in it A Scholar saith Mr. Hudson that is admitted into a School is not admitted because he is doctus but ut sit doctus and if he will submit to the rules of the Schoole and apply himself to learne it is enough for his admission The like may be said of the Church-visible which is Christs School Vindicat. pag. 248. The door of the visible Church saith Master Baxter Saints Rest Part. 4. Sect. 3. is incomparably wider then the door of heaven and Christ is so tender so bountiful and forward to convey his grace and the Gospel so free an offer and invitation to all that surely Christ will keep no man off if they will come quite over in spirit to Christ they shall be welcome if they will come but onely to a visible profession he will not deny them admittance This seems to me to speak the mind of Jesus Christ for their admittance and that in foro Dei as well as in foro Ecclesiae they stand in covenant-relation and have title to Church-membership Thus the Reader may see my thoughts in this thing and though I doubt not but that some will question much that I have said yet now at last I hope my meaning may be understood CHAP. VII The Covenant of Grace calls for Conditions from Man A Third Proposition which I shall here lay down is that Gods covenant with man hath its restipulation from man when God engages to man to conferre happinesse upon him he requires conditions from him This I know hath strong opposition by men of two sorts and they of different stamps and for different ends The first deny all Gospel-conditions all covenant-termes on mans part to the end they may assert justification before and without Faith Salvation without Repentance and Obedience which though it be contradicted by abundant testimonies of Scripture placing unbeleeving impenitent and disobedient ones in hell under the wrath of God yea such unbeleeving impenitent ones that have laid highest claime to Christ Matth. 7. 23. yet it seems wholly to follow and necessarily to be evinced from this absolute unconditionate covenant If Christ have wholly finished not only the work of mans redemption but also of his salvation upon the crosse without farther work of application as one in a distinct Treatise hath made it his endeavour to prove then we may as he there doth decry both our faith in Christ and Christs intercession for us Herein one of late according to his wonted weaknesse is very industrious and whereas the Scripture tells us Christ dwells in our hearts by Faith Ephes 3. 17. he would prove that Christ enters into us without us dwells in the unbeleeving and in reference to this opinion of his he makes it his businesse as to deny Faith in reference to Justification so all Gospel-covenant-conditions All other covenants besides this were saith he upon a stipulation and the promise was altogether upon conditions on both sides But in this covenant of Grace viz. the new covenant it is far otherwise there is not any condition in this covenant I say the new covenant is without any condition whatsoever And he further tells his hearers that he is on a nice point Faith is not the condition of the covenant Others utterly distasting the aforenamed opinions of Justification without faith or salvation without obedience or repentance which seeme to be the natural issue and necessary consequents of an unconditional covenant yet with great resolution do affirme the covenant to be without conditions joyning in the premisses with these heterodox teachers but peremptorily denying the conclusion Against both of these that oppose it either more desperately or more innocently I affirm and might quote a cloud of witnesses that the covenant of grace hath its conditions which to me is clear First by the definition of a covenant given in by the Authour before named a few pages before his assertion before mentioned It is a mutual agreement between parties upon certaine Articles or Propositions on both sides so that each party is bound and tyed to perform his own conditions It is in the definition and of the essence of a covenant in general according to him to have conditions yet this covenant in particular with him is without condition Here is a species that partakes not of the nature of the genus a particular covenant that wants the essence of a covenant which is the same as though he should finde us a man that is no living creature a Vine or Fig-tree that is no plant a piece of scarlet of no colour such a thing is this unconditional covenant If the essence of a covenant require it then this covenant is not without it Secondly by the expresse Texts of Scripture which lay down conditions of the covenant either in expresse words or those that of necessity imply a condition See John 8. 51. Verily verily I say unto you if a man keep my saying he shall never see death Who sees not there First a Priviledge granted by way of covenant Secondly the condition on which it is to be obtained John 8. 24. If ye beleeve not that I am he ye shall die in your sinnes Heb. 3. 6. Whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoycing of the hope firme unto the end Who knows not If to be a conditional particle All pardon and justification if Scripture may be heard is suspended on mens not beleeving John 3. 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish but have everlasting life Mar. 16. 16. He that beleeveth and is baptized shall be saved and he that beleeveth not shall be damned Thirdly by Analogy with the covenant of Works entred of God with Adam in innocency Gen. 2. 17. This on all hands that I know is granted to have been conditional and who sees not in the Texts mentioned conditions as expresse in the Gospel as not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and euil to man in Paradise either both or neither must be conditional Fourthly from the nature of conditions in covenants A condition in a covenant is somewhat agreed upon by the Parties in covenant upon performance of which the benefit of the covenant is obtained and upon the failing of it the whole benefit is lost and the penalty whatsoever it is incurred In covenants between equals either indent and article what those conditions shall be upon defaylance of which the benefit is lost and the penalty incurred In covenants between superiour and inferiour the superiour doth prescribe and the inferiour doth yeeld In all covenants there are such conditions that upon performance or failing of them the covenant doth stand or fall such there are in the Gospel-covenant There we are enjoyned to believe and repent upon obedience to and performance of these we reap the benefit of the covenant Upon failing in them the benefit is lost and the penalty incurred He that
and upon him when the work was done he might have been justly annihilated If merit be taken in a proper sense Adam in innocency was too low for it all his work being an homage due no profit redounding to God and the work bearing no proportion to the reward But a more superabundant measure of Grace is seen in Gods entrance into covenant with man in his fallen condition and infinitely more savor is shewn in his reconciliation then in his preservation Therefore this by way of eminency hath the honour to be stiled the covenant of Grace the other retaines the name of the covenant of Works These two bearing these denominations have their respective agreement and differences which are to be enquired into but before I reach those it is necessary that somewhat be spoken to assert a covenant of grace in Gospel-times and to give us some further light for a right understanding of it CHAP. III. A Covenant in the proper nature of it between God and fallen man asserted BEfore I proceed any further in this work one great rub that lies in the way is to be removed otherwise not only all that which I have said but also all that which I shall speak on this subject will fall to the ground and that is their objection that say that God hath not entred any covenant properly so called with fallen man He hath by way of Sovereignty laid commands upon man Of free grace hath made rich and large promises by way of legacy bequeathed life and salvation to him but hath entred no covenant properly so called as these say with him which is purposely done to avoid those conditions which are asserted in this covenant If this stand the division before laid down of a Covenant into a Covenant of Works and a Covenant of Grace necessarily falls such a division must not be suffered where any one member of the division is not If therefore there be no covenant of God with fallen man nor no such thing as the covenant of Grace there can be no such division of the covenant and all agreement or differences assigned will be between an entity and a non-entity between that which hath a reality and a meer Chimaera A covenant therefore in the proper nature of it is to be asserted and the speedâ—est way to make this good is to prove from Scripture the name and the thing that the word Covenant is there and the thing in the proper nature of it which the words hold out and all of this respective to the transactions between God and fallen man The word we finde in places without number it were a needlesse labour to give instances when every Reader is able to furnish himself with such multitudes But when this cannot be denyed the impropriety of the speech is objected It is called by the name of a Covenant as is said when in strict propriety of speech it is no covenant But to avoid this the thing it self may be as easily proved as the word and when we have nomen and nominis rationem then we have a covenant not equivocally not yet analogically but properly so called And here I may deal liberally with any adversary and undertake to make proof not only of all the essentials of such a covenant in Scripture but the usual adjuncts not onely of all that makes up the nature but all accessories usually added to the solemnity of covenants The essentials or real properties of a covenant are contained in the usual definitions which afterwards we shall see laid down from several hands all of which are in short comprised in these words A mutual consent of parties with stipulation on both sides Parties consent and mutual engagement is all that is required to the same being of a covenant when two parties agree and either of them both have their conditions to make good there is a covenant or bargaine see it exemplified in several instances given Chap. 1. All of these we finde in that one place Deut. 26. 17 18 19. in the covenant that God enters with his people Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God and to walk in his wayes and to keep his Statutes and his Commandments and his Judgements and to hearken to his voice And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee and that thou shouldest keep all his Commandments And to make thee high above all Nations which he hath made in praise and in name and in honour and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God as he hath spoken There are the Covenanters God and his people There is consent on both parties Thou hast avouched the Lord hath avouched And there is a stipulation on both sides On Gods part To make them high above all Nations which he hath made in praise and in name and in honour On the peoples part To keep all his Commandments to be an holy people There are covenant-mercies from God to his people unto which of grace he engages himself and there are covenant-duties unto which man stands engaged Psal 103. 17 18. But the mercie of the Lord is from euerlasting 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 The usual solemnities of a covenant are also found in the transactions between God and his people as well as the essentials of it 1. Covenants used to be written for memorial for posterity and so is the covenant between God and man as in Old so in New Testament-times These things are written that you might believe and that believing you may have everlasting life John 20. 31. 2. Covenants used to be confirmed with outward visible signes as the killing of beasts Gen. 15. Jer. 34. this was done in the old administration Exod. 24. Half of the blood was sprinkled upon the Altar to denote Gods entering of Covenant vers 6. The people also were sprinkled with blood to shew their voluntary entring into covenant vers 8. And in the new dispensation a new and unheard of ratification was used the blood of the Mediatour of the Covenant Math. 26. 27 28. This Cup is my blood in the New Testament which was shed for you and for many for the remission of sins This latter is a plain allusion to the former in which you may finde 1. A threefold agreement Either of both these were covenants 2. Either of both these had their ratifications and confirmations 3. Either of both were confirmed with blood 2. A threefold difference 1. The former was the Old covenant which was antiquated This is the New 2. The former was ratified and sanctified with the blood of beasts This is ratified and sanctified in the blood of Christ 3. That blood could never take away sin Heb. 10. This was shed for many for remission of sins Thirdly covenants use to be confirmed by seal so is
the fruits of it upon such and such conditions to be by us fulfilled It will be worth our labour to enquire what is meant by the conditional engagement unto which he says some winde up the merit of Christ as affecting God with it doth he mean such conditions that as causes or impulsive motives take with God to enter such engagement If this be the meaning I shall freely yeeld that there is no such conditional covenant that there is no such condition in any Covenant of God with man In this sense Master Culverwell in his Treatise of Faith page 143. takes it Having mentioned several conditional promises in which faith is expressely required and such wherein it is necessarily understood he saith In all which faith is necessarily understood for the obtaining of the benefit promised But yet in all these faith is no condition properly so called moving God to promise life But taking it in this restrained sense as moving God to promise life he much mistakes himself where he saith That it confounds the Law and the Gospel taking away a chief difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace page 141. Seeing there was no condition thus understood in the covenant of works There was not any such good accruing to God by any thing that Adam was to do that upon it or for it God should make the promise of life God hath no motives out of himself to confer his rewards Conditions taken in such a sense will make the covenant of grace and the covenant of works all unconditional But taking the word condition in the sense as it is in ordinary use and as it properly signifies for duty in covenant indented agreed upon and assented to on performance or neglect of which the promise stands or falls it is plain that there are such conditions in both covenants equally in one as the other The necessity of the concurrence of grace to the work of faith will as soon make it no duty as no condition and many denying the one have learnt to deny either of both as well duties as conditions Mr. Culverwel therefore consesseth that faith in some sort may be called a condition because the promise of life is made to persons qualified with faith page 143. and this conditional promise well understood saith he page 141. may be born And if understood with such a restraint as the word will not suffer we confesse Christians must not acknowledge it This being premised let us look into the reasons brought to back the former assertion First All such conditions if spiritual blessings are part of the purchase of the death of Christ and if not are no way fit to be conditions of such an attainment Answ They are so parts of his purchase that they are also our act The act of man by the power of God God gives faith and gives repentance yet we beleeve and we repent we may as easily reconcile Christs purchase with the nature of a condition as Gods free gift of grace with our duty If the gift were of grace and no duty required then there were force in the argument This ridgidly followed will disingage man from all obedience to God seeing all power to obey is part of the purchase of Christ Secondly It cannot be made apparent how any such conditional stipulation can be ascribed to God Answ We finde such a one in Scripture ascribed to