When I received these sheets from him in vindication of his Solemn Call, I was at a stand, in my own resolutions, whether to let it pass (without any animadversions upon it) as a passionate clamour for a desperate cause ; or give a short and full answer to his con- fused and impertinent rejoinder. But considering that I had under hand, at the same time, the foregoing Treatise of The Causes and Cure of Mental Errors, and that though my honest neighbour dis- covers much weakness in his way of argumentation, yet it was like to meet with some interested readers, to whom, for that reason, it would be the more suitable ; and how apt such persons are to glory in the last word ; but especially considering, that a little time and pains would suffice (as the case stands) to end the unseasonable con- troversy betwixt us, and both clear and confirm many great and weighty points of religion : I was, upon these considerations, pre- vailed with against my own inclination, to cast in these few sheets as a Mantissa to the former seasonable and necessary discourse of errors, resolving to fill them with what should be worth the reader's time and pains.
As for the rude insults, uncomely reflections, and passionate ex- pressions of my discontented friend, I shall not throw back the dirt upon him, when I wipe it oft* from myself; I can easily forgive and forget them too : The best men have their passions, James v. 17. even sweet-biiars and holy thistles have their oftensive prickles.
496 TINDICIAllUM V1XDE'^:.
I consider my honest neighbour under the strength of a temptation ; it disquiets him to see the labours of many years, and the raised ex- pectations of so great a conquest and triumph over men of renown all frustrated by his friend and neighbour, who had done his ut- most to prevent it, and often foretold him of the folly and vanity of his attempt. Every thing will live as long as it can, and vatitra veocata prodlt seipsam. But certainly it had been more for truth's honour and Mr. C — 's comfort to have confessed his follies humbly to God, and have laid his hand upon his mouth.
The things in controversy betwixt us are great and weighty, viz. the true nature of the Sinai laws in their complex bodv : the qua- hty of God's covenant with Abraham ; -nd the dispensation of the New Covenant we are now under. These are things of great weight in themselves, and their due resolutions are at this time somewhat the more weighty, because my Antagonist hath adven- tured the whole controversy of infants baptism upon them.
I have, in my Vindicice Legis^ &c. stated the several questions clearly and distinctly ; shewn Mr. C. what is no part of the con- troversy, and what is the very hinge upon which it turns ; desired him, if he made any reply, to keep close to the just and necessary rules of disputation, by distinguishing, limiting, or denying any of my propositions ; that the matters in controversy might be put to a fair and speedy issue. But, instead of that, I meet with a flood of words rolling sometimes to this part, and then to another part of my answer, and so back again, without the steady direction of art or reason. There may, for ought I know, be some things of weight in Mr. Gary's reply, if a man could see them for words; but, without scoff or vanity, I must say of the rational part of it as the poet said of the over-dressed woman, — Pars m'miina est ipsapueU la sui, it is the least part of it. To follow him in his irregular and extravagant way of writing, were to make myself guilty of the same folly I blame him for : 1 am therefore necessitated to perstringe them, and reduce all I have to say under three general heads.
I. I shall clearly evince to the world that Mr. Gary hath not been able to discharge and free his o^-^n thesis from the horrid con- sequents and gross absurdities which I have laid to their charge in my first reply ; but, instead thereof, in this feeble and unsuccessful attempt to free the former, he hath en- tangled himself in more and greater ones.
II. That he hath left my arguments standing in their full strength against him.
III. And then I shall confirm and strengthen my three positions,
VINDICIAKUM VINDEX. 497
uhicli destroy the cause he manages by some farther additions of scripture, reason, and authorities, which, I hope, will fully end this matter betwixt us.
But, before I touch the particulars, two things must be premised for the reader''s due information.
1. That the controversy about the true nature of the Sinai laws, both moral and ceremonial, complexly considered, is not that very hinge upon which the right of believers' infants to baptism de- pends ; that stands as it did before, be the Sinai laws what they will : we do not derive the right of infants from any other law or covenant, but that gracious covenant which God made with Abra- ham, which was in being 430 years before Moses's law ; and was no way injured, much less disannulled, by the addition of it, Gal. iii. 17. If Abraham's covenant be the same covenant of grace we are now under, the right of believers' infants to baptism is secured, whatever the Sinai covenant prove to be : which I speak not out of the least jealousy that Mr. Gary hath, or ever shall be able to prove it to be a pure Adam's covenant of works ; but to prevent mistakes in the reader,
2. It must be heedfully observed also, that how free, gra- cious, and absolute soever the New Covenant be, (for God forbid that I should go about to eclipse the glory of free grace, on which my soul depends for salvation) yet that will never prove Abraham's covenant to be an abolished Adam's covenant of works, unless two things more be proved, which I never expect to see, viz.
First, That Abraham and his believing posterity, were bound, by the very nature and act of circumcision, to keep the whole law in their own persons, in order to their justification and salvation, as perfectly and perpetually, and under the same penalty for the least failure, as Adam was to keep the lavv^ in paradise.
Secondly, It must be further proved. That Abraham and all his believing offspring, who stood with him under that covenant, whereof circumcision was the initiating sign, were all saved in a different way from that in Vvhich believers are now saved under the gospel ; for so it must be, if the addition of circumcision made it unto them an Adam's covenant of works. But this would be a direct contradiction to the words of the apostle, speaking of them who were under the covenant of circumcision, Acts xv. 11. " But " we believe, that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we *' shall be saved even as they." If he say, they stood, indeed, un- der that covenant, as a pure covenant of works, but were saved by another covenant ; and so for many ages, the church of God stood absolutely under the covenant of works, and, at the same time* under the pure covenant of grace ; the one altogether absolute and
498 VJNDICIAllUM VIXDEX.