* all sin, and particularly against sinful aversion from God ; wherein ' lies the very death of the soul, or the sum of its misery ; or to ' strive after perfect conformity to God in holiness, and the full ' fruition of him ; wherein its final blessedness doth principally ' consist.
' It were to teach us to violate the great precepts of the gospel ; ' Repent that your sins may be blotted out. — Strive to enter in at the ' strait gate. — Work out your salvation with fear and trembling : ' To obliterate the patterns and precedents set before us in the ' gospel. We have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might bejus^ ' tified. — / bear down my body, lest I should he a cast-away. — That ' thou mayest save thyself, and the7n that hear thee.
' It were to suppose us bound to do more for the salvation of ' others, than our own salvation. We are required to save others ' with fear, plucking them out of the fire. Nay, we were not ' (by this rule strictly understood) so much as to pray for our own
^ salvation ; (which is a doing of somewhat) when no doubt, we are
* to pray for the success of the gospel, to this purpose, on behalf of
' It were to make all the threatenings of eternal death, and pro-
* mises of eternal life we find in the gospel of our blessed Lord,
* useless ; as motives to shun the one, and obtain the other : for ' they can be motives no way, but as the escaping of the former,
* and the attainment of the other, have, with us, the place and con- ' sideration of an end.
' It makes what is mentioned in the scripture, as the character ' and commendation of the most eminent saints, a fault ; as of
* Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, &c. That they sought the bette?' and ' heavenly country ; and declared plainly^ that they did so; which
* necessarily implies their making it their end.
' But let none be so harsh as to think of any good man, that he ' intended any thing of all this ; if every passage that falls from us
* be stretched and tortured with the utmost severity, we shall find ' httle to do besides accusing others, and defending ourselves, as
A spirit of meekness and love will do more to our common peace, than all the disputations in the world.
Upon the whole, we are so well assured of the peaceful, healing temper of the present author of these treatises, that we are per- suaded he designed such a course of managing the controversies wherein he hath concerned himself, as to prevent, on the one hand injury to the memory of the dead; and on the other, any hurt or danger to the living.
Nor do we say thus much of him, as if he sought, or did need any letters of recommendation from us ,• but as counting this testi- mony to truth, and this expression of respect to him, a debt ; to tlie spontaneous payment whereof, nothing more was requisite, be- sides such a fair occasion as the providence of God hath now laid before us, inviting us hereunto.
John Howe^ John Turner.
Vin. Alsopy Rich. Bures,
Nath. Mather, Tho. Powel Increa.se Mather,
^AT EPISTLE TO THE READER,
VyENSURE not this treatise of errors, as an error in my pruden- tials, in sending it forth at such an improper time as this. T should never spontaneously have awakened sleeping controversies, after God's severe castigation of his people for them, and in the most proper and hopeful season for their redintegration.
And beside what I have formerly said, I think fit here to add, That if the attack had been general, and not so immediately and particularly upon that post or quarter I was set to defend, I should, with Elihu, have modestly waited till some abler and more skilful hand had undertaken the defence of this cause.
If ever I felt a temptation to envy the happiness of my brethren, it hath been whilst I saw them quietly feeding their flocks, and myself forced to spend some part of my precious and most useful time (devoted to the same service) in combating with unquiet and erring brethren ; but I see I must not be my own chuser. Not- withstanding I hope, and am in some measure persuaded, that public benefit will redound to the church from this irksome labour of mine. And that this strife will spread no farther, but the ma- lady be cured by an antidote growing in the very place where it began : and that the Christian camp v, ill not take a general alarm from such a single duel.
The book now in thy hands consisteth of four parts, viz. 1. A general discourse of the causes and cures of errors, very necessary at all times (especially at this time) for the reduction and estabHshment of seduced and staggering Christians ; and nothing of that nature having occurred to my observation among the manifold polemical tracts that are extant, I thought it might be of some use to the churches of Christ, in such a virtiginous age as we live in, if the blessing of the Lord go forth with it for benefit and establish- ment.
2. Next, thou hast here the controversies moved by my anta- gonist ; first, about the Mosaic law, complexly taken, which he boldly pronounces to be an Adam's covenant of works : And se^^ condhj, about God's covenant with Abraham, Gen. xvii. which he also makes the same with that which God made with Adam in pa- radise ; and affirms circumcision (expressly called a seal of the righ- teousness of faith) to be the seal of the said covenant o^ works first made with Adam.
3. Finding my adversary, in the pursuit of his design, running into many Antinomian delirations, to the reproach and damage
4:20 AX EPISTLE TO THE Ur.AOEll,
of the cause he contends for, I tliought it necessary to take tlie principal errors of Antinomianism into examination, especially at such a time as this, when they seem to spring afresh, to the hazard of God's truth, and the church's peace ; wherein 1 have dealt with becoming modesty and plainness, if happily I might be any way instrumental in my plain and home-Avay of argumentation, to de- tect the falsity and dangerous nature of those notions which some good men have vented, and preserve the sounder part of the church from so dangerous a contagion.
4. In the next place, I think it necessary to advertise the reader. That whereas, in my first appendix under that head of the con- ditionality of the new covenant, I have asserted faith to be the con- dition of it, and do acknowledge, that the word condition is vari- ously used among Jurists ; yet I do not use it in any sense, which implies or insinuates, that there is any such condition in the new covenant, as that in Adam's covenant was, consisting in perfect, perscMial, and perpetual obedience ; or any thing in its own nature, meritorious of the benefits promised, or capable to be performed by us in our own strength ; but plainly, that it be an act of ours (though done in God's strength) which must be necessarily done before we can be actually justified or saved ; and so there is found in it the true suspending nature of a condition ; which is the thing I contend for, when I affirm, faith is the condition of the new covenant *.