Replij. This is new and strange divinity with me, (1.) That God should become a people's God by way of special interest, l)y virtue of the broken covenant of works ; this wholly alters the na- ture of that covenant : for then it was a law that could give life, contrary to Gal. iii. 21. unless you can suppose a soul that is totally dead in sin to have a special interest in God, as his God. (2.) This answer of yours yields the controversy about the nature of the Sinai law ; for tiiis very concession of yours is the medium by which our divines prove it to be a covenant of grace. (3.) This conces- sion of yours confounds the two covenants, by communicating the essential property and prime privilege of the covenant of grace to Adam's covenant of works. Either, therefore, expunge Jer. xxxi. 33. as a covenant of grace, " I will be their God, and thc}^ shall be " my people ;" or allow that in Gen. xvii. 7. to be specifically the same; and that Exod. xx. though more obscurely delivered. (4.) You assert, ' That God may actually become a people's God by ' way of special interest, and yet the salvation of that people be ' suspended upon impossible terms.' You sent them before into purgatory, but by this you must send them directly to hell : for if the salvation of God's peculiar people be upon impossible terms, it is certain they cannot be saved. And, lastly, it is an horrid reflec- tion upon the wisdom and goodness of God, who never did, or will make any covenant wherein he takes fallen men to be his peculiar people, iuid make over himself to be their God ; and yet not make provision for their salvation in the same covenant, but leave their salvation for many ages, upon hard and impossible terms, i. e. leave them under damnation.
(2.) 1 told you in my Viiidlcicc, Sec. p. 49. that you were fain to cut Abraham's covenant, Gen. xvii. into two parts ; and make the first to be the pure covenant of grace, which is the promissory part to the 9th verse, and the restipulation, as you call it, p. 205, to be as pure a covenant of works, which I truly said was a bold action ; and in so calling it, I gave it a softer name than the nature of it deserved.
The sum of what you reply to this is, 1. By denying the matter of fact, and charging me with misrepresentation ; * and in the next
* J/r. Cs Defence, p. 79. K'k2
olS VlNDICIAliU:.! VINDLX.
page confessing the whole charge, saying, Though the promise and the restipulation mentioned, ver. 7, 8, 9. make but one and the same covenant of circumcision ; yet there are two covenants men- tioned in that context, the first between God and Abraham himself, ver. 2, 4. the other between God and Abraham, and his natural posterity also, ver. 7, 8, 9, 10. the former you call a covenant of grace, the latter a covenant of works. And p. 81. you affirm that after God had entered the covenant of grace with Abraham, verses 2, 4. Q-i that Abraliam himself was required to be circumcised by ^ ° ■ the command of God, as a token of the covenant of works. And then, after some unbecoming scoffs for misplacing ver. 7? 8. where ver. 9, 10. should be ; as also of Gen. xii. for Gen. xvii. (whether by the scribe, myself, or the press, I cannot say ; but in each place sufficient light is given to set you right in the scope and argument of my discourse) you tell us, That hoid Jiarsh and un~ likely soever it may seem to mail's carnal reason^ that the latter^ to 7vif, the covenant of works made with Abraham^ ver. 9, 10. must needs make void the covenant qfgi-ace made with him, vev. 2, 4. yet the apostle gives a quite contrary resolution of it. Gal. iii. 17. And after all, p. 79- in return to my argument. That the circumci- sion of Abraham and his seed, ver. 9, 10. could not possibly be a condition of Adam's covenant of Avorks from the nature of the act : because Paul himself circumcised Timothy, Acts xvi. % 3. and as- serts it to be a pai't of his liberty. Gal. ii. 3, 4. which could never be, if in the very nature of the act it hath bound Timothy to keep the law for justification; and had been contrary to the whole scope of the apostle's doctrine : but it became an obhgation only from the intention of the agent. All that you say to this, p. 95. is, * That ' as for Paufs compliance with the Jews, however the case stood in ' that respect, this is certain. That the blessed apostle would never ' have expressed himself with that vehemency he doth, Gal. v. 2, ' 3. if this had been only the sense of the Jewish teachers, or that ' circumcision in its own nature did not oblige to the keeping of * the whole law ; and that this is only my corrupt gloss upon the ' text;
Reply. If there be but one covenant made betwixt God and A- braham in that 17th of Genesis, and you make two, not only nu- merically, but specifically distinct, yea, opposite covenants of it, then you boldly cut God's covenant with Abraham in two, and are guilty of an insufferable abuse of the covenant of God : But the former is true; therefore so is the latter. You say, p. 223, 22 i. of your call, ' That at the second and fourth • verses God made a covenant ' with Abraham iiimself alone, but at ver. 7. he makes the cove- 'nant of circumcision betwixt himself and Abraham, and his ^ natural seed also ; and saith, ver. 7. And, or according to the
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•^ old translation, moreover ; as proceeding to speak of another * covenant than what he had been before insisting on."