< with the house of Judah ; not according to the covenant I made ' with their fathers, when I took them by the hand to lead them « out of the land of Egypt ;"'"' and (as Jeremiah adds it, for the apos- ' tie takes all this out of Jer. xxxi. 31. (although I was an husband « to them, and in the close of all, your sins and iniquities will I re^
' member no more. Here are two covenants, a new covenant,
' and the covenant he made with their fathers. Some may think it « was the covenant of works at the promulgation of the moral law ; ' but mark well that expression of Jeremiah, and you shall see it
< was the covenant of grace. " For, saith he, not according to the
< covenant I made with their fathers, although I was an husband « unto them." How can God be considered as a husband to a people
Vol. II. Serm. 2. pag. 237, 248, 250.
524 -VINDICIARUM VIXDEX.
' under the covenant of works which was broken hy wan in iniio-
* cencijs and so become disannulled, or impossible, by the breach of
* it ? The covenant of works run thus : Cursed is every one that ' continueth not in all things that are wntten in the book of the
* law ; and in the day thou sinnest thou shalt die the death. Man ' had sinned before God took him by the hand, to lead him out of
* the land of Egypt, and sin had separated man from God: How ' then can God be called an husband in the covenant of works? The
* covenant, therefore, was not a covenant of works, but such a cove- *■ nant as the Lord became an husband in, and that must be a cove-
* nant of graced ^^c.
How the doctor makes good his two distinct covenants of grace, I see not, nor expect ever to see proved, and is not my present con- cernment to enquire ; but once it is evident, by what he hath here said, that the ceremonial law. whereof circumcision is a branch, can be no other than the covenant of grace. And nothing is more comi^on among our divines, than to prove not only the Sinai law, but God's covenant with Abraham, Gen. xvii. to be the covenant of grace, by this medium. That God having e?ite?'ed into a covenant of grace with Abraham before, would never bring him under a co- venant of works cifterwards, which must nulVfy and void the for- mer. And, besides, such a covenant of works as you make this was never heard of in the world, wherein God promises to be a God to Abraham and his seed in their generations, upon the rigo- rous and impossible terms of Adam's covenant.
By this time I presume you must feel the force of those argu- ments produced against your vain and groundless notions ; and how little you are able to deliver your tliesis from them, but the more you struggle, the more still you are entangled. Go which
way you will, your absurdities follow you as your shadow, hosret
lateri lethalis arundo. Leaving, therefore, all your absurdities upon you till God shall give you more illumination and ingenuity to discern and acknovrledge them, I shall pass on to the examination of your third position, which led you into these gross mistakes ; and if God shall convince you of your error in this point, I hope it may prove a means of recovering you out of the rest ; which, in love to your soul, I heartily desire.
3. Your third position is. That God's covenant with Abraham, Gen. xvii. can be no other than the covenant of works, because cir- cumcision was the condition of it : For (say you) the new covenant is altogether absolute and tmconditional.
Of the Conditionality of the New Covenant
iThis question. Whether the covenant of grace be conditional
VIXDICIARUM VIXDEX. 5^S
or absolute, was moved (as a learned man observes) in the former age, by occasion of the controversy about justification, betwixt the Protestants and Papists. Among the Protestants some denied, and others affirmed the conditionality of the gospel-covenant : Those that denied it did so for fear of mingling law and gospel, Christ's tighteousness and man's, as the Papists had wickedly done before. Those that affirmed it did so out of fear also ; lest the necesssity of faith and holiness, being relaxed, Libertinism should be that way introduced. But if the question were duly stated, and the sense of its terms agreed upon, the gospel-covenant may be affirmed to be conditional, to secure the people of God from Libertinism, without the least diminution of the righteousness of Christ, or clouding the free grace of God.
I did, in my first answer to your call, endeavour to prevent the needless trouble you have here given yourself by a succinct state of the question; telling you the controversy betwixt us, is not, (1.) Whether the gospel-covenant requires no duties at all of them that are under it ? Nor, (2.) Whether it requires any such condi- tions as were in Adam's covenant, namely, perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience, under the penalty of the curse, and admitting no place of repentance ? Nor, (3.) Whether any condition re- quired by it on our part have any thing in its own nature merito- rious of the benefits promised ? Nor, (4.) Whether we be able in our own strength, and by the power of our free will, witliout the prev^iting, as well as the assisting grace of God, to perform any such work or duty as we call a condition ? These things I told you were to be excluded out of this controversy. But the only question betwixt us is. Whether in the new covenant^ some act of ours, (though it have no merit in it, nor can be done in our own single strength) be not required to be performed by us antecedently to a blessing or privilege consequent by virtue of a promise ? and whether such an act or duty, being of a suspending nature to the blessing pro- mised^it have not the true and proper nature of a gospel-condition?
In your reply, (contrary to all rule and reason) you include, and chiefly argue against the very particulars by me there excluded ; and scarcely, if at all, touch the true question as it was stated, and by you ought accordingly to have been considered. I might there- fore justly think myself discharged from any further concernment with you about it ; for if you will include what I plainly exclude, you argue not against mine, but another man's position, which I am not concerned to defend. You here dispute against meritorious conditions, which I explode and abhor as much as yourself You say, p. 34. of your reply, that a condition plainly implies something of merit, hy way of condignity or congruity ; which is false, and
626 VIXDICIARUM V INDEX.
turns the question from me to Papists. And were it not more for the clearing up of so great a point for the instruction and satisfac- tion of others, than any hope you give me of convincing you, I should not have touched this question again, unless I had found your rephes more distinct and pertinent. But finding the point in controversy of great weight, I will once more tell you,
1. What the word [coiidition'j signifies.
2. In what sense it is by us used in this controversy.