhood dwelling together ought to associate themselves and joyne with those of that neighbourhood according to their best convenience for the participation of Ordinances As it is against all dictates of reason that a people scattered at a great distance should combine themselves in a Church-way for Ordinances in which God rules so it is as clear against the Scriptures You read of a Church of God at Ephesus at Corinth at Philippi at Thessalonica at Laodicea But you reade not of any one Church made up of members residing at all those places or in any places at like distance That cohabitation or dwelling together makes not up a Church congregational will be easily granted Infidels Turks Pagans may cohabit they may make an idol-church but not a Church of God but co-habitation or dwelling together is one ingredient Saints cohabiting that is in New Testament-language men separate for God not Jewes nor Infidels but Christians and joyning in Ordinances as in
before Antichrist was raised to his height and strength in his delusions and Antichrist still holds them of all sorts and sizes Either of both of these mayâ—e Negative or Positive Negative are such where the doctrine of faith is not laid Positive where it is mis-laid where edifying doctrines are not preached and where they are mis-preacht both tend to the Churches danger a house never compleat or built up entire but defective in several parts little differs from that which is ruinous The Apostle who is worthily stiled a wise Master-builder 1 Cor. 3. 10. makes known the whole counsel of God Acts 20. 27. and builds not up defective Churches 5. All errors being against Christ who is the foundation to bear up and carrie on the whole work accordingly as they dash upon Christ and obscure his glory whether more or lesse the estimate of the danger is to be taken These are either such that render Christ in an uncapacity to be our Mediatour and Saviour or such that are inconsistent in whole or in part with his Mediatourship of the former kinde are those that are against his person 1. Those that impugne the Godhead of Christ such that though they give him the glory to be above Angels yet will make him no more than a creature a God in title and place as are Magistrates not in nature or power An opinion that involves the Apostolick Church and all Churches in succession in idolatry giving the honour of God the worship due to God unto him who by nature is no God A doctrine that will make Christ an impotent and not an omnipotent head too weak for his work to govern the world and bring under his enemies 2. Those that deny his manhood as having not taken our flesh and so no suitable head but a phantastick or seeming body Those that are against his Mediatourship are either such that obscure or some way eclipse it as every errour doth that is any way considerable or such that raze if not utterly overthrow it in some of the necessary parts of it his Kingdome Priesthood or Prophetical Office These are overthrown either directly in termes of full opposition or else by consequence and this such that is either immediate and evident the truth being confest these cannot be denied or else the consequence more remote and not so easily discerned These things being premised we must bring it home to our purpose 1. Where fundamental truths are not only questioned doubted and disputed but abjured and denyed errours directly or by immedate clear consequence introduced so that the truth cannot be known but the errour must be seen and this declared by publick confession and generally held Christians are to be gone here are not sufficient edifying truths nor yet antidotes to preserve from danger when they would have healed Babylon and she would not be healed then it is time to forsake If any man come unto you and bring not this doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed 2 John 10. saith John much lesse then may we hold such communion with them It is said of Mice that when the house through ruines is falling they will be gone shall nature teach them to provide for their safety and shall nothing teach Christians to see to their own salvation When Jerusalem was to be destroyed according to Christs prediction and not one stone to be left upon another a voice is said to be heard crying Get out to Pella Foundation-breaches seen and suffered are as this voice to be gone such a Jerusalems walls are falling There is a flight too soon when care might keep up the buildings when with the poore man we may save and deliver the City Eccles 9. 15. They that preached Christ in those Churches of Galatia and preached down Circumcision and other points of Judaisme pleased the Apostle better then they that without such endeavour should desert it so those that had preached the resurrection in Corinth had better pleased then those that had left the place for their sakes that denyed it A Church may not onely degenerate but apostatize may not onely languish but lose her vital spirits may not onely displease her Bridegroom but suffer a divorce perhaps keep the title of a wife and indeed be a strumpet and want all evidence of relation to the Bridegroome 2. In the case of pollutions of a more inferior alloy a Christian may be necessitated to leave 1. When the food of life knowledge in the word or means to compasse it cannot be had In such a case it must be sought They must resolve with the Lepers 2 King 7. 