God no condition can in more plain terms be held our In case we cannot see how it can be it were safer to lay our hands on our mouths and acknowledge our weaknesse then to withstand so clear evidence He is pleased to give his Reasons First saith he It leaves no proper place for he merit of Christ Answ This reason I can by no means reach Christ may merit and upon what terms he pleases confer what he hath merited Duty in us excludes merit in Christ as well as conditions imposed upon uâ— See Ball on the covenant page 133. Secondly It is very improperly ascribed to God c. Stipulation or engagements upon conditions that are properly so do suppose him that makes the engagement to be altogether uncertain of the event thereof for which the authority of Lawyers is quoted If conditions among men be of such uncertainty it doth not thence follow that it is so in those conditions which God imposes on performance of which he conferres the mercies which he gives in promise If there be so much difference between moral hope and that Christian grace which is wrought by the Spirit that the one is only possible conjectural uncertain and doubtful the other assured and never failing The one often ending in shame The other never making ashamed Then there may be a like difference in the conditions assigned by man and those assigned by God Men may be still uncertain yet God may be assured the event being not left to contingency or the freedome of mans will which is supposed to stand in aequilibrio but determined by the act of grace which is not hid from him whose hand works it in the hearts of his people This might seem to carry far rather force against all conditions in the first covenant which is yet granted to be conditional which for performance was meerly suspended on mans will but hath no colour against the conditions of the second covenant which God works of grace as he requires of sovereignty One is pleased to say Surely they are wide if not very wilde who affirm that all the stipulations on the part of God upon the death of Christ are upon a condition which himself knows to be impossible for them to perform to whom they are made which among Wise men are always accounted nugatory and null And may not the like be said of exhortations promises threats commands God as well knows our disability to answer these as to fulfil conditions yet they are neither wide nor wilde that acknowledge such exhortations promises threats commands without abilities in fallen man to answer them farther then the concurrence of grace that is in Christ Jesus strengthens them There are many more Objections raised by others which the Reader may see brought in by Mr. Grayl and Mr. Woodbridge and fully answered CHAP. X. God in the dayes of the Gospel keeps up the power and authority of his Law The obligation of it is still in force to binde the consciences of beleevers THe last Position that I shall premise is That God in his entry of covenant with man in sinne doth so manifest his free grace that he still keeps up his Sovereignty so exalts mercy that he loseth nothing of his rule and authority His chief aime is to exalt the glory of his free grace and to set out the riches of his great mercy that so noble a species as that of mankinde might not for ever perish yet he quits not man of his subjection and obedience When the Angels fell some stood whether the fallen or persevering number
change out of it and they instance in our conceptions of and resolutions about things Kekâ—rman p. 107. A transient act is not terminated within the subject but hath its effect and is terminated upon some other object Now if by way of analogy we may apply these to God for we otherwise can reach none of his actions it is easie to conclude that justification of a sinner is a transient and no immanent act It works man from a state of wrath to a state of friendship and love of a vessel of wrath brings man into favour and esteeme which though it work no Physical change in man yet the whole effect is terminated in him That act of Pharaoh had as real an effect upon Joseph and was terminated in him in his advancement out of prison for rule in Egypt as though a Physician in case of sicknesse had wrought a cure upon him Though I were not able to hold it our that justification were a transient act but according to our conception of the actions of man it should rather appear to be an action immanent in God so in him that it had no effect out of him yet I must follow the Scriptures that make justification an act in time not from eternity Paul having mentioned a state of sinne under which the Corinthians were saith such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified 1. Corinth 6. 11. Once they were not but now they are in a state of justification It hath its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which it is acted a season in which it is vouchsafed It is affixed to faith Acts 13. 38. Now faith is not from eternity it comes by hearing A Ministery is continually employed for reconciliation and pardon of sinne 1 Cor. 5. 19. John 20. Which were in vain if justification were as election from before the foundation of the world They work them not to election but only call upon them to make their calling and election sure There are seniors and juniors in this priviledge one obtains it before another Andronicus and Jâ—nia were in Christ before the Apostle Rom. 16. 7. These evident proofs would take with my faith above a thousand such subtilties But herein the Schools in their application of these acts to God speak according as to the point in hand to the minde of Scriptures Fourthly Object It is farther objected that Christ is the Lamb slaine from the beginning of the world His death hath been of efficacy in the Church through all ages And he bore our sinnes in his body 1 Pet. 2. 24. All our sinnes did meet in him Isa 53. 6. and therefore from the beginning we were justified I answer Answ it profited all those and only those in each age to whom it was revealed and by whom it was applied and not those that have no interest in him Over and above the Decree of God for mans salvation there was a necessity of the death of Christ for our redemption which Christ in the fulnesse of time paid on the Crosse And over and above the death of Christ there is a like necessary of the application of it to our soules for life The work of redemption was finished on the Crosse when Christ triumphed over principalities and powers But much of the work of our salvation was behinde Election did not overthrow Christs redemption but did establish it Redemption doth not overthrow our application but doth establish it likewise There is a farther work of Christs to be done his intercession in heaven being one part of his Priest-hood which he is gone to discharge as the High Priest into the holiest of holies A farther work to be done by man through believing Not to have interest in Christs death is all one as though he had not died He that beleeves in him shall not perish See Baxter of Justification Aphorisme 15. Davenant de morte Christi cap. 5. p. 58 c. Lastly it is said by another If Faith be a condition of the Covenant of Grace Object then it can be no instrument of our justification If it be a condition in this Covenant it justifies as a condition and then it cannot justifie as an instrument and so I pul down what I build and run upon contradictions I answer Answ I should rather judge on the contrary that because it is a condition of the covenant in the way as it is before exprest that it is therefore an instrument in our justification God tenders the gift of righteousnesse to be received by Faith He covenants for this Faith for acceptation of this righteousnesse By beleeving then we keep covenant and receive Christ for justification We as well do what God requires as receive what he tenders We do our duty and take Gods gift and thereby keep covenant and receive life and so Faith is both a condition and an instrument Here I might by way of just corollary infer that a justified man reconciled to God in Christ is a man fitted for every duty unto which God calls which he is pleased to require Faith is his justification the instrumental work of his reconciliation to God and all things are possible to him that beleeveth Mark 9. 23. There is not a duty commanded but a beleeving man through Christ is strengthned for it The Word works effectually in thâ—se that believe as 1 Thes 2. 13. We see the great works that were atchieved by those of ancient time both in doing and suffering Heb. 11. and all of those are ascribed to Faith what Christ can do as in reference to duty that they can do to acceptation They can do all things through Christ that strengthens them Phil. 4. 13. Christ overcomes the world John 16 33. And this is their victory whereby they overcome the world 1 John 5. 4. Christ treads down Satan Rom. 16 20. And they resist him strong in the Faith 1 Pet. 5. 9. A man of Faith is for universal obedience He is a man for dependance on God for the fruition of all promises A word from God is enough for Faith He knows how to rest upon him for the good things of the earth he is above anxious thoughts what he should eate what he should drink or wherewith he should he clothed knowing that godlinesse hath the promise of this life 1 Tim. 4. 8. and therefore Though the fig-tree shall not blossome neither shall fruit be in the Vines the labour of the Olive shall faile and the fields shall yeeld no meat the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no heard in the stalls yet he will rejoyce in the Lord he will joy in the God of his salvation Hab 3. 17 18. he knows how to rest upon him for spiritual priviledges for adoption of sonnes for evelasting salvation He rests upon this that he that liveth and beleeveth in Christ shall not die for ever He knows how to manage all states and conditions he knows how to
they are our conditions They are conditions on our part and therefore they cannot be Gods That they are ours is made known of God as by the beame of the Sun in his Word And I shall not stand to distinguish of an absolute and conditional covenant that so making the whole in the absolute covenant to be Gods and in the conditional covenant this part to be ours which I know not whether exactly understood the Scripture will beare but in plaine terms deny that they are Gods conditions and affirm them to be ours I know what God speaks in his Word concerning these works That he will write his Law in our hearts and put it into our inward parts That he will take away the heart of stone and give an heart of flesh which implies this work of which we speak I know likewise what in particular is affirmed of Christ that he is the authour and finisher of our faith Heb. 12. 2. that he gives repentance Acts 5. 31. that God grants to the Gentiles repentance to life Acts 11. 18. And I have not forgot what I have said before of the concurrence of grace in the performance of every gospel-Gospel-work Yet all this rises not up hither to make them formally Gods act not ours Whose acts they be his conditions they are this is evident But they are our acts We beleeve We repent It is not God that believes It is not God that repents That is an absurdity which Arminians have laboured to charge upon us to render that which we hold of the necessity of the concurrence of grace in these works odious But it is that which the Orthodox party have still disclaimed The Apostle calls upon the Philippians Phil. 2. 12. To work out their own salvation the work is their own as the salvation They are a Beleevers own act and not barely a spontaneous act on which he is carried as a Bird in preparing a nest for her young and Bees in preparing honey for their subsistence in which Phylosophy tells us that they aime at no end but they are voluntary actions of choice done out of choice aiming at salvation as his end The mercy in the Covenant being on these termes tendred With the heart man beleeveth unto righteousnesse Rom. 10. 10. The just lives by his faith Hab. 2. 4. They to turne to the Lord with all their heart Joel 2. 13. They obey from the heart the form of Doctrine whereunto they are delivered Rom. 6. 17. They do the will of God from the heart Ephes 6. 6. Faith and Repentance are mans work which man in covenant does respective to salvation in the covenant tendered Object not Gods But the Apostle some may say in the next words tells us that it is God that works the will and the deed vers 13. There he seems to take them from us and ascribe the formality of them to God In this co-operation of God whether they be formally our works or Gods let Esay determine Isa 26. 12. Thou hast wrought all our works in us When God hath wrought it the work is ours we have the reward of it and we shall beare our sinne in case it be neglected and let the Apostle explaine himselfe Ephes 2. 10. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them God hath ordained good works as a Christians way and walk They are charged upon man as is plain in the context in order to salvation They are the way that we hold in our passage on to that salvation which God of grace vouchsafes and we are Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus for these ends Our dexterity in holy duties is from the frame into which grace put us So still the work is ours though power for action is vouchsafed of God And the conditions are ours for discharge of which we have yet divine assistance That faith and repentance are our conditions and not Gods take these arguments 1. Those conditions that are not mentioned in the proper conditional covenant as from God but required of God from us are not Gods conditions but ours in that Covenant This is cleare Being there expresly required of us and not so much as mentioned as from God they cannot be his engagement but ours to performe But Faith and Repentance are not mentioned as from God in the proper conditional covenant but required of God from us Therefore Faith and Repentance are not Gods conditions in the proper conditionall Covenant but ours 2. The conditions of a covenant are his that performeth and not his that imposeth This proposition is cleare in reason and confessed by the adversary But we perform and God imposeth Faith and Repentance They are therefore our conditions and not Gods in this covenant 3. Covenant-conditions are theirs that are charg'd with falshood in case of failing in them and non-performance of them This is plaine in all covenants To make conditions and to faile in them is to be false to them But in case of failing in Faith and Repentance man is charged and not God God fails not but man deals falsly Therefore they are mans conditions and not Gods 4. Covenant-conditions are theirs who upon failing in them and not performance of them suffer as covenant-breakers This is clear Israel covenanted to dismisse their Hebrew servants and dismissed them not and Israel suffered for it Jer. 34. But upon failing in Faith and Repentance God suffers not so much as in his Name as a covenant-breaker He is not charged with mens unbelief and impenitence Men themselves suffer Therefore Faith and Repentance are mans conditions not Gods 2. There are objections peculiarly against repentance as it comprises the whole frame of obedience Object as before held forth to disable it from being any Gospel-condition By this means the covenant of Grace will be say some a covenant of works Repentance in this latitude to which we have spoken containes the whole of obedience and being made a condition of the Covenant of Grace Works are introduced and a Covenant of Works re-established As there was grace in the first covenant Answ as you have heard which we call a covenant of Works So works are not wholly excluded from this covenant which we call a covenant of Grace God still keeps up his Sovereignty as you have heard and how this can be done when he leaves man at that wilde freedome not so much as to call for homage from him cannot be conceived his rule even in this covenant is to reward men according to their works Behold I come quickly and my reward it with me to give every man according as his work shall be Rev. 22. 12. Works then are not excluded from this covenant yea Christ the Mediatour of the covenant aforehand tells us Except our righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdome of heaven Matth. 5.
