Aphorisms of Justification, Answer
THE ANSWER.
TO the first Objection about the death threatened in the first Covenant, I answer: 1. I told you I was not peremptory in my opinion, but inclined to it, for want of a better. 2. I told you, that the Objections seem more strong which are against all the rest, and therefore I was constrained to make choice of this, to avoid greater absurdities, then that which you object. For, 1. If you say that Adam should have gone quick to Hell, you contradict many Scriptures, which make our temporall death to be the wages of sin. 2. If you say that He should have dyed, and rose again to torment: 1. What Scripture saith so? 2. When should He have risen? 3. You contradict many Scriptures, which make Christ the Mediator, the only procurer of the Resurrection. 3. If you say He should have lived in perpetuall misery on earth, then you dash on the same Rock with the first opinion. 4. If you say, He should have dyed only a temporall death, and his soul be annihilated, then 1. you make Christ to have redeemed us only from the grave, and not from hell, contrary to 1 Thes. 1. 10. Who hath delivered us from the wrath to come. 2. You make not hell, but only temporall death, to be due too, or deserved by the sins of believers, seeing the Gospell only (according to this opinion) should threaten eternall death, and not the Law; but the Gospell threateneth it to none but unbelievers. You might easily have spared me this labour, and gathered all this Answer from the place in the book where I handled it; but because other Readers may need as many words as you, I grudg not my pains.
TO your second Objection about Christs active and passive Righteousness; You should have overthrown my grounds, and not only urge my going against the stream of Divines: As I take it for no honour to be the first inventing a new opinion in Religion, so neither to be the last in embracing the truth: I never thought that my faith must follow the major vote; I value Divines also by weight, and not by number; perhaps I may think that one Pareus, Piscator, Scultetus, Alstedius, Capellus, Gataker, or Bradshaw, is of more authority then many Writers and Readers: View their Writings, and answer their Arguments, and then judg.
TO your third, about the violation of the Covenant, I shall willingly clear my meaning to you as well as I can, though I thought what is said had cleared it. The 34 Aphorism (which is it you object against) doth thus far explain it, 1. That I speak of Gods Covenant of Grace only, or his new Law, containing the terms on which men live or dye. 2. That by Violation I mean the breaking or non-performance of its conditions, or such a violation as bringeth the offendor under the threatning of it, and so maketh the penalty of that Covenant breaking due to him. 3. I there tell you, that the new Covenant may be neglected long, and sinned against objectively, and Christs Commands may be broken, when yet the Covenant is not so violated. The Tenor of the Covenant me-think should put you quite out of doubt of all this, which is He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned. The unbelief and rebellion against Christ, which the godly were guilty of before believing, is a neglect or refusall of the Covenant; and I acknowledg that all that while they were in a damnable state, that is, in a state wherein they should have been damned, if they had so dyed; for then their unbelief had been finall.
But your doubt may be, whether they did not deserve damnation while they were in their unbelief for resisting Grace?
I answer you as before: 1. I look upon no punishment as deserved, in sensu forensi, in the sense of the Law, but what is threatened by that Law: Now you may easily resolve the Question your self, Whether the new Covenant do threaten damnation to that their unbelief? If they believe not at all before death, it pronounceth them condemned, otherwise not. 2. Yet might they in this following sense be said to deserve the great condemnation before they obeyed the Gospell, viz. as their unbelief is that sin for which the Gospell condemneth men, wanting nothing but the circumstance of finality or continuance to have made them the proper subjects of the curse; and it was no thanks to them that it proved not finall; for God did make them no promise of one hour of time and patience, and therefore it was meerly his mercy in not cutting them off, which made their unbelief not to be finall and damning: Many a man that lived not half so long in rebellion, did yet prove a finall condemned rebell; so that they did deserve, that God in the time of their infidelity should have cut off their lives, and so have let their infidelity be their destruction. But supposing that God would not so cut them off, and so their unbelief should not be finall, (which is the case,) and so they are condemned or threatened by none but the first Law or Covenant which Christ did satisfie: But as for the second Law or Covenant it condemneth them not, so that Christ need not bear the condemnation of that Covenant for them; for He doth not fetch any man from under the condemning sentence of it, but only in rich mercy to his chosen: He doth prevent their running into that condemnation, partly by bearing with them in patience, and continuing their lives, (for into the hands of the purchaser are they wholly committed,) and partly by prevailing with them to come in to him by the efficacy of his Word and Spirit; so that considering them as unbelievers who were to be converted, and so they were neither the proper subjects of the Promise of the new Covenant, nor of the threatening and condemnation of it: Promise they had none, but conditionall, such as they had not received, and so were never the better for; and so they were without the covenant, and without hope, and without God, and strangers to all the priviledges of the Saints: But yet not those to whom the Law or Covenant saith, You shall surely dye, except they had been such as should never have believed: And for that wrath (Eph. 2. 3.) which they were children of by nature, it must needs be only the wrath or curse of the first violated Covenant, and not the wrath or curse of the second; for no man is by nature a child of that.