3. not to sit still and die When the Priests and Levites left their suburbs and pessessions under Jeroboams government being cast out of their employment and the lowest of the people men of self-consecration set up in their stead after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord God of their fathers 2. Châ—â—n 11. 16. Being without a teaching Priest they were as the Prophet tells Asa 2 Chron. 15. 3. without the Law and without God and there was no staying there 2. When a man by compulsion is necessitated to give approbation to such pollutions in any such way that speaks his compliance whether it be by the civil power through unsufferable fines â—ulcts imprisonments unavoidable or peril of life Or by the Ecclesiastical power in excommunications when men are driven out or necessitated for soul-subsistence to go out there is full liberty and warranty to leave But when Ordinances in a saving way may be enjoyed with liberty and safety no Laws being enacted for their so heavy persecution or through indulgence or connivence not put into execution there the Churches good calls for good mens stay not their secession or separation There was not a little leaven in the Churches doctrine in Christs time errour was advanced into Moses chaire yet Christ himself with many other that waited for redemption in Jerusalem held communion as Church-members All was not right in every Church of the Saints to whom Christ wrote Revel 2. 3. and to whom Paul sent Epistles yet as they retained still the honour of Churches and the happinesse of Christs presence so we hear nothing of separation enjâ—â—ned or practised The condition of Beleevers in the Synagogue of Rome was otherwise The key of knowledge is there taken away the people not allowed to read it in private or to heare it in publick but kept reserved in an unknown language neither could they without capital danger keep themselves from compliances in their sinne so that reformed Churches did not in any unwarrantable way of Schisme leave but rather were left They forsook not the Church but the botches and corruptions in it though we were never forbidden to partake of their truths yet we are forbidden to partake of their sins lest we partake
is not unfitly called in instrument of God p. 128 See Faith Justification Ishmael In Covenant when circumcised p. 296 Not to be branded with bastardy ibid. He and his seed cast out of Covenant p. 298 Justification Mans concurrence in it necessarily required in it as an acceptant not as agent p. 127 It is a transient act of God not an immanent p. 132 It is not from eternity p. 131 c. A justified man an an fitted for every duty to which God calls p. 135. See Faith Instrument K. Kingdome of Heaven IN what sense taken Matth. 19. 14 c. p. 399 The Hinge of the contraversie concerning infants interest in Covenant hangs not on the interpretation of those words ibid. Anabaptists reasons not sufficient to prove it to be meant of the Kingdome of Glory p. 400 Though understood of the Kingdome of Glory it serves not to discovenant or dischurch infants p. 401 L. Law COnsidered as a Covenant to give life is inconsistent with the Gospel p. 55 moral-Moral-Law hath a commanding power over Beleevers ibid. By Arguments asserted ibid. Objections answered p. 58 In what sense a dead husband p. 59 See Moses A rule of our duty not of our strength p. 151. Life What in Scripture it implies p. 100 The same in substance in the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace ibid. A Medium may be concieved and is by some assigned between life and death in Scripture acceptation p. 123 Lord. The acceptation of Christ as Lord doth not justifie p. 125 Love To do a thing out of obedience to the Law and by love not opposite p. 61 Love cleaves to Christ for communion but recieves him not for justification p. 125 M. Master Marshal VIndicated p. 435 Mediatour A foure-fold work respective to the Covenant incumbent on the Mediatour p. 93 c. See Christ Moses Metaphor God's entring Covenant with man no Metaphor p. 10. 37 Ministers Must bring their people up to the termes of the Covenant in pressing the necessity of Faith and Repentance p. 188 c. They must not sever the promise from the duty p. 189 Ministry The necessity of a Ministry to bring me into Covenant and to bring them up to the termes of the Covenant p. 160. Reasons evincing that God hath appointed such a Ministry to be perpetuated through all ages p. 162 c. Reasons evincing the necessity of such an established Ministry p. 165 c. Objections answered p. 168 169 An orderly call from God into the Ministerial function necessary p. 180 Reasons assigned p. 181 182 Several wayes of calling to the work of The Ministry p. 182 See Ordination Ministry-maintenance p. 442 Moses The Law as delivered by Moses bindes Christians p. 73 74 75 He delivered a Covenant to the Jewes p. 210 He delivered a Covenant of Grace to the Jewes p. 210 211 In