to doubting Christians First A life in distrust of God and rebellion against God provoking him to the highest punishment of the parents doth not divest the child of the title to the covenant and interest in the Sacrament of initiation into the number of Christians For proof of this look upon that act of Joshua when the people were got out of the Wildernesse and were brought into the Land of Canaan Josh 5. 6 7. The children of Israel walked fourty yeers in the Wildernesse till all the people that were men of warre that came out of Egypt were consumed because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord And the children which he raised up in their stead them did Joshua circumcise for they were uncircumcised they had not circumcised them in the way you see what the fathers were yet the children Joshua ordered to be circumcised Concerning their conversation the parents were enemies but as touching the election the choice made of God the issue is to be numbred among the beloved Who had a worse father than Josiah yet where was there a better son A circumcised man who in youth began to seek the God of his father David 2 Chron. 34. 3. Secondly Misbelief in a parent divests not the issue of this birth-priviledge though the father erre in the faith yet the child is not to be shut out of the number of beleevers We have in this particular the Apostle for a precedent had misbelief in the parent denuded the childe of this priviledge Saint Paul had not beene a Jew by nature but an Heretick or Sectary by nature being before conversion a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee Scribe was a name of office but Pharisee the name of a Sect and therefore Christ warns to beware of the leaven that is of the Doctrine of the Pharisees as of the Sadduces Such was Pauls parentage and yet by descent and off-spring he is of the people of the Jewes What we say of Pharisees is as true of Sadduces It is not to be doubted but they were circumcised persons and entitled their children according to the Directory in Scripture for circumcision as appears by their embodying of themselves with the people of the Jewes Matth. 22. 23. Acts 23. 6. The most strict of Pharisees took them into their society which they had not done had they not been men of the circumcision we see the accusation charged on Peter on this occasion Acts 11. 2 3. A man transmits not his errors nor his vices no more than he doth his graces Thirdly ignorance of needful truths in a parent doth not divest the childe of this priviledge Those were the people of God and therefore brought forth children to God that did perish for lack of knowledge Hosea 4. 6. that went into captivity for lack of knowledge Isa 5. A reverend brother giving his reasons why he is among his brethren singular in this point not baptizing all born in his Parish one maine one is the grosse ignorance among them and that as he sayes not in Cumberland and those parts but in Essex such that if he should print his Reader would scaree beleeve it were possible to be true To which I only say I wish that our own experience in the places where we live did give us occasion of suspition that any wrong is done them Therefore to let the truth passe unquestioned I would only wish him to consider whether there might not have been found the like in Corinth that Church of the Saints 1 Cor. 15. 34. Some have not the knowledge of God I speak this to your shame Whether there he might not have found the like among the illuminated Hebrews were not there those that were dull of hearing that when for the time they ought to be teachers they had need that one teach them againe which be the first principles of the Oracles of God and were become such as had need of milke and not of strong meat yet these were of the Church and therefore with them their children Fourthly illegitimation of birth adulterous copulation in the parents divesteth not such issue of this priviledge David had never in that manner sought in fasting and prayer his childes life had he believed that he must not have been of the seed of the Jews but of the uncircumcised Heathen Pharez was of such a birth yet who bore a greater name and glory in Israel than he and his family even where the illegitimation of his birth is noted there the glory of his race is magnified which is yet farther honoured in that Christ according to the flesh was made of his seed That seed of Abraham per eminentiam was out of his loynes Jepthah indeed was driven out by his brethren but not because that he was not of the seed of the Jews and people of God but because they would not have him to share of the inheritance among them A Reverend Divine saith Objections an ∣ swered That some persons may be notorious offenders as known Atheists mockers of Religion Idolaters Papists Hereticks Witches and yet professe before men the faith seemes to him to imply a contradiction These I confesse are plausible words to take with well-meaning souls that attend not to the language of the Scripture in this particular And for the first if he meanes Atheists in judgement that professedly maintaine in word what Davids fool said in his heart that there is no God and by mockers of Religion not those alone that oppose the power but with Lucian all notion of Religion and by Idolaters those that professedly worship false gods and worship not at all the Lord Jehovah then it cannot be denied that this is a contradiction But Reverend Master Rutherford whom he opposeth in that place hath no such meaning But for an Atheist in life to be a professour of the faith we have Paul expressely for it Titus 1. 16. They professe that they know God but in works they deny him being abominable and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate The Apostle we see saw no contradiction in it and for mockers of Religion Peter did not foretell them to be out of the Church but within the bosome of it when he said There shall come in the last dayes scoffers walking after their own lusts 2 Pet. 3 3. For Idolaters if an Israelite might be an Idolater then a Christian How high were those in Idolatry mentioned Psal 106. 36 37 38 39 and yet in covenant ver 45. For the Church of Corinth the Apostle is plaine A brother may be an Idolater 1 Cor. 5. 11. It is within the Church and not without where men escape death by plagues yet repent not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Devils and Idols of gold and silver and brasse and stone and of wood which neither can see nor heare nor walke Rev 9. 20. For Papists I marvel how they are distinguished from Idolaters and Hereticks for Hereticks as false Prophets were
though under the eye and care of endearing friends yet sometimes may feel the want of a parental wing I am not without fears that this Orphane Treatise may complain of som Errata's through the Authors unexpected death the slow progresse of the Presse and my great distance from it The God of truth teach thee how to profit break every shell that thou mayest taste of the kernel clear up truths to thy apprehension and imprint them upon thy heart so prayes he who beggs thy prayers for him because he is Thine in our Lord Jesus Samuel Beresford A Scheme of the whole This Treatise contains 1. An Introduction 2. The body of the Treatise The Introduction doth contain 1. The figurative acceptions of the word Covenant 2. Requisites in a Covenant properly so called Chap. 1. 3. A distribution of Covenants into the in several kinds 4. Seven Reasons of Gods dealing with men in a Covenant way 5. The Covenant between God and man defined The body of the Treatise contains a distribution of the Covenant into the Covenant of Works Chap. 2. Covenant of Grace The Covenant of Grace is considered 1. In the general nature of a Covenant 2. Joyntly with the Covenant of Works 1. As considered in the general nature of a Covenant we may observe 1. A Covenant in the proper nature of it between God and fallen man asserted Chap. 3. 2. This explained in several propositions 1. The Covenant of Grace is between God and man and not between God and Christ Chap. 4. 2. The outward and not the inward Covenant is a Covenant properly so called 1. Asserted and argued Ch. 5. 2. Cleared in 6 positions Ch. 6 3. The conditionality of the Covenant of Grace 1. In five arguments proved Ch. 7. 2. Objections answered Ch. 8. Ch. 9. 4. God keeps up his sovereign y 1. In the power and authority of his Law Ch. 10 11 12. 2. In exercise of Discipline and correction for sin Ch. 13. 2. Consider joyntly with the Covenant of Works we see 1. Their agreement in eight particulars Chap. 14. 2. Their differences 1. In the Covenants themselves 2. In the Conditions annext Differences in the Covenants are 1. Primae The Covenant of Works was entered in mans integrity Chap. 15. The Covenant of Grace was entered in mans fallen condition 2. A prima ortae Differences à prima ortae The Covenant of Works was for mans preservation of Grace for mans restitution Ibid. The Covenant of Works had its precedency in time of Grace followed after Asserted Objections answered The Covenant of Works was of small time in use of Grace is of everlasting continuance chap. 16. The Covenant of Works had no Mediatour Asserted Objections answered of Grace was in and by a Mediatour Asserted Works incumbent on the Mediatour held forth 1. To bring men into a capacity of Covenanting 2. To bring men within the verge of the Covenant 1. By his tender of it 2. Shaping the heart for it 3. To bring the soul up to the termes of the Covenant 4. To crown those that come up to the terms of it chap. 17. Differences in the conditions 1. Supposed on Gods part Death threatned Life promised The same in both Asserted Objections answered chap. 18. 2. Real on mans part 2 Differences asserted 1. In the Covenant of Works the conditions were in mans power of Grace they are not performed without special grace Asserted in 6. Reasons chap. 18 Objections answered chap. 19 2. In the Covenant of Works the conditions kept man within himselfe of righteousnesse chap. 20 of Grace the conditions carry man out of himself to be righteous by anothers righteousnesse 3. In the Covenant of Works conditions were for mans preservation Ibid. of Grace conditions were for mans reparation 3. Conditions discovered 1. Serviceable for mans returne to God which is Faith 1. Explained the sense of it given and reasons evincing it Chap. 21 2. In 4. Propositions cleared 1. God will not justifie a wicked person 2. Man hath no righteousnesse of his own for justification 3. Man hath a righteousnesse of grace tendered Ibid. 4. This righteousnesse is made ours by Faith Asserted Explained 1. Faith in the Sovereignty of God doth not justifie 2. Faith justifies as an instrument 3. Objections answeâ—ed chap 22. 1. Asserted Ib. 2. Object answ 4. Corollary drawn A justified man is fitted for every duty Ibid. 2. Serviceable for mans reparation in his qualifications to hold up communioÌ„ with God which is repentance 1. Objection a prevented It is not the same with faith Chap. 23. 2. Duty explained In the pre-requisite godly sorrow Asserted in six particulars limited Ibid. In the essentials Privative Cessation from sinne Ibid. Positive Returne to God 3. Objections answered 1. Joyntly against Faith and Repentance They are mans conditions not Gods chap. 24. 2. Particularly against repentance it self 1. It is not hereby made a Covenant of Works 2. Repentance necessarily flowing from Faith is not thereby diserabled Ibid. from being a condition in the Covenant of Grace 4. Degree of obedience required in our returne 1. Perfection of degrees not called for of God in Covenant 2. Covenant of Grace doth not call for perfection and accept sincerity Asserted Objections answered 3. Our Evangelical righteousnesse is imperfect Chap. 25. 4. Covenant of Grace requires and accepts sincerity 4. Corollaries drawn 1. Necessâ—â—y of a constant standing Ministery to bring men into Covevenant with God and to bring them up to the termes of it 1. Explained 2. Asserted 1. In seven reasons evincing that such a Ministery is established 2. In reasons evincing such a Ministery to be thus established 3. Objections answered Joel 2. 28 29. Vindicated ch 26 Jer. 31. 31. c. Vindicated 2. Schooles and Nurseries of learning in order to a gifted Ministery Asserted Chap. 27. Objections answered 3. Orderly way of admission of men into a Ministerial function necessary 1. Asserted by several reasons Chap. 28. 2. Explained by distinguishing of Callings 3. Ordination defined in the parts of it explained 4. Ministers of Christ must bring their people up to the termes of the Covenant 1. Explained 2. Asserted Chap. 29. Objections answered 5. People in Covenant must come up to the termes of the Covenant Chap. 30. The Covenant of Grace is either the Old or New Covenant In which observe 1. Agreement in 6 particulars Chap. 31. 2. Differences Chap. 32. Differences 1. Real in six particulars 2. Supposed or imaginary Nine Positions premised for a right understanding of the Old Covenant Chap. 33. Differences themselves assigned Differences assigned are 1. Laying the Old Covenant too low 2. Putting too great a restrainâ— on the New I. Laying the Old Covenant too low 1. Supposing it to consist of meere carnal promises 1. Interests to which this deives Popish Socinian Antipaedobaptistical Chap. 34. 2. Contrary asserted and the spiritualty of the Old Covenant maintained 2. Supposing it to be a mixt and no pure Gospel Covenant Chap. 35. 1. Meaning enquired