But I perceive you think it a strange saying, That a man by the greatest, grossest actuall sin may not be said to violate this Covenant, so as to incur its curse, but only for finall unbelief: Do not the godly sometimes break Covenant with Christ?
Answ. I have two things to say to the helping of your right understanding in this, viz. a two-fold distinction to minde you of, which you seem to forget. 1. Either the gross sins, which you speak of, are such as may stand with sincerity of heart, or such as cannot: If they be sins of really godly men, then certainly they violate not the Covenant, so as to make them the subjects of its curse: For the Covenant saith not, He that sinneth shall be damned; nor he that committeth this, or that great sin, shall be damned: But, he that beleeveth not shall be damned.
Object. But is not this Antinomianism, which you so detest? Is it not said, that no whoremonger, or unclean person, or covetous person, &c. shall enter into the Kingdom of Christ, or of God? Rev. 21. 8. & 22. 15. and Eph. 5. 5. that for these things sake cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience?
Answ. I pray you remember that I have already proved, that Faith is the consenting to Christs Dominion and Government over us; or the accepting of him for our Lord, that we may obey him, as well as for our Saviour, that we may have affiance in him: And consequently Unbelief (in this large sence in which the Gospell useth it in opposition to that faith which is the condition of the Covenant) containeth in it all Rebellion against Christs Government: I could prove this to you out of many plain Scriptures, but the plainness of it may spare me that labour: Even in the Text objected, the word translated [Children of disobedience] doth signifie both Vnbelief and Disobedience; or obstinate, unperswadeable men, that will not be perswaded to beleeve and obey: 2 Thess. 1. 8. Christ shall come in flaming fire to render vengeance to them that obey not his Gospell: Certainly those are unbeleevers. Or if you will have it plainly in Christs own words, what is the damning sin opposed to Faith, see it in Luk. 19. 27. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither, & slay them before me. It is not then for every act of those fore-mentioned sins that the everlasting wrath of God doth come upon men; for then what should become of David, Noah, Lot, Mary Magdalen, and all of us? But it is for such sins as do prove and proceed from a considerate willfull refusall of Christs Government, or an unwillingness that he should reign over us: and that not every degree of unwillingness, but a prevailing degree, from whence a man may be said to be one that would not have Christ reign, &c. Because this is real unbelief it self, as opposite to that Faith which is the condition of Life, which is the receiving of Christ for Lord as well as Saviour.
Yet it is true, that temporall judgements may befall us for particular sins; as also, that each particular sin doth deserve the eternall wrath which the first Covenant doth denounce; but not (in a Law-sence) that which is denounced in the second Covenant. Every great fault which a subject committeth against his Prince, is not capitall, or high Treason. Every fault or disobedient act of a Wife against her Husband doth not break the Marriage Covenant, nor loose the bond: but only the sin of Adultery (which is the taking of another to the marriage bed, or the choosing of another husband (and actuall forsaking the Husband, or renouncing him.
And you need not to fear lest this doctrine be guilty of Antinomianism: For their Error (which many of their adversaries also are guilty of) lieth here; That not understanding, that receiving Christ as Lord is an essentiall act of justifying Faith, nor that the refusall of his Government is an essentiall part of damning unbelief, they do thereupon acknowledge no condition of Life, but bare Belief in the narrowest sence; that is, either Belief of Pardon, and Justification, and Reconciliation, or Affiance in Christ for it: so also they acknowledge no proper damning sin, but unbelief in that strict sence as is opposite to this faith; that is the not beleeving in Christ as a Saviour.
And upon the common grounds who can choose but say as they, that neither drunkennesse, nor murther, nor any sin, but that unbelief doth damn men, except he will say that every sin doth; and so set up the Covenant of Works, and deny his very Christianity, by making Christ to dye in vain: so great are the inconveniences that follow the ignorance of this one point, That justifying faith is the accepting of Christ for Lord and Saviour; and that sincere obedience to him that bought us, is part of the Condition of the new Covenant.
I have been sorry to hear some able Divines, in their confessions of sin, acknowledging their frequent violation of this Covenant; yea, that in every sinfull thought, word or deed they break the