his time commands were frequent and full the directive and maledictive part for discovery of sin were open and clear but promises for eternity little known p. 213 He was a Mediatour in type N. Nature TAken for Birth-priviledge or descent from Ancestors p. 307 Taken for qualifications of nature ibid. Jewes by nature had priviledges above Gentiles p. 307 308 O. Obedience See Righteousnesse Olive THe whole universal Church visible Rom. 11. p. 325 Fatnesse of the Olive glory of Ordinances p. 326 Ordination An orderly call by way of Ordination into the Ministerial function necessary in all not gifted by immediate revelation p. 182 Ordination described ibid. Men in Ministerial function are to act in Ordination p. 182 183 They are to set men apart as Presbyters and Elders p. 184 Ordination not to be passed but upon examination and tryal p. 140 To be solemnized with fasting and prayer p. 185 186 Imposition of hands to be used p. 187 Objections answered ibid. P. Pardon NAtional and personal p. 343 My People That phrase applied in New Testament-Scriptures to those that stand invisible relation to God p. 258 Places for worship In New Testament-times have their warranty In what sense holy p. 441 Places holy by divine institution by divine approbation p. 439 Positions concerning places for worship in Gospel-times p. 441 Not in equipage with the Temple and Tabernacle ibid. Temple and Tabernacle had the pre-eminence in four Particulars ibid. Our places of meeting by good warranty called Churches p. 441 c. Position This Position that the Moral Law hath no commanding power over Believers examined p. 58 That position concerning the Old Covenant to be both a Covenant of Works and a Covenant of Grace examined p. 210 Power Necessary in the call of Nations to a visible Church-state p. 330 Priviledge See Birth Professors Who to be accounted so before men p. 450 Promises Made to the wiked made good to the believing and penitent p. 190 Absolute promises yield not peace to him that is wanting in the conditions of God required ibid. p. 47 Objections answered p. 190 Spiritual promises rare and obscure under Moses his administration p. 213 Scriptures evincing the spirituality of Old Testament-Promises p. 222 Temporal promises annexed as appendants to spiritual in the Old Covenant p. 226 Children of Promise All the seed of Abraham by Isaac born by vertue of that miraculous promise p. 298 Q. Quaeries PVt to those that restraine the New Covenant to the Elect regenerate p. 234 c. Put to those that put a limit to the New Covenant respective to the issue p. 317 R. Reconciliation GRadual or total of persons of Nations p. 331 Repentance A distinct grace from faith p. 136 A condition of the Covenant of grace ib. Considered in the prae-requisites p. 137 In the essential parts of it ibid. Privative part which is cessation from sin is required in Covenant p. 140 Positive part which is a returne to God and an holy walk with God is required in Covenant p. 142 See Righteousnesse Objections answered p. 144 c. Reprobation No cause of unbelief or sin p. 341 It leads not to condemnation without merit of sin as Election leads to Salvation without merits of works ibid. Righteousnesse What degree of righteousnesse is required in the Covenant of Grace p. 148 Perfection of degrees is not so required that upon the defection of it the penalty is incurred p. 149 Perfection of degrees is not required and sincerity accepted p. 151 Reasons assigned ibid. c. Objections answered p. 153 Our Evangelical righteousnesse is imperfect p. 155 c Sincerity is required and accepted p. 112 c. Root and Branch Denote parent and childe Rom. 11. 16. p. 325 Root Abraham Isaac and Jacob. ibid. Every natural parent a Root p. 338 Every natural believing Parent an holy Root ibid. Abraham a Root by communication not by example p. 399 S. Sacraments ARe Gospel mysteries p. 446 Sacriledge Defined p. 440 With-holding infants of believing parents from Baptism is Sacriledg p. 437 c. Saints Vnregenerate persons have the name and outward priviledge of Saints p.
disobligation to obedience a Cùm itaque homo jaceret sub maledictione ad obedientiam amplius non obligabatur quia coli ab eo Deus ampliù◠non volebat b Nam quòd coli à creature sua Deâ—â— vult favâ—râ—is est The Sovereignty of God is held up 1. In keeping up his commandments The Law hath a commanding power over beleeevers Rom. 7. 1 c. vindicated The Law bindes the whole of man * Authorities vouchsafed for the perfection of the Moral Law as a Rule a Lex ista Dei quae in Decalogo continetur est perfectissima regula ad vitam hominis dirigendam b Ut legem istam Dei eo loco habeamus quo debemus i.e. ut non aliter de eadem cogitemus quam ut de vitae nostra unica forma tanquam de illa norma quae nullum habet defectum sed perfecta est in sese perfectionem omnem à nobis requirit c Ipsa lex Christi est exactissima perfectissima regula Sanctitatis justitiae d Passim in Scripturis confirmatur quae perfectionem legis divinae mirificè extollunt e Tam perfecta est haec lex ut nihil ei in praeceptis moralibus aut à Christo aut ab Apostolis ipsius additum fuerit quoad exactionem bonorum operum normam sub novo