consolation An up-right-hearted man findes abundance of peace in his covenant entered with God when he prayes and seeks the greatest mercy in prayer he is able to say In thy faithfulnesse answer me and in thy righteousnesse Psal 143. 1. Paul can say that God the righteous Judge shall give him a Crown of righteousnesse 2 Tim. 4. 8. Having engaged by covenant righteousnesse ties him to make good his engagements This is Gods end in his entrance of covenant and ratification of it by oath consequently in committing it to writing and confirming it by seal That by two immuntable things in which it was impossible for God to lie we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us Heb. 6. 18. These strong consolations were the end of God in ratifying his Covenant They are the support and Spirit reviving cordials to his people in Covenant See the result of the Psalmists meditations In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul Psalme 94. 19. I will both lay me down in peace and sleep for thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety Psalme 4. 8. The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I feare The Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid Psal 27. 1. Sixthly for the greater terrour of the adversaries of his people when they see themselves engaged against them and God stands in a covenant unviolable engaged for them when they see that their work is to ruinate and destroy him that God will save Hence it is while their Rock sells them not one of them chases a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight Deut. 32. 30. Paul in bonds can make Felix tremble on his Throne Acts 24. 25. Hamans wise-men and Zeresh his wife spake words of terrour upon experiment made If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews before whom thou hast begun to fall thou shalt not prevaile against him but shalt surely fall before him Ester 6. 13. Seventhly the Lord hereby puts a name and an honour upon his people David took it to be an honour to be related to Saul and so to become the sonne of a King much more then is it an honour to be brought into this relation to God This honour have all the Saints and they are taken into covenant for honour sake The Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee and that thou shouldest keep all his Commandments and to make thee high above all Nations which he hath made in praise and in honour and that thou mayest be an holy people to the Lord thy God Deut. 26. 18 19. They are the portion the inheritance the children the espoused ones and whatsoever else that speaks a neer relation is theirs This was Gods way of dealing I doubt not with the Angels though we being not interested in it there is no necessity that it should be written for our learning Sure we are it was his way of dealing with man as well before his fall as presently shall be shewn as out of more abundant grace and condescension for his restitution And not mentioning for present any more then that which is essential in the covenant of God with man I suppose it may be thus held out to us A mutual compact or agreement between God and man upon just and equal termes prescribed by himself in which God promises true happinesse to man and man engages himself by promise for performance of what God requires This description here laid down comprizes the way of God in every one of his covenants with man both before and after his fall under Old and New Testament-revelations all that is essential in any covenant that he enters Equals covenanting do either of them article and indent but God condescending to a covenant man must not article but must assent and engage for performance of what is prescribed otherwise it will hear the nature of a Law but not of a Covenant It is true all men are bound upon tender from God to accept It was the sin of Jewish and heathenish people to stand out whensoever the Gospel was preached but they were no covenant-people till they gave their assent and then they were received as a covenant-people and baptized Exceptions cannot be taken against or challenge made of this definition of covenants in general nor of the covenant which God in particular entereth with man and these standing they will give us light and afford us singular help for a right understanding of the covenant of God entered with man in the several species and distinct wayes of administration of it CHAP. II. The Covenant of God entered with mankinde distinguished THere is a two-fold covenant which God out of his gracious condescension hath vouchsafed to enter with man The first immediately upon the creation of man when man yet stood right in his eye and bore his image the alone creature on earth that was in a capacity to enter covenant We have not indeed the word covenant till after man was fallen nor yet in any place of Scripture in reference to the transactions past between God and man in his state of integrity neither have we such expressions that fully and explicitely hold out a covenant to us but we finde it implied and so much expressed from whence a covenant with the conditions of it is evinced That Law with the penalty annext given to our first parents Gen. 2. 17. Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not â—at for in the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die plainly implies in it a covenant entred man was in present possession of life that is according to Scripture phrase happinesse in his whole person full and compleat according to his present capacity This is to be continued aâ— is there evidently implied till sinne dispossesse him of it Till he sin he shall not die As long as he persists in his integrity his life is to be continued of which the Tree of Life as is not to be doubted was a Sacrament The second God was pleased to enter with man upon his fall which was a covenant of reconciliation the most unhappy variance between earth and heaven having intervened The former is usually called a â—ovenant of Works the latter is called a covenant of Grace though indeed the fountain and first rise of either was the free grace and favour of God For howsoever the first covenant was on condition of obedience and engaged to the reward of Works yet it was of Grace that God made any such promise of reward to any work of man when man had done all even in that estate which was commanded he was still an unprofitable servant he had done no more then duty and no emolument did thence accrew to his Maker It was enough that he was upheld and sustained of God in the work to live in him
this covenant between God and his people which is to be spoken to elsewhere As the being of a covenant is thus plentifully proved by Scripture-testimony so we might as amply prove it by arguments drawn from thence The Churches of Christ are espoused unto Christ Hos 2. 19 20. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever yea I will betroth thee unto me in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulnesse and thou shalt know the Lord. 2 Cor. 11. 2. I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you to Christ and Spouses are in covenant with their Bridegroom The Churches of Christ are married to Christ Isa 54. 5. Thy Maker is thine Husband the Lord of hosts is his Name and thy Redeemer the holy One of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called And wives are in covenant with their husbands Their sinnes against God are branded with the names of Adulteries Whoredomes and these are not barely dis-obedience of a Command or neglect of a favour but breaches of covenant The Churches of Christ are servants of Christ Levit. 25. houshold servants Ephes 2. 19. and servants are their Masters by covenant Their sinnes in this relation are not barely obstinacy stubbornness or ingratitude but they are charged with treachery falsehood dealing falsely in covenant and their hearts being not stedfast in covenant It is above me to conceive how man can be a covenant-breaker not alone respective to man but God as he is frequently charged when there hath past no covenant between God and him They may question whether there were ever any such thing as a covenant in the world that deny this to be a covenant in the proper nature of it some objections raised in their due place will be answered CHAP. IV. The Covenant of Grace is between God and man and not between God and Christ. HAving asserted a covenant in the proper nature of it it is necessary before I proceed further on to give differences between this covenant of Works and the covenant of Grace to speak something by way of Explication covenant being taken in so various and ambiguous senses or at least so many senses put upon it which I take to be a misunderstanding of the Scripture-covenant I shall lay down certaine Explicatory Propositions for clearing of the thing in question And the leading on shall be this The Covenant of grace is between God and man between God and those of fallen mankinde that he pleases to take into covenant God and man are the two parties in the covenant It is not made between God and Christ. This is so plain that a man might think there needed no words about it but that there are some that will have man to be no party in it and that it is entred onely with Christ on behalf of those that God hath chosen in Christ to himself To this I shall speak first by way of concession yeelding to them of this opinion these three things that follow 1. That there is such a covenant of which they speak which was entred between God and Christ containing the transactions which passe between the Father and the Sonne the tenor of which covenant we find laid down by the Prophet Esay 53. 10 c. and commented upon by the Apostle Phil. 2. 6. There we see first the work that Christ by covenant was to undergo To make his soul an offering for sinne that is as elsewhere is exprest to give his life a ransome for many and as he covenanted so he did He became obedient to death even the death of the crosse Phil. 2. 8. and that upon account of this covenant entred Christ himself speaking to it and of his work in it saith John 10. 18. This Commandment have I received of my Father Secondly the reward that he was to receive which is laid down by the Prophet in many words 1. He shall see his seed ver 10. As Isaac being received from the dead in a figure saw a seed had an innumerable posterity so the Lord Christ who was received from the dead in truth hath his seed in like manner beleevers innumerable which are called his seed in resemblance to the seed of man 2. He shall prolong his dayes not the dayes of his seed as some would have it making this one with the former and rendring the words videbit semen longaevum being delivered from death he shall live and reign eternally Revel 1. 18. 3. The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand he shall irresistibly do whatsoever is the Fathers pleasure to be done in the work of mans salvation 4. He shall see the travel of his soul and shall be satisfied upon this work done he fully enjoys the whole of all his desires 5. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoile with the strong He obtains a perfect victory hath a plenary and full conquest over every adversary 2. We yeeld that the whole of these covenant-transactions between God and Christ was on our behalf Making his soul an offering for sinne he offers it for those that are fallen by iniquity All is as is there said for the justification of many Whatsoeve it is that upon the work done redounds to himself yet the reason of undertaking was for us Vnto us he was borne unto us he was given He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities he was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification He endured the mulct and we reap the benefit 3. We confesse that it is the work of Christ that we enjoy a being in covenant as it is his gift that we enjoy the blessing of Ordinances But when all these are yeelded the truth must be asserted that there is a covenant to which Scripture constantly speaks which is entred of God with man and not with Christ which me thinks with much ease might be made to appear 1. There are frequent testimonies of Gods entry of covenant with his people 1. With the leading persons in the covenant which stand as the root of many thousand branches which are their off-spring in covenant He entred covenant with Abraham Gen. 15. 18. Gen. 17. 2. The like he enters with Isaac Gen. 26. 3. with Jacob Gen. 35. 11. and therefore he is so frequently called the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. And the covenant of God is alike known by the name of the covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob. 2. He enters covenant with the whole body of the people of Israel Deut. 5. 1 2. Hear O Israel the statutes and judgements which I speak in your ears this day that ye may learn them and keep them and do them The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb the Lord made not this covenant with our fathers but with us even us who are all of us alive
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
