To conclude: These premises (as before I noted) can never be true, from whence such, and so many gross and notorious absurdities are regularly and unavoidably deducible. For ex veris nil nisi verum, from true premises nothing but truth can regularly follow.
Had 3^ou minded those things which I seasonably sent you, you had avoided all those bogs into which you are now sunk, and been able fairly to reconcile all those seeming contradictions in Paufs epistles^ with respect to the law at Sinai: But, however, by what hath been said, your first position, That the Sinai covenant is the same covenant of' icorks li'ith Adam's in paradise, vanishes before the evidence of scripture, truth, and sound reason.
But yet, though v.hat I have said destroys your false position, I am not wilhng to leave you, or the reader ignorant, wherein the truth lies in this controverted point betwixt us ; and that will appear, by a due consideration of the follov/ing particulars.
(1.) It is plain and uncontroverted, that Adam's covenant in para- dise, contained in a perfect law and rule of natural righteousness, founded both in God's nature and in man's ; which, in its perfect state of innocency, was every way enabled perfectly to comply there- with : For the scripture tells us, Eccl. vii. 29. That God made man upright ; and his punctual complying therewith, was the righteous- ness by which he stood.
(2.) This covenant oficorlis being once broken, can never more be available to the justification and salvation of any fallen man. There was not now a law found that could give righteousness : The broken covenant qf works lost immediately ail the blessings and privileges which before it contained, and retained only the curse and pun ish ment ; in token whereof, cheruhims, with flaming swords, turning every way, were set to keep the way of the tree of life. Gen. iii. 24*.
(3.) Soon after the violation of the covenant ofzco?'ks, God was gra- ciously pleased to publish for therehef of mankind, now miserable and hopeless, the second covenant, which we caWthe covenant of grace. Gen. iii. 15. which is the first opening of the grace of God in Christ to fallen man. And though this first promise of Christ was but short and obscure, vet it was in every age to be opened clearer and clearer, until the promised seed should come. After the first opening of this new covenant, in the first promise of Christ, the first covenant is shut up forever, as a covenant of life and salvation; and all the world are shut up to the only way of salvation by Christ, Gal. iii. 23. It being con*
A REPLY TO MR. CARy's SOLEMN GALL. 339
trary to the will of God, that two ways of salvation should stand open to man at once, and they so opposite one to another, as the w-ay of works, and the way of faith are, Acts iv. 12. John xiv. 6. Gal. ii. 21.
(4.) It is evident, however, that after the first opening of the pro- mise of Christ, Gen. iii. 15. God foreseeing the pride of fallen man, who naturally inclines to a righteousness of his own in the way of do- ing, was pleased to revive the law of nature, as to its matter, in the Si-i nai dispensation; which was 430 years after the first promise had been renewed, and further opened unto Abmham, of whose seed Christ should come : And this he did, not in opposition to the promise, but in subserviency thereto. Gal. iii. 21. And though the matter and substance of the law of nature be found in the Sinai covenant, strictly taken for the ten commandments; yet the ends and intentions of God in that terrible Sinai disj^ensation were twofold; (1.) To convince fallen man of the s'mfulneas and impotency of his nature, and the im- possibility of obtaining righteousness by the law, and so by a blessed necessity, to shut him up to Christ, his only remedy. And, (2.) To be a standing rule of duty, both towards God and man, to the end of the world. But if we take the Sinai covenant more largely, as inclusive of the cc7'emonial with the moral law (as it is often taken, and is so by you, in the New Testament ;) then it did not only serve for a conviction of impotency, and a rule of duty ; but exhibited and taught much of Christ, and the mysteries of the new covenant in those its ceremonies, wherein he was prefigured to them.
(5.) Whence it evidently appears, that the Sinai covenant was nei- ther repugnant to the nexo covenant in its scope and aim ; " The law- is not against the promise,"" Gal. iii. 21. nor yet set up as co-ordi- nate with it, with a design to open two different ways of salvation to fallen man; but was added to the promise in respect of its evangelical purposes and designs; On which account it is called by some a covenant of faith, or grace, in respect of its subserviency unto Christ, who is the end of the law for righteousness, Rom. x. 4, and by others a subservient covenant, according to Gal. iii. 23, 24. And accordingly we find both tables of the law put into the ark, Heb. ix. 4. which shews their consistency and subordination with, and to the method of salvation by Christ in the new-covenant.
(6.) This design and intention of God was fatally mistaken by the Jews, ever since God promulgated that law at Sinai, and was by them notoriously perverted to a quite contrary end to that which God pro- mulged it for, even to give righteousness and life, in the way of per- sonal and perfect obedience ; Rom. x. 3. " For they being ignorant " of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.'' Hence Christ came to be slighted by them, and his righ- teousness rejected; For they rested in the law, Eoin.. ii. 17. were married to the law, as an husband, Rom. vii. 2, 3. and so might have no conjugal coajmuniou with Christ. However, Moses, Abra-
340 A REPLY TO MR. CARTAS SOLEMN CALL.
elect, discerned Christ as the end of the law for righteousness, and were led to him thereby.
(7) This fatal mistake of tlie use and intent of the law, is the ground of those seeming contradictions, in Paul's epistles. Sometimes he magnifies the law, when he speaks of it according to God's end and purpose in its promulgation, Rom. vii. 12, 14, 16. But as it was fatally mistaken by the Jews, and set in opposition to Christ ; so he thunders against it, calls it a ministration of death and cmidemnor- i'lon : and all its appendant ceremonies weal: and beggarly elements. And by this distinction, whatsoever seems repugnant in PauPs epis- tles, may be sweetly reconciled ; and it is a distinction of his own making, 1 Tim. i. 8. " We know that the law is good if we use it lawfully."" There is a good and an evil use of the law. Had you attended to these things, you had not so confidently and inconsider- ately pronounced it a pure covenant of works.
Secondly, You affirm with like confidence. That the covenant of circumcision is also the same ; viz. the covenant qfworlis made with Adam in paradise.