(1.) During life, they must hang mid-way between justification and condemnation; justified they could not be, for justification is the soul's passing from death to life, 1 John iii. 14. John v. 24. This they i:ould not possibly do, for the ministration of death and condemnation hindered. He that is under condemnation by the law, cannot, during thai state, pass into life. And yet to be under con- demnation is as impossible on the other side; for he that is justified, cannot at the same time be under condemnation, Rom. viii. 2. John v. S4. What remains then, but that during life they must stick mid-way betwixt both, neither justified nor condemned; and yet both so and so. Justification is our life, and condemnation our death, in law : Betwixt these two, which are privately opposed, there can be no meditim of participation, and yet such a medium you here fancy*
(2.) And then after death they must necessarily hang betwixt hea- ven and hell ; to heaven none can go that are under the very rigour and tyranny of the law, a pure covenant of works^SiS you say they were.
To hell they could not go, being under the pure covenant of grace : What remains then, but some third state must be assigned them ? and so at last w^e have found the limhm: patiirim, and your position leads us right to purgatory : a conclusion which, I believe, you yourself abhor as much as I.
(^dly.) This hypothesis pinches you with another dilemma, viz. Either there was pardon or repentance in Moses' covenant, and the Sinai dispensation of the laic, or there was none ; if you say none, you directly contradict Lev. xxvi. 40, 46. if there were, then it can- not be Adam's covenant of works.
You answer, p. 179. ' That God promiseth pardon for the breach of Moses' covenant, and of Adam's covenant too, but neither Adam's covenant, nor the Jewish legal covenant, promised any pardon upon repentance, but rather threatens and inflicts the contrary.'
Reply. Either this is a direct answer to my argument, to prove the law at Sinai cannot be a pure Adam's covenant, because it had a pro- mise of pardon annexed to it. Lev. xxvi. 40. but Adam's covenant had none. If your answer be direct, then it is a plain contradiction in say- ing it had* and it had not a promise of pardon belonging to it. Or else it is a mere evasion, and an eluding of the argument ; and your only meaning is, that the relief I speak of is not to be found in any promise belonging to the Sinai dispensation, but in some other gospel covenant or promise. But, sir, this will not serve your turn ; you see I cite the verv promise of grace made to the Israehtes on mount Sinai by the hand of Moses, wherein God promiseth upon their humiliation to remember his covenant for their good. Now, sir, you had as good have stood to your first answer, which is less contradictory, as to this which is no less so ; as will evidently appear, by a nearer and more particular view of the place, and gathering up your own concessions
A REPLY TO Mil. GARY S SOLEMN CALL, "33
4^1)out it. That this text, Lev. xxvi. 40. hath tlie nature of a gracious promise in it, no man will deny, except he that will deny that God's remembering of his covenant^ for the relief of poor broken-hearted sinners, is no gospel promise pertaining to the covenant of grace : That it was made to the penitent Israelites upon mount Sinai, and tliere delivered them by the hand of Moses for their relief, is as visible and plain as the words and syllables of the 4Gth verse are to him that reads them. Let the promise then be considered both ways, (L) In your sense, as ii plain direction to tlic covenant of grace made •With Abraham for their relief; for you say it was, p. 1 SO. or let it be considered absolutely, as that which contained relief in itself for the penitent Israelites that should live towards the end of the v/orld, after they should be gathered from all their dispersions and capti- vities, as you there speak, and more fully explicate in your accom- modation of a parallel promise, p. Ill, IIS, 113. First, Ictus view it in your sense, as a relative j)romise to the covenant of grace made with Abraham, Gen. xii. to which, say you, it plainly directs them ; and then this legal dispensation can never be the same with Adam's covenant, for to that covenant no such promise was ever annexed, which should guide and plainly direct them to Christ and pardon, as that star which appeared to the wise men directed their way to Christ. If there be any such relative promise belonging to Adanf s covenant in paradise, as this which I plainly shew you was made on mount Sinai, be pleased to produce it, and you end the controversy ; but if you cannot, (as you know you cannot) then never say the legal dispensation at Sinai, and the covenant of works with Adam in paradise, are the very same covenant. Secondly, Let us consider this promise absolutely in itself, aud then I demand, was there mercy, relief and pardon contained in it for any penitent sin- ner present or to come? Yes, say you, it extends relief to penitents, after God shall gather them from all their captivities at the end of the world ; very good. Then it is a very vigorous promise of grace, which not only reaches 430 years backward, as far as the first pro- mise to Abraham, but also extends its reliefs and comforts many thousand years forwards, even to the purest times of the gospel, just before Christ's coming to judgment: And can such a promise as this be denied to be in itself a gospel-promise ? Sure it can neither be denied to be such, nor yet to be made upon mount Sinai by the hand of Moses. This dilemma is as pinching as the former.
Perhaps you will say. This promise did not belong to the moral lazv given at Sinai, but to the ceremonial laic : If so, then I shoidd reasonably conclude, that you take the ceremonial law (of which you seem to make this a branch, p. 181.) to be a covenant of grace, see- ing one of its branches bears such a gracious promise upon it. No, that must not be so neither; for say you, p. 151. the ceremonial covenant is of the same nature with the covenant of zoorhs, or law- written in tables of stone : Whillier then shall we send x\\u promise.^
334- A REPLY TO MK. CAKY's SOLEMN CALL.
To the covenant of grace we must not send it, unless only as an inde^: or finger to point to it, because it was made upon mount Sinai, and delivered to Israel by the hand of Moses : To the gospel-cove- nant we must not therefore annex it; and to the legal dispensation at Sinai you are as loth to annex it, because it contains so much re- lief and grace in it for poor penitents ; and that will prove, that neither the moral nor ceremoniul laio (place it in which you please) can be a pure covenant of works as Adam's was.