covenant-keeping or punishments in case of covenant-breaking The one the Lord promises The other he threatens I finde no material difference in the conditions on Gods part in these covenants Life is promised in both in case of covenant-keeping and death is threatned in both in case of covenant-breaking Some indeed have endeavoured to finde a great difference in the life promised in the covenant of works and the life that is promised in the covenant of grace as also in the death that is threatned in the one and the other and thereupon move many and indeed inextricable difficulties What life man should have enjoyed in case Adam had not fallen And what death man should have died in case Christ had not been promised From which two endlessely more by way of consectary may be drawn by those that want neither wit nor leisure to debate them In which the best way of satisfaction and avoidance of such puzling mazes is to enquire what Scripture means by Life which is the good in the covenant promised and what by Death which is the evil threatned Now for the first Life containes all whatsoever that conduces to true happinesse to make man blessed in soul and body All good that Christ purchases and heaven enjoys is comprised under it in Gospel-expressions I am come that they might have life and that they may have it more abundantly John 10. 10. He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Sonne hath not life 1 John 5. 12. On the contrary under Death is comprised all that is injurious to man or mankinde that tends to his misery in soul and body The damnation of Hell being called death the uttermost of evils being the separation of soul and body from God John 8. 51. 1 John 3. 14. Sinne which leads to it and is the cause of it is called death in like manner Ephes 2. 1. And the separation of soul from the body being called death sicknesses plagues are so called in like manner Exâ—d 10. 17. Now happinesse being promised to man in covenant only indefinitely under that notion of life without limit to this or that way of happinesse in this or that place God is still at liberty so that he make man happy where or how he pleaseth to continue happinesse to him and is not tied up in his engagement either for earth or heaven And therefore though learned Camero in his Treatise de triplici foedere Thes 9. with others makes this difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace In the covenant of Works which he calls nature life was promised and a most blessed life but an animal life in Paradise in the covenant of Grace a life in Heaven and spiritual And Master Baxter in his Aphoris of Justification page 5. saith that this life premised was only the continuance of that state that Adam was then in Paradise is the opinion of most Divines Yet with submission to better judgements I see not grounds for it seeing Scripture no way determines the way and kinde of this happinesse promised and in case that we take liberty to say that when long life is promised upon earth in many texts of Scripture that the promise is made good though it faile on earth in case it be supplied in heaven life being the marrow of the promise much more then is it made good when it is indefinitely promised without limit to a man whil'st on earth in case it be made good by his translation into heaven And indeed there are strong probabilities heaven being set out by the name of Paradise in Christs speech to the thief on the crosse and in Pauls vision in that rapture 2 Cor. 12. if we may make such a supposition of mans standing now he is fallen that he should not have continued a life of immortality on earth but have been translated into heaven He had that blessing from God as other living creatures to be fruitfull and multiply Gen. 1. 28. and how the world could have contained all those individuals at once which to eternity man should propagate cannot be imagined And to conceive that an end in time should be put to propagation when an animal life in the use of the creature should be continued is scarce consistent with reason But a thousand of these God can expedite when we are at a stand He promised life and he could have made it good and we see he limited not himself where or how to conferre it And what I have said of life promised the same I say of death threatned in case man upon sinne be brought into a state of misery Justice is done and the threat takes hold where and howsoever this misery be suffered whether it had been in sorrows and horrours on earth in separation of the soul first for torments and the body to follow or in a speedy dispatch of soul and body to hell Gods way of execution after the sinne committed on those that are not by Christ ransomed does not argue that the penalty in the covenant necessitated him to it might not he at once have poured out the whole of his vengeance on vessels of wrath when yet we know that he takes time for the execution of it A Learned Writer enquiring into this death that was here threatned saith that the same damnation that followed the breach of the second covenant it could not be When I suppose it rather should be said that in substance and kind it can be no other Infidels that were never under any other covenant then that of works and covenant-breaking Christians are in the same condemnation there is not two hells but one and the same for those that know not God and those that obey not the Gospel of Christ 2 Thes 1. 8. Neither is there any Limbus or distinct place for infants in original sinne and out of the covenant of grace Neither can I assent to that speech To say that Adam should have gone quick to hell if Christ had not been promised or sinne pardoned is to contradict the Scriptures that makes death temporal the wages of sinne It were I confesse to presume above Scripture but I cannot see it a contradiction of Scripture A burning Feaver a Consumption Leprosie Pestilence c. are in Scripture made the wages of sinne yet many go to hell and misse those diseases And if it be said Scripture so makes death the wages of sin that all must suffer it I answer Those Scriptures are all of them leges post latae appointed of God as his way upon mans fall neither absolute justice nor yet the penalty threatned necessitating him to that way of proceeding He takes the same way where his justice hath already satisfaction Those that are priviledged from death as the wages of sinne thus die God tied not up his own hands as States do their Judges and ministerial officers to one way of execution and this his way with the unbeleeving is voluntary and
know not their Election it is not as yet made sure by them So that as to us it is without any determinate object None can say my interest is in this Promise These were delivered to the whole body of Israel when not one in many did reap the benefit of them Mr. Baxter therefore makes them Prophecies De eventu Prophecies of what shall happen I suppose they may be fitly called the declaration or indication of Gods work in the conditions to which he engages and of the necessary concurrence of the power of his grace in that which he requires As Austin and others have interpreted that which is affirmed of our Saviour That he is the true light which enlightneth every man that comes into the world John 1. 9. not to be so understood that all in the world are enlightned by him for many are in darknesse but that all that are enlightned have light by his light explaining it with this similitude Such a Schoolmaster teacheth all the children in a Town that is all that are taught he teacheth Some go to no School at all so these Promises I will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed All of their seed that are circumcised in heart he circumcises and so in all the other none of all these are done without his special work This was little heeded by the generality of the people of the Jews if they minded duty it was well they little thought of assistance through grace Tugging it out by their own strength and looking for no more from heaven than that which they had in hand Therefore entring Covenant and walking in their own strength they brake Covenant and were never able to rise to the duties of it as is hinted in that of Jeremy Therefore God promises a new covenant in which there shall be a full discovery and right understanding of the meaning of the Covenant I will write my Law in their hearts I will put it into their inward parts So that as the commandment of love was a new commandment so this covenant was a new covenant both given of old both a new cleared for a right understanding There was nothing wrong saith Mr. Dixon in the former Covenant but it was imperfect and all things in it were not expressed clearly Annot. on Heb. 8. 7. That which was chiefly defective as it seems was this here mentioned and therefore Mr. Baxter sayes well that this place doth comprize but part of the covenant not the whole though he be taken up by another for it in these words God saying expressely this is my Covenant to say it is not is not to interpret the Word but to deny it God sayes to the People of Israel Is not this the fast that I have chosen to loose the bands of wickednesse to undo every burden If any one should interpret that Text would he say the whole of a Religious Fast is there exprest and a full definition of a Fast laid down or would he instead of interpreting deny that Scripture So also that of James Jam. 1. 26. Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this To visit the fatherlesse and the widow and to keep a man unspotted of the world Will any say that the whole of Religion is set out in that Scripture or will he be put to it to deny the Scripture I suppose he would rather say that that which those Jews to whom Isay speaks did in use to do Religious Fasts with supply of that which Isay calls for in which they were defective makes up a Religious Fast compleat That which the scattered Tribes did in Religion with what James further calls for would render a man entirely Religious So also that of Jeremy 22. 15 16. Shalt thou reigne because thou closest thy self in Cedar Did not thy father eat and drink and do justice and judgment and then it was well with him He judged the cause of the poor and needy and then it was well with him was not this to know me saith the Lord Will any say that that was all the knowledge that Josiah had of God or will he say rather that this was an evident proof of the sincerity of it so I say that which the Jews already understood to be in the covenant together with that which those places of Jeremy and the Hebrews further hold forth set out the entire nature of a covenant and so in all of them Scripture is interpreted not denied And whereas one affirmes that there is no condition on mans part in those texts in question an adversary of all conditions on mans part in the covenant replyes If you mean such conditions that God requireth of us yet worketh in us it is there punctually exprest As Gods work it is there indeed exprest but not as our duty which lame understanding of the covenant hath wrought as much mischief in our age setting up free grace without any eye upon his sovereignty looking at Gods work and not at all on mans duty as their looking at duty in that age without eye had to the power of grace to enable for it Hence are those desperate counsels Sit still do nothing doing undoes you and that not toward Dilemma Art thou out of Christ thou mayst break thy heart in working and profit nothing Art thou in Christ then all is wrought to thy hands And so doing still is vain and Mr. Baxters Questionists like demands How can you make it appear that according to the new Covenant we must act for life and not only from life or that a man may make his attaining of life the end of his work and not rather obey it out of thankfulness and love To which I suppose he hath received a satisfying and if throughly weighed a sadning answer Appendix p. 78. 79 c. Fifthly This appears in that differencing work which is seen among men here in the flesh There is a great difference between those that are of God and those that are in the world that lies in wickednesse This is from the power of grace enabling to answer to that unto which God in covenant calls and not from the different improvement of any power of man or the exercise of that freedome of will which together with the whole species of mankind he hath received The Apostle puts the question Who hath made thee to differ 1 Cor. 4. 7. In which he intends to stop all mouths from boasting as appears in the next words If any therefore shall answer in Grevenchovius his words as I have seen them quoted or in any words that hold out or inferre the same thing I make my self to differ The Apostle will not sit down by it He expressely tells us It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy Rom 9. 16. If grace makes the difference and not man then grace enables man to go higher than his own power and to go higher than any power that can
cast him nor doth it make him worse than sin hath made him Answ and the Word of God doth discover him and that is dead till grace quicken and raise him His heart is of stone till grace take it from him and in enmity against God till grace circumcise and work that change to love the Lord with all the heart c. Secondly This is not an absolute death in which man is through sin and therefore the similitude holds not that equals a stock stone or dead carcasse with him It is only a death respective as to spiritual obedience he is dead There is in him a life natural able for all actions and motions of the life of man as man There is in him also a moral life able to improve naturals to a civilized conversation That to which feare or hope can work a man thither he may raise himself by the freedome of will this puts no new life into him nor works any chang of nature in him He is also able for those works which God sanctifies as his instrument for the work of a spiritual life He 〈◊〉 read and hear the Word hath power to know much in it and retain it Thirdly he is a subject susceptible slands in a capacity of a life of grace of spiritual actions and motions having an understanding will affections wanting not any faculties in their substance The new man attaines not a new soul but only renewed qualifications which yet are of more glory than the faculties themselves carrying such a glorious resemblance of God Better know nothing than not know God to desire nothing than not to desire good The want of this turned Angels into Devils and so man stands in a vast difference from stocks stones and those to whom he is thus injuriously compared This doctrine is not injurious to man as it is traduced Object 3 Thirdly some say This will render preaching vaine all mans-paines for Conversion of soules will then prove uselesse and to no purpose we may let men alone till God work and when he hath begun his work they will set on working This indeed speaks hard to a sort of men in our times that deny any previous working in the soul for regeneration or any preparatory work to conversion So that all uncoverted stand equally distant from the grace of it in so much that it can be said of no one rather than another which Christ said to the Scribe Thou art not far from the Kingdome of God Mar. 12. 