Reply. This argument or reason can never conclude ; because as God never required of Abraham and his children, personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience to the whole law for life, as he did of Adam; so the death, or cutting off, spoken of here, seems to be another thing from that threatened to Adam. Circumcision, as I told you before, was appointed to be the discriminating sign betwixt Abra- ham's seed and the Heathen world; and the wilful neglect thereof is here threatened with the cutting off by civil, or ecclesiastical ex- communication from the commonwealth and church of Israel, as Luther, Calvin, Paraeus, Musculus, &c. expound; not by the death of body and soul, as was threatened to Adam, without place for re- pentance, or hope of mercy.
(2.) You say Abraham's covenant could not be a covenant of faith, because faith was not reckoned to Abraham for righteousness in circumcision, but in uncircumcision, Rom. iv. 9, 10.
Reply. This is weak reasoning ; circumcision could not belong to a gospel-covenant, because Abraham was a believer before he was circumcised. You may as well deny the Lord's Supper to be the seal of a gospel-covenant, because the partakers of it, are be- lievers before they partake of it. Beside, you cannot deny but it sealed the righteousness of faith to Abraham : and I desired you before, to prove that a seal of the covenant of works is capable of being applied to such an use and service, which you have not done, nor ever will be able to do ; but politicly slided by it.
(3.) You say it cannot be a covenant of grace, because it is contra-distinguished to the righteousness of faith, Rom. iv. 13.
Reply. The law in that place is put strictly for tlie pure law of nature, and metaleptically signifies the works of the law, which is
522 VINDICIARUM VIXEEX.
a far different thing from the law, taken in that latitude "wherein you take it. And, is not this a pretty argument, that because the promise to Abraham and his seed, was not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith ; therefore the covenant God made with Abraham and his seed, Gen. xvii. cannot be a gra- cious, but a legal covenant ? This promise, mentioned Rom. iv. 13. was made to Abraham long before the law was given by Moses ; and free grace, not Abraham's legal righteousness, was the impulsive cause moving God to make that promise to Abraham and to his seed ; and their enjoyment of the mercies promised, was not to be through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. By what rule of art this scripture is alleged to prove God's cove- nant with Abraham, Gen. xvii. to be a covenant of works, I am utterly to seek : if it be only because circumcision was added to it, that is answered over and over before, and you neither have, nor can reply to it.
(4.) Lastly, It cannot (say you) be a covenant of grace, because it is represented to us, in scripture, as a bondage covenant, Acts XV. 10, &c. Gal. v. 1.
Reply. It is time, I see, to make an end ; your discourse rujns low and dreggy. Do you think it is one and the same thing to say. That the ceremonial law was a yoke of bondage to them that Vvere under it, and to say it was an Adam's covenant ? Are these two parallel distinctions in your logic ? Alas ! Sir, there is a wide difference ; the difficulty, variety, and chargeableness of those ceremonies, made them, indeed, burthensome and tiresome to that people ; but they did not make the covenant to which they were annexed, to become an Adam's covenant of works ; for in the very next breath, ver. 1 1. the apostle will tell you, they were saved; yea, and tells us, that we shall be saved, even as they. So that either they that were saved under this yoke, were saved by faith in the way of free grace, as we now are : or we must be saved in the way of legal obedience, as they were. Take which you please, for one of them you must take. We shall be saved even as they. Acts xv. 10, 11.
If you can make no stronger opposition to my arguments than such as you have here made, your cause is lost, though your confi- dence and obstinacy remain : it were easy for me to fill more paper than I have written on this subject, with names of principal note in the cliurch of God, who, with one voice, decry your groundless position, and constantly affirm, That the law in the complex sense you take it, as it compreliends the ceremonial rites and ordinances wherei!nto circumcision pertains, is, and can be no other thnu the covenant of grace, though more obscurely admi- nistered. But because Latin authors are of little use to you, and
VINDICIAIIUM VINDEX. 523
among English ones, the judgment of Dr. Crisp*, I suppose, will be instar omnium with you ; I will recite it faithfully out of his ser- mon upon the two covenants, where he makes the old and new co- venant to be, indeed, two distinct covenants of grace, (for which I see no reason at all) but proves the former to be so in these words : ' It is granted of all men, that in the covenant of works there is ' no remission of sin, there is no notice of Christ ; but the whole
* business or employment of the priests of the old law was altoge-
* ther about remission of sins, and the exhibiting and holding forth
* of Christ in their fashion unto the people. In the 15th of Num-
* bers, ver. 28. (I will give you but one instance) there you shall ' plainly see, that the administration of the priestly office had re- ' mission of sins, as the main end of that administration. If' a soul
* sin through ignorance, he shall bring a she-goat unto the priest,
* and he shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ig- ' norantly, and it shall be forgiven him: See the main end is ad-
* ministering forgiveness of sins.
' And that Christ was the main subject of that their ministry is ' plain ; because the apostle saith, in the verse before my text, that ' all that administration was but a shadow of Christ, and a figure, ' for the present, to represent him, as he doth express in the ninth ' chapter of this epistle. And the truth is, the usual general gospel ' that all the Jews had, was in their sacrifices, and priestly observa- ' tions.
' So that it is plain, the administration of their covenant was an ' administration of grace, and absolutely distinct from the admini-
< stration of the covenant of works.' And what can be said more absolutely, and directly contradictory to your position than this is? And yet again, p. 250. speaking to that scripture, Heb. viii. 8. ' where the apostle distinguishes of a better and ^faulty, of first ' and second ; he saith, (finding fault with them) " The days come ' when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and