Now I would soberly ask, (1.) What vouchers you have a- mongst expositors for this your rash and daring assertion ? I find not a man that hath trod this path before you, and I hope none will be hardy enough to follow : you certainly stand alone, and it is pity but you should. (2.) Where do you find the just parts of the new covenant in the 2d and 4th verses ? Is it not altogether promissory, on God's part, without any restipulation on Abra- ham's ? For you have excluded ver. 1, 7, 10. from that which you call God's covenant of grace with him. And then for your covenant of works, ver. 7, 8, 9, 10. you make this to be the pro- missory part of that covenant, " to be a God unto thee, and to thy " seed after thee ;" and again, ver. 8. " I will be their God." Was ever such a promise as this found in a covenant of works ? Tell me whatever God said more in tlie new covenant, than he saith here ? O blessed covenant of work, if this be such ! (3.) Tell me whether you can satisfy your own conscience with the an- swers you have given to my first argument against your paradoxical, yea, heterodoxical exposition ? I told you, That if ver. 7, 8, 9, 10. contain another covenant, viz. of works, entered by God with Abraham and his seed, it must needs make void the former cove- nant, ver. 2, 4. for wherever the covenant of works takes place, the covenant of grace gives place ; they cannot consist, as I have abundantly proved before. Do you verily think those words of the apostle, Gal. iii. 17. which you bring as a foundation to support your singular and sinful exposition, viz. And this I saij^ That the covenant that was cori/ii'med before of God in Christ, the law, which was Jour hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect ; do you think, I say, that in that, or any other text, the apostle opposes the two covenants made (as you fancy) with Abraham, Gen. xvii. Or doth he not there speak of God's covenant with Abraham, as distinguished from the law made 430 years afterward ? (4.) Have you satisfied your own judgment and conscience in the reply you made to that unanswerable objec- tion from Paul's circumcising of Timothy, Acts xvi. 2, 3. where you have the plain matter of fact before you, that he was circum- cised by Paul ; and this fact of his justified as a part of the liberty he had in Christ, Gal. ii. 3, 4. * from whence it evidently appears, That circumcision, in its own nature, did not simply and absolutely
* He is bound not simply and absolutely from the nature of the work itself, (m. Cir- curacision) but in regard of the intention of him who performs it ; and such an opiniou being supported, &c. Pool on the place.
520 VIXDICIARUM VI^^DEX.
oblige men to the keeping of Moses's law for righteousness, but only for the intention or opinion of the person. And though you call this my con'upt gloss upon the text, therein you grossly abuse me : the gloss is neither corrupt nor my own ; but the unanimous judgment of all sound expositors of the text, as you might see, were you capable of seeing it, in a collection of their judgments upon "that text. Gal. v. 2, 3, 4. in Mr. Poors Synopsis. And though Estius thinks the act of circumcision might be obligatory to the Gentiles, to whom the law W9s not given ; yet it was not so to the Jews that believed, and such was Timothy. But why do I refer you to the judgment of commentators ? The very reason of it may convince you. For,
If the very act of circumcision did, in its own nature, oblige all on whom it passed, to keep the whole law for their righteousness, then Paul so obliged Timothy, and all others on whom he passed it, to keep the law for their righteousness.
But Paul did not oblige Timothy, or any other on whom he passed it, by the very act of circumcision so to keep the law.
Therefore the very act of circumcision, n its own nature, did not oblige all on whom it passed, to keep the whole law for righ- teousness.
You may ponder this argument at your leisure, and not think to refute it at so cheap a rate, as by calUng it a corrupt gloss of my own. x\nd thus I hope I have sufficiently fortified and confirmed my third argument, to prove Abraham's covenant to be a covenant of grace. My fourth was this :
Arg. 4. That which in its direct and primary end, teacheth man the corruption of his nature by sin, and the mortification of sin by the Spirit of Christ, cannot be a condition of the covenant of works.
But so did circumcision in the very direct and primary end of it ; therefore, he.
Your reply to this, is, ' That when I have substantially proved
* that the Sinai covenant^ as it contained the passover, sacrifices^ ' types.) and appendages.^ under which were veiled many spiritual
* mysteries relating to Christ, and mortification of sin hy his grace ' ajid Spirit, to be no covenant of works, but a gospel covenant ; you
* will then grant, with me, that the present argument is convincing ;' p. Q>Q, 67. of your reply.
Reply. Sir, I take you for an honest man, and every honest man will be as good as his word ; either I have fully proved agamst you, that the Sinai law (taken in that latitude you here express it) is not an Adam's covenant of works, or I have not. If I have not, doubtless you have reserved your more pertinent and strong replies in your own breast, and trust not to those weak and silly
VINDICIAllU^r VINDEX. 5S1
ones, which you see here baffled, and have only served to involve you in greater absurdities than before. But if you have brought forth all your strength, (as in such a desperate strait no man can imagine but you would) then I have fully proved the point against you ; and if I have, I expect you to be Ingenuous and candid, in making good your word, that you will then grant, with me, that this argument is convincing, to the end for which it was designed. And so I hope we have fully issued the controversy between us, relating to God's covenant with Abraham, You have indeed four arguments p. 59, 60, 61, 62. of your Reply, to prove Abraham's covenant a covenant of works, of the same nature with Adam's covenant.
(1.) Because as life was implicitly promised to Adam upon his obedience, and death explicitly threatened in case of his disobedi- ence, which made that properly a covenant of works ; so it was in the covenant of circumcision. Gen. xvii. 7, 8. compared with ver. 10, 14.