34. I see not how these can make the preaching of the word of any use Our Brethren that went into America and offer the Gospel to savage Indians there may as well finde Christ there as bring him thither The dark places of the earth may be equally happy with those where light is in most glory if light contribute nothing to the work of change and the happy frame of Christ in us But those that have learnt that infused habits are wrought in the soul in the same manner as those that are acquired may easily return a satisfying answer That opinion that the soul is by an immediate creation infused how generally soever it is received yet never was thought of force to render the way of marriage uselesse for procreation God infuses not a soul by creation into any but an organized body an Embryo fitted to receive it Neither can this opinion of the power of grace in the work of Conversion render in vain the labours of those that are spiritual Parents Conviction is in order before Conversion and men must see themselves necessitated to do what they do before ever they enter upon it The soule knoweth what it doth when it first beleeves and sees a necessity to accept Christ before it receives him which is the work of the Word in the soules of those that are brought to Christ Jesus It is not in vaine for God to send his Ministers to shew the mysteries of the Kingdome of heaven to those that are blinde when this is the way of God to open their eyes and give them sight It is not in vain that he sends them to those that are without strength when this is his way to enable them with power It is not in vain that Paul plants and Apollos waters when yet it is God that gives the increase when God will use Paul and Apollos for the increase that he gives Ministers should perswade and people improve endeavours as though they were Pelagians and no help of grace afforded They should pray and beleeve and rest on grace as though they were Antinomians nothing of endeavour to be looked after So the injury that the Pelagian doth to grace and the Antinomian to our endeavours will be on both hands avoided CHAP. XX. Farther differences in the conditions in the Covenant of Works and the conditions in the Covenant of Grace 2ly THe conditions on mans part in the Covenant of Works kept man within him self for righteousnesse That righteousnesse in which he was to stand in Gods sight was inherent wrought by himself co-natural to him flowing from the principles of his creation in conformity to God And therefore properly his own as now a mans reason will and affections are properly his He needed no other nor no more righteousnesse than that in which he stood Though he had that faith which now serves to justifie yet it needed not nor could be improved to take in any other righteousnesse without himself for justification Man stood then on his own bottome His dependance was on God for being but that being which God pleased to communicate was in that integrity and purity that he needed not any farther But the conditions of the Covenant of Grace carry man out of himself He must be righteous with a righteousness extrinsecal or else he will never be able to stand in judgment Paul was as high as he that was highest in that righteousnesse which he could lay claime to as his own wrought by himself as well before conversion as after Before conversion he was as high as a Pharisee or a Jew according to the letter could reach either in priviledges or duties as we may see in that gradation of his Phil. 3. Circumcised and therefore of the body of the people of God and no alien from the Common-wealth of Israel Circumcised the eighth day and therefore born of Parents in the same Church-communion Of the stock of Israel and so the seed of Abraham and not descended of ancestors that had been Proselytes Of the Tribe of Benjamin of that part of Israel that held the truth of worship of whom was salvation and not of the Apostated tribes An Hebrew of the Hebrews and therefore had not forgotten the language of Canaan As touching the Law a Pharisee a man of no vulgar account but of the most exquisite Sect Concerning zeal persecuting the Church therefore not luke-warme or cold in the faith As touching the righteousnesse that is of the
onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Mark 16. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that beleeveth not shall be damned Acts 10. 43. To him give all the Prophets witnesse that thorough his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sinnes Acts 13. 38 39. Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man is preached unto you forgivenesse of sinnes And by him all that beleeve are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts 16. 31. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy whole house Rom. 3. 25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 10. 4. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth In all these texts and several others faith is required of men in covenant and if men did not engage to beleeve they could not be so much as professed covenanters This is in reason further evident 1. That which gives us interest in the Mediator of the covenant without which we have no title to him or portion in him is a condition of the covenant This is plain of it self without interest in the Mediator of the covenant we are as though no covenant were entred and the former distance held up But it is faith that gives us interest in Christ the Mediatour He dwells in us by faith Ephes 3. 17. He is set forth a propitiation through Faith in his blood They that believe receive him John 1. 12. Others hold a distance from him To as many as received him to them he gave power to be the sonnes of God even to those that beleeve in his Name 2. That which receives all that grace gives must needs be a condition of the covenant of grace This is as plain to be under a covenant of grace and void of the gifts of grace is a vain entrance upon it and the reception of the gift is a condition necessarily requisite But Faith receives all that grace gives It is of Fath that it might be of grace Rom. 4. 16. God gives nothing at least tending to eternity but he puts it into the hands of Christ He is the Fathers treasury and store-house Col. 1. 19. It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell And that of his fulnesse we should all receive Joh. 1. 16. And faith receives al from him He that believeth out of his belly flowes rivers of living water Joh. 7. 38. 3. That which interest us in and gives title to all priviledges of a people in covenant with God through Christ is a condition of the covenant This is plaine the end of the covenant being to conferre those priviledges upon us But Faith interests us in and gives title to all these priviledges Paul is sent to the Gentiles to turne them from Satan to God to bring them out of Satans kingdome and to bring them in a covenant-way into Christs Kingdome That they may receive forgivenesse of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified saith Christ by faith that is in me Christ is the object of a Christians faith on whom it is terminated Faith which is in Christ receives that leading priviledg forgivenesse of sins without this priviledge we are strangers to all other priviledges Being under sinne we are heires of wrath and in no capacity of mercy Faith interests us in this Acts 10. 43. To him give all the Prophets witnesse that through his Name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Acts 13. 39. And by him all that beleeve are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Rom. 3. 25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousnesse for the remission of sinnes that are past through the forbearance of God Faith interests us in the consummating priviledge an inheritance among them that are sanctified He that believeth hath everlasting life John 6. 40. Faith interests us in all intermediate priviledges which a man in covenant can enjoy in the way to this inheritance Adoption of sonnes is this way obtained John 1. 12. Gal. 3. 26. Pacification of Spirit Serenity and tranquility of minde Isa 26. 3. Rom. 5. 1. Boldnesse at the throne of grace Ephes 3. 12. There is no priviledge bottomed on Christ that hath foundation in him but Faith receives Faith then must be a condition of the covenant 4. That which puts into a capacity to receive the mercies of the covenant held forth in Promise is a condition of the covenant and the want of it strips off all hope and expectation of it But Faith puts into a capacity to receive all the graces of the covenant given in promise Said I not unto thee if thou wilt beleeve thou shalt see the glory of God John 11. 40. God exerts and glorifies his power in great things for good unto those that exercise the grace of Faith Paul saw the Creeple had faith to be healed Acts 14. 9. Sure if there be such a thing as a condition in any covenant in the world any such thing as a conditional covenant then sure faith is a condition of the covenant of grace Some conceive an absolute covenant made of God for grace as Jer. 31. 33. This with me is very disputable and I have given my reasons But the covenant made to grace must needs suppose grace There is no covenant for happinesse made with any creature but upon termes and conditions For further clearing of this point we must know that faith is considered under a double notion First as an instrument or if that word will not be allowed as the way of our interest in Christ and priviledges by Christ Secondly as an inherent grace or Christian duty to which both the Law and the Gospel call The radical grace from which others flow though not in their being yet in their farther growth and encrease I speak of Faith now in the first acception Neither as a part or any way a working cause of the farther progresse in inherent righteousnesse so it will come in the second place but as interesting us in another righteousnesse and so I say it is a condition in the covenant of grace immediately serviceable for our returne to God and reconciliation in Christ For clearring of which I shall clear it in some propositions First God will by no means justifie a wicked person no man in sin shall stand and live in his sight He that hath made a Law to forbid it ordained hell for the punishment of it will not justifie the person that is convinced and found guilty of it Some say it is against his essence The justice of God which is God ties him to take vengeance sure I am it is against his declaration of himself
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
he 1 There is a passive receiving of Christ You will say saith my Authour what is passive receiving of Christ I answer saith he A passive receiving of Christ is just such a receiving of him as when a froward Patient takes a purge or some bitter physick he shuts his teeth against it but the Physician forceth his mouth open and poures it downe his throat and so it works against his will by the ever-ruling power of one over him that knows it is good for him Thus I say there is a passive recipiency or receiving of Christ which is the first receiving of him when Christ comes by the gift of the Father to a person whilest he is in the stubornesse of his own heart 2 There is an active receiving of him c. This distinction carries a full contradiction in it self There cannot be in the same subject a meere passive and active recipie cy of the same thing as appeares in the similitude brought to illustrate it This froward Patient that hath a medicine forced into him in which he is meerly passive cannot again afterward receive that medicine If Christ be thâ—s forced and enters against our will then we cannot actively at any time after receive him And could it be reconciled unto it self yet it stands in full opposition to Scripture Christ stands at the door and knocks Reâ— 3. 20. He waites till his locks are wet with the dew of the night as Cant. 5. 2. But he makes no forcible entry we read of Gods power in changing the will that it freely accepts but not forcing gifts of grace upon any against their wills Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power Psal 110. 3. He works a will Philip. 2. 13. Christ dwells in none that rise in hostility against him and the positioâ— which the distinction is brought to assert That unbelief is no bar hindring one from having Christ is no better If unbeliefe be no barre to our receiving of Christ then it is no barre to salvation where the Saviour enters he brings salvation He that hath the Son hath life 1 John 5. 12. But we finde it evidently a barre to salvation according to Scripture Joh. 3. 36. He that beleeveth not the Sonne shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him He that beleeveth not shall be damned Mark 16. 16. Yea according to the Author himself There is no person under heaven shall be saved saith he till he have beleeved which is a truth according to Scripture They could not enter into the rest of Canaan that did lie in their unbelief Neither can they enter into the rest of heaven Heb. 4. 1. Then Christ dwells not in our hearts by Faith Ephes 3. 17. But also in a state of unbelief Then God is not a justifier of those that beleeve in Jesus as Rom. 3. 26. but equally justifies men without Faith in Jesus Then Christ is not set out a propitiation through Faith in his blood but without any Faith in it Then they that beleeve are not only justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses but they that beleeve not And God gave his Sonne that he that beleeves not on him should have everlasting life This doctrine layes all the honour of Faith in the dust Then Habakkuk might have spared this speech that the just shall live by Faith Habbakuk 2. 4. and Paul might have found another way of life in the flesh than by Faith in the Son of God Secondly Object It is said that the justification of a sinner was with God from eternity It was in his purpose before all time to discharge his Elect and to lay nothing to their charge So then this is as election it selfe unconditional To which I answer Answ That this ovethrows the redemption wrought by Christ and the price paid by his sufferings as well as the necessity of Faith What need Christ to be at all that pains to undergo all those sorrows as to be a man of sorrows to do that which from all eternity was done Then as Paul sayes in another case Christ is dead in vain This some have seene yet rather than leave their opinion have chosen to swallow it down and the absurdity with it and do maintaine that Christ did not purchase procure or work any love from God for man but only published and declared that he was from eternity beloved A fit conclusion drawn from such premisses Then Christ was no Authour of eternal salvation as Heb. 5 9. but only the publisher He was a messenger from God in the dayes of his flesh but no Saviour of man He did not redeeme us with a price but only made known that we were so farre in the love of God from eternity that no redemption needs Secondly I say Gods purpose of a thing doth no put it in being He takes his own way to bring about in time that which he purposed before all time All that is done even every work under the Sunne was alike from eternity in the purpose of God Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world Acts 15. 18. So the house that was built this day was built from eternity The childe that was born this day was borne from eternity We may as well say that the Elect were glorified from eternity so that they need to look after no other glorification as to say they are justified from eternity All the works of God were in his purpose from ever who sees all things at once and not as we can comprehend them in their respective succession But we enquire after things as they are in themselves and not as they are in Gods purpose Thirdly Object Some say justification can be no other than an act of God from eternity being an immanent act and not a transient Transient acts are in time done in the juncture of time when God pleases to do them but immanent acts of God are from eternity Answ To which I first answer that it is not without danger for us to bring the actions of God under our examination and then to fix School-notions upon them according to which they must be bounded When as Master Burges well observes we are here in meere darknesse and not able to comprehend how God is said to act or work Treatise of Justification page 166. How much more safe were it for us to learne à posteriore from the mouth of God in Scriptures what his actions are and the order how he works than à priâ—re to conclude that they are thus and thus and therefore thus of necessity he must work Yet if we may be so bold as to look into this act of his and take it into consideration according to this notion we may farre rather conclude that justification is an action transient not immanent An immanent action as the Schooles tell us is terminated within the subject and works no real nor evident