Testamento sit adducta f Obligans omnes creaturas rationales ad perfectam obedientiam internam externam g De perfect â obedientiâ quam Lex requirit h Variis autem corruptelis omnibus temporibus olim nunc depravata est doctrina de perfect â obedientia quam Lex Dei requirit i Est praeceptio divina continens piè justeque coram Deo vivendi regulam requirens ab omni homine perfectam perpetuam obedientiam Arguments evincing the perfection of the Moral Law a Exceptions taken against the perfection of the Law b 1. Exception 2. Exception 3. Exception 4 Exception 5. Exception 6. Exception The Covenant of Works was entred into in mans state of integrity The Covenant of Grace was entered into in mans fallen condition The Covenant of Works was to mans preservation The Covenant of Grace was to mans restitution The Covenant of Works was first in time The Covenant of Grace in order of time followed after The Covenant of Works was a small time in force The Covenant of Grace is of everlasting continuance The Covenant of Works had no Mediatour Sol. Cujus enim participatione justi sunt ejus comparatione nec justi sunt Aug. ad Orosium contra Priscil cap. 10 Sol. The Covenant of grace is by a Mediatour Christ brings man into a capacity of covenanting with God Christ brings man within the verge of the Covenant 1. By his tender of it 2. By shaping the heart for it Christ brings up to the terms of the Covenant Christ crowns those that come up to the terms of the covenant Difficulties removed Faith is a duty of the moral Law The Covenant of grace not commensurate with election Conditions in the Covenant of works and the covenant of grace of Gods part seem to be the same Life promised in the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace is one and the same Death threatned in the Covenent of Works and in the Covenant of Grace is one and the same The conditions in the CovenaÌ„t of works were in mans power QuaÌ„ veluti aureo quodam fraeno pars inferior parti superiori pars superior Deo facile subjecta contineretur Bellar. De. Grat. primi hominis cap. 5. The conditions in the Covenant of Grace are not performed without special assistance Reasons Jer. 31. 33. cleared a Si filius miles acceptis à patre naturalibus ordine atque armis strenuè militaret sicque forsit an in superbia erigeretur inflatus quomodo in ipso cradicaretur superbia plantaretur humilitas Si ei ab aliquo diceretur Non glorietur omnis mile in conspectu patris sui Ex ipso enim est in militia ut qui gloriatur iâ— patre suc glorietur quid habes quod non accepisti Si autem accepisti quid gloriaris quasi non acceperis Posset enim rationaliter respondere dicendo quare non deberem de mea militia glâ—riari Accepi quidem à patre meo natural a mea quia nullus generat semetipsum accepi ordinem quia nulli conceditur infig nire semetipsum accepi arma qui a similitur caeteri militum non nascebar armatus nec sum fabor armorum debitum tamen usum istorum qui omnibus praevalet non accepi ab alio sed habeo me ex meipso crebas victorias fama celebri diâ—lugatas non accepi ab alio sed â—abeo ex mâ—ipso Pro hujusmodi igitur in me ipso merito gloriabor in alio autem nihil sic de quolibet milite Jesu Christi Necessity of the concurrence of grace Habitus infusi infunduntur ad mâ—dum acquisitorum The conditions in the Covenant of Works kept man within himself for righteousnesse The conditions in the Covenant of Grace carry a man out of himself to be righteous by anothers righteousnesse The conditions in the Covenant of works were for mans preservation in present happinesse The conditions in the Covenant of grace are for mans reparation Reasons convincing Faith to be a condition of the Covenant of grace In what sense faith is here taken Propositions tending to clear the point in hand The acceptation of Christ as a Lord doth not justifie Faith justifies as an instrument Fides percipit justificationem efficit sanctificationem a Quà m primum ergo instrumentum principali agenti non subservit instrumenti naturam a mittit Quae realâ—m evidentem mutationem extrinsecus nullam infert Transiens actio est quae revera mutationem infert A justified man is fitted for every duty to which God is pleased for to call Faith and Repentance are distinct graces and not one and the same Godly sorrow is a prerequisite to repentance Some degree of soul-shaking by the Law necessary Limits put to this doctrine of godly sorrow The essentials in repentance are 1. Privative Cessation from sinne 2. Positive A returne to God and an holy walking with him The Objection retorted Faith and repentance are our conditions not Gods Sol. Via ad regnum non causa regnandi Arguments evincing that Faith and Repentance are our conditions and not Gods in the proper conditional covenant In what manner Works are called for in the Covenant of Grace Repentance necessarily flowing from Faith is not thereby disabled from being a condition in the Covenant of Grace Perfection of degrees is not so called for of God in Covenant that upon failing it the mercies promised in Covenant are lost a Si quis dixerit baptizatos per baptisimum ipsum solius tantùm debitores fidei fieri non autem universa legis Christi