is performed to the beleeving and penitent To finde a promise made and made good that is tendered and performed to a man unbeleeving impenitent is indeed a labour One replying to this question What if I have not those conditions in me as to feel my self hungry thirsty and heavy-laden answers If you finde not these or such conditions in you Objections answered then you are not to apply your self to those promises that are made to such as have those conditions in them But you are to seek out for other and more suitable promises which are absolute and without condition It is worth asking where those suitable promises are to a man void of faith For that before by the Authour was mentioned or to a man impenient and not so much as hungring after them such a one I meane that upon good grounds is able to charge the want of these upon his soul I am sure they are under heavy Scripture-woes even Gospel-menaces and can they at the same time be fitted to receive the mercy of a promise Where are his promises that hungers and thirsts not when Christ saith Wo to you that are full for you shall hunger Where is his promise that mourns not but goes on frolick in his way When Christ saith Woe unto you that laugh now for ye shall weep and lament Luke 6. 25. Where is the unbeleevers promise when the Lord sayes He that beleeveth not is condemned already because he hath not beleeved in the name of the only begotten Son of God John 3. 18. Where is the impenitent mans promise when the Psalmist saith The wicked shall be turned into hell Psalme 9. 17. and the Apostle That no unrighteous person shall enter into the Kingdome of heaven 1 Cor. 6. 9. But instance is given Isa 43. 25. I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own name sake But this is not the unbeleeving the impenitent mans transgressions they still stand on record and the bond uncancelled This excludes motives from us not graces wrought in us when God justifies a beleever it 's for his own name sake or else he is a loser in his glory when he justifies those that beleeve in Jesus Rom. 3. 26. and Faith gives not glory to God as Rom. 4. 20. but takes glory from him As Peter said of the creeple that was cured His name through faith in his name hath made this man strong Acts 3. 16. So we may say of every sinner justified and pardoned His Name through faith in his Name hath acquit and freed him When God pardons a penitent man it is not for the merit of his returne that he pardons him if this were so Peter who is so zealous to advance his name in the place quoted had not presently urged Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord Acts 3. 19. It is not for his honour to pardon any other This is with him a rule which he will for ever follow Those that honour me I will honour and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed 1 Sam. 3. 30. The same Author saith Conditions and qualifications are mentioned in some promises and therefore we may safely inferre are understood in all promises of life and salvation unlesse God deny himself He hath threatned death and condemnation against an unqualified man namely the unbeleeving and impenitent and therefore hath not promised them life and salvation Beleeving penitent ones have the promises of life to be made good to them exclusively to all others To lead the sinner to Christ for the gaining of the qualifications of grace in the way of his Ordinances is to lead him right He is the Author of our faith and he is a Prince to give repentance But to perswade a sinner to look for life in the want of all these or to tell him of Assurance of life without sense of these is to deceive him That happy Doctrine of free grace so timely abused even as soon as clearly preached is now no lesse abused Then inferences were made from it for encouragement to abound in sin Rom. 6. 1. Now inferences are drawn to cry down duty Righteousnesse imputed must overthrow righteousnesse inherent The Apostle would not suffer the former the Ministers of Christ must not bear the latter CHAP. XXX A people in covenant must come up to the termes of the covenant being engaged to God they must answer their engagements HEnce farther follows that all people in covenant must come up to the termes and propositions of the covenant Entring covenant they must see that their hearts art upright in it How do we aggravate their wickednesse and hold in detestation all those persons that break covenant with men that having past a promise especially having put upon it the sanction of an Oath yet violate and transgresse it These first involve themselves in the guilt of lying which every where in Scripture is followed with judgements an Art which they learne of the Devil who is a liar and the father of lies John 8. 44. And therefore with him have their doome in the lake that burnes with fire and brimstome Revel 21. 8. Secondly in the pollution of Gods Name which we should have in fear and dread Deut. 28. 5 8. Taking it in vaine in falsehood and deceit into their mouths endeavouring to bring in that God whom they pretend to serve in whom is all their expectation as a party in their falsehood and ungodlinesse This high crime is charged upon Israel in taking to themselves again those servants that according to covenant they had dismissed Jerem. 34. 15 16. Ye turned and polluted my name and caused every man his servaut and every man his handmaid whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure to returne and brought them into subjection to be unto you for servants and for handmaids Therein is the overthrow of all bonds of humane society of all converse and commerce whether in more publick or private negotiations Truth is the upholding and perfidiousnesse is the bane and utter destruction of it When Papists have maintained that Faith or covenant is not to be kept with Hereticks reformed Churches have concluded upon it that there is no safety of any league or intercourse of dealing with them The example of John Husse is a sufficient warning Those that hold no such principles yet being such in their practices are equally dangerous We look upon these as given up to a very Spirit of Atheism if not wholly in their judgements to deny a Deity and to utter with their mouths that which the Psalmists foole sayes in his heart yet utterly slighting his Sovereignty and disregarding his judgements They have arrived at that dedolency that the Apostle mentions Ephes 4. 19. and therefore rankt by him with the worst of Heathens Rom. 1. 31. and put into that black bill of ungodly persons that will be found in the last and
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
dwells in us by Faith so we in Christ Ephes 3. 17. 2. All ingraffing is into that which gives sap and juice to the ingraffed as the stock from the root to the syens Now Christ gives sap to the Elect beleeving not the Church and therefore it is not into the Church but into Christ 3. If saving faith ingraffe the branch into the Church invisible then the Church invisible is the proper object of such Faith but the Church is no such object of Faith but Christ 4. That supposed ingraffing into the invisible Church is either known to the body invisible or unwitting if know then it is no invisible They have no light to discerne an invisible work if unknown then there could not be such a dispute about the new ingraffing of Gentiles nor complaint of breaking off of the Jewes all being done by an invisible translation and so the subject of the question is taken away To dispute whether ingraffing into the Church be into the Church-visible or invisible is to dispute whether the Mount of Olives be a Mountaine of Earth or Aire I shall assoon finde a Mountaine of Aire in Geography as this ingraffing into the invisible Church in Divinity And here I tie not any up to the word which I conceive in reference to any Ecclesiastical or Spiritual station is not elsewhere used in Scripture but to the thing All that accesse to the Church from Gentile Nations which is so large fore-prophesied in the Old Testament and Historically related in the Acts of the Apostles was an ingraffing into the Church visible and this ingraffing here mentioned The visible Church did immediately receive these new branches and so the whole body of Jews and Gentiles professedly beleeving Ephes 2. 15. became one new man The visible Church communicates sap and juice which is the fatnesse of the Olive in Ordinances This is known by the Church visible they were sensible of and full of praises for the new addition to this number Argument 4. Fourthly That ingraffing is meant verse 17. whereby the wilde Olive is co-partaker of the root and fatnesse of the Olive-tree as is asserted there But such is only Election and giving of Faith Ergo. The minor I prove by considering who the root is and what the fatness of the Olive-tree is 1. Negatively the root is not every beleeving parent Answ I suppose I may answer for my self that I never said that every beleeving parent is the root I willingly yeeld that every beleeving parent is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the root but I affirm that every beleeving parent is a root I cannot reach this mystery that Abraham can be a root of all the branches in Israel reaching down to the Apostles times no intermediate rootes intervening no more then Adam can be a natural root of mankinde to this time without intermediate fathers of our flesh deriving us from him as Jacob with Rachel and Leah was a root from whom Israel sprang as branches of an Olive so Judah and Tamar Boaz and Ruth were roots likewise They built up the house of Israel Ruth 4. 11 12. The house of Israel was this Olive-tree these several Metaphors expressing the same thing the building of the house and bringing out the branches are one and the same All builders are roots these are builders therefore roots Abraham may be called the builder laying the first foundation so the root from whence every branch was derived yet every particular Beleever that had issue a builder a root Those Israelites that had no holinesse of inhesion but only of relation that were members of the Church visible not invisible were fathers by way of communication of this holinesse 1 Cor. 10. 1. All our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea It is as necessary to have intermediate fathers between us and Abraham as to have intermediate mothers between us and Eue. Eve may as well be the mother of all living and no other mother between us and her as Abraham can be the father of the Faithful and no intermediate father to derive from him and communicate to us But his proof is very well worth the hearing that every beleeving parent is not the root For then all the branches should be natural the childe of every beleeving Parent is a natural branch from his father But here Apostle makes the Gentiles branches and a wild Olive graffed in besides nature and the Jews only natural branches growing from the root verse 21 24. The Apostle makes them wilde onely at their first ingraffing and so was all Terahs race wilde likewise till that change of Faith wrought in Abrahams call and the covenant of God entered with him We now are natural as they were and cannot be called wilde but in our first Original Positively he sayes the root is no other then Abraham that Abraham onely is a holy root or at most Abraham Isaac and Jacob. If this have any face of Argument it runnes thus If Abraham be the root and not every beleeving Parent then the ingraffing is by Election and Faith that justifies The truth is the sequel is undeniable on the contrary If Abraham be the root then the ingraffing is not into the invisible Church which he strangely calls by Election but onely into the visible This Master Blakwood saw and faine would have maintained that Christ is the root for ingraffing into Christ and not into Abraham makes a member of the Church invisible If the ingraffing be by a saving Faith only to derive saving Graces personally inherent as a fruit of Election from Abraham then it must needs be that we are Elect in Abraham Abraham may say Without me ye can do nothing and he that beleeveth in me out of his belly shall flow forth rivers of living water and we may say The life that we live in the flesh we live by faith in the sonne of Terah This must necessarily follow if Abraham be the root not only respective to a conditional Covenant but to the grace under condition covenanted It had been more safe for our Authour with Master Blackwood though in contradiction to himself to have made Christ the root when these consequences must follow To which he answers If I made Abraham a root as communicating Faith by infusion or impetration mediatory as Christ this would follow But I make Abraham a root as he is called the father of all them that beleeve Rom. 4. 11. Not by begetting Faith in them but as an exemplâ—ry cause of beleeving as I gather from the expression verse 12. That he is a father to them that walk in the steps of our father Abraham which he had yet being uncircumcised A root not by communication but example an ingraffing not to have any thing communicated from the root but to imitate it is such a Catacresis as may well make all Rhetorick ashamed of it and if the Sun ever saw a more notable piece of nonâ—sense I am to seek what sense is A
is not unfitly called in instrument of God p. 128 See Faith Justification Ishmael In Covenant when circumcised p. 296 Not to be branded with bastardy ibid. He and his seed cast out of Covenant p. 298 Justification Mans concurrence in it necessarily required in it as an acceptant not as agent p. 127 It is a transient act of God not an immanent p. 132 It is not from eternity p. 131 c. A justified man an an fitted for every duty to which God calls p. 135. See Faith Instrument K. Kingdome of Heaven IN what sense taken Matth. 19. 14 c. p. 399 The Hinge of the contraversie concerning infants interest in Covenant hangs not on the interpretation of those words ibid. Anabaptists reasons not sufficient to prove it to be meant of the Kingdome of Glory p. 400 Though understood of the Kingdome of Glory it serves not to discovenant or dischurch infants p. 401 L. Law COnsidered as a Covenant to give life is inconsistent with the Gospel p. 55 Moral-Law hath a commanding power over Beleevers ibid. By Arguments asserted ibid. Objections answered p. 58 In what sense a dead husband p. 59 See Moses A rule of our duty not of our strength p. 151. Life What in Scripture it implies p. 100 The same in substance in the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace ibid. A Medium may be concieved and is by some assigned between life and death in Scripture acceptation p. 123 Lord. The acceptation of Christ as Lord doth not justifie p. 125 Love To do a thing out of obedience to the Law and by love not opposite p. 61 Love cleaves to Christ for communion but recieves him not for justification p. 125 M. Master Marshal VIndicated p. 435 Mediatour A foure-fold work respective to the Covenant incumbent on the Mediatour p. 93 c. See Christ Moses Metaphor God's entring Covenant with man no Metaphor p. 10. 37 Ministers Must bring their people up to the termes of the Covenant in pressing the necessity of Faith and Repentance p. 188 c. They must not sever the promise from the duty p. 189 Ministry The necessity of a Ministry to bring me into Covenant and to bring them up to the termes of the Covenant p. 160. Reasons evincing that God hath appointed such a Ministry to be perpetuated through all ages p. 162 c. Reasons evincing the necessity of such an established Ministry p. 165 c. Objections answered p. 168 169 An orderly call from God into the Ministerial function necessary p. 180 Reasons assigned p. 181 182 Several wayes of calling to the work of The Ministry p. 182 See Ordination Ministry-maintenance p. 442 Moses The Law as delivered by Moses bindes Christians p. 73 74 75 He delivered a Covenant to the Jewes p. 210 He delivered a Covenant of Grace to the Jewes p. 210 211 In his time commands were frequent and full the directive and maledictive part for discovery of sin were open and clear but promises for eternity little known p. 213 He was a Mediatour in type N. Nature TAken for Birth-priviledge or descent from Ancestors p. 307 Taken for qualifications of nature ibid. Jewes by nature had priviledges above Gentiles p. 307 308 O. Obedience See Righteousnesse Olive THe whole universal Church visible Rom. 11. p. 325 Fatnesse of the Olive glory of Ordinances p. 326 Ordination An orderly call by way of Ordination into the Ministerial function necessary in all not gifted by immediate revelation p. 182 Ordination described ibid. Men in Ministerial function are to act in Ordination p. 182 183 They are to set men apart as Presbyters and Elders p. 184 Ordination not to be passed but upon examination and tryal p. 140 To be solemnized with fasting and prayer p. 185 186 Imposition of hands to be used p. 187 Objections answered ibid. P. Pardon NAtional and personal p. 343 My People That phrase applied in New Testament-Scriptures to those that stand invisible relation to God p. 258 Places for worship In New Testament-times have their warranty In what sense holy p. 441 Places holy by divine institution by divine approbation p. 439 Positions concerning places for worship in Gospel-times p. 441 Not in equipage with the Temple and Tabernacle ibid. Temple and Tabernacle had the pre-eminence in four Particulars ibid. Our places of meeting by good warranty called Churches p. 441 c. Position This Position that the Moral Law hath no commanding power over Believers examined p. 58 That position concerning the Old Covenant to be both a Covenant of Works and a Covenant of Grace examined p. 210 Power Necessary in the call of Nations to a visible Church-state p. 330 Priviledge See Birth Professors Who to be accounted so before men p. 450 Promises Made to the wiked made good to the believing and penitent p. 190 Absolute promises yield not peace to him that is wanting in the conditions of God required ibid. p. 47 Objections answered p. 190 Spiritual promises rare and obscure under Moses his administration p. 213 Scriptures evincing the spirituality of Old Testament-Promises p. 222 Temporal promises annexed as appendants to spiritual in the Old Covenant p. 226 Children of Promise All the seed of Abraham by Isaac born by vertue of that miraculous promise p. 298 Q. Quaeries PVt to those that restraine the New Covenant to the Elect regenerate p. 234 c. Put to those that put a limit to the New Covenant respective to the issue p. 317 R. Reconciliation GRadual or total of persons of Nations p. 331 Repentance A distinct grace from faith p. 136 A condition of the Covenant of grace ib. Considered in the prae-requisites p. 137 In the essential parts of it ibid. Privative part which is cessation from sin is required in Covenant p. 140 Positive part which is a returne to God and an holy walk with God is required in Covenant p. 142 See Righteousnesse Objections answered p. 144 c. Reprobation No cause of unbelief or sin p. 341 It leads not to condemnation without merit of sin as Election leads to Salvation without merits of works ibid. Righteousnesse What degree of righteousnesse is required in the Covenant of Grace p. 148 Perfection of degrees is not so required that upon the defection of it the penalty is incurred p. 149 Perfection of degrees is not required and sincerity accepted p. 151 Reasons assigned ibid. c. Objections answered p. 153 Our Evangelical righteousnesse is imperfect p. 155 c Sincerity is required and accepted p. 112 c. Root and Branch Denote parent and childe Rom. 11. 16. p. 325 Root Abraham Isaac and Jacob. ibid. Every natural parent a Root p. 338 Every natural believing Parent an holy Root ibid. Abraham a Root by communication not by example p. 399 S. Sacraments ARe Gospel mysteries p. 446 Sacriledge Defined p. 440 With-holding infants of believing parents from Baptism is Sacriledg p. 437 c. Saints Vnregenerate persons have the name and outward priviledge of Saints p.
as well as kneeled for that is the onely key to open Heaven that is Davids Harp to allay all those unruly affections that are apt to disturb us Lastly here is the effect of all upon the Auditors which is expressed First In their passion of weeping with the aggravation 1. They wept sore 2. Their great love They fell on Pauls neck and kissed him 3. The motive of all this affectionate carriage That which did open these Flood-gates it was because they should see his face no more they should for ever lose him enjoy no more of his Ministerial Labors and diligence now this is recorded by the Evangelist as a commendation It was a spirituall not a naturall weeping It was not like weeping for a dead Father or a dead Wife but for a dead Pastor by whose spirituall labours their souls had made great proficiency I shall from these words observe two doctrines suitable to the two considerable parts of this auditory the one seasonable for the Ministers of the Gospel here present The other opportune for the Congregation of Tamworth now bereaved of a faithful Pastor whom I may see mourning and weeping and that most of all because you shall see his face no more you shall not behold him in this place again you shall not hear his voice from hence again The first Observation is grounded upon these words when he had thus spoken This about the duty of a Minister This about his Holy Godly and exemplary conversation From whence observe That a faithful discharge of the ministeriall Office doth bring unspeakable comfort to such as can upon just grounds assume this to themselves From this faithfulness we see often Paul receiving a great deal of comfort 2 Tim. 4. 6 7 8. The time of his departure was at hand doth not this then make him afraid how shall he give an account concerning the improvement of his talents No I have fought a good fight I have finished my course c. We have the like glorious profession made by this holy Apostle Thess 2 3 4 5 6. which is an excellent Copy for every Minister to write after to live and breathe from thence and in this he is so cleare that he saith Ye are witnesses and God also how holily justly and unblameably we have behaved our selves amongst those that beleeve But yet let none think that Paul doth thus magnifie inherent grace to exclude imputed grace for 1 Cor. 4. 4. Though he saith he knoweth nothing by himself yet he concludeth I am not thereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord he knew more evill in Paul then Paul him self could do and certainly so great is this ministerial work that Paul himself cryed out Who is sufficient for these things Chrysostome hath very discouraging passages as if few Ministers could be saved but his meaning must be because few are carefull zealous and diligent Otherwise such as Chrysostome himself that is said to fear nothing but sin and those that by their Doctrin and life turn many from iniquities shall have more then ordinary glory in heaven To amplifie this I shall in some particulars or Characters describe how or when the Ministery is faithfully discharged what is ingredient thereunto or constituent thereof And first there is required an inward experimental savory work of grace upon the Ministers own heart that thereby he may more affectionately and cordially deal with others when we know the terror of the Lord and the love of Christ experimentally this maketh us able in the work of the Ministery 2 Cor. 5. 11. I doe not say that the Office of a Minister is null if he be not a regenerate man or as if he were no Minister or might not be usefull in the Church of God but as to himself he cannot faithfully discharge this Office so as to obtaine a crown of glory hereafter unless he be thus qualified There is Theologia ratiocinativa and experimentalis as Gerson speaketh A man may know things as Aquinas saith per modum cognitionis or per modum inclinationis now it is this experimental Divinitie that worketh besides Knowledge an inclination and propensitie to the thing known that maketh us able to discharge this duty To Preach of Regeneration of Faith when a man hath no savory understanding of these things is to talk of the sweetness of honey when we never tasted it or of the excellency of such a Countrey which we never were in but know it by Mapps only If thou knowest the truths of God but by Books by Authors onely and thy own heart feeleth not the power of these things Thou art but as the Conduit that letteth out wine or refreshing water to others but thou thy self tastest not of it or like the hand that directeth the Passenger but thou thy self standest still 2. To a faithfull discharge there is required a sound knowledge judgement and skill in divine things hence they are called lights guides and Shepherds they are required to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 3. 2. apt to teach to reprove in all Doctrine 2 Tim. 4. 2. It is not enough to cry out of Heresies or of sinnes unless we rebuke with doctrine The least Knowledge that Casuists condescend unto in a Minister is that he must be learned supra vulgus fidelium Is he a fit Minister that can onely Preach and pray by a prescript or form from another He is not a fit Physitian or a fit Lawyer that should doe so in his way Ministers therefore should take that exhortation which we see Paul gave even to Timothy though so well accomplished 1 Tim. 4. 15. Meditate upon these things give thy self wholly to them that thy profiting may appear yea vers 13. Till I come give attendance to reading The circumstance of time is to be observed for though Paul was to come shortly to him yet that little time he was absent from Paul must be improved in reading Gods Word Be thou ascribe instructed for the Kingdome of heaven that can bring out of thy treasure old and new be a Fountain not a Cestern that will quickly be dry Cajetan Summula Tit. Doctoratus maketh it a mortall sinne to approve any for a Doctor in Divinitie who is notably insufficient because hereby he is testified to be a Physitian of souls when yet through his ignorance may be the ruine of many I dare not avouch that of Luther who said it is a German Proverb that young Divines fill Hell onely it is a good warning that such be diligent in studying that God may blesse them with all knowledge and understanding first in the Scripture and then in all other parts of Divinitie whether controversall positive or practicall especially adde to thy Ministeriall knowledge these two things First a firm faith for to read and to know much but not to digest it maketh us scepticall Have faith not reason or opinion in religious things Calvin saith in Comment 2. Epist ad Corin. that the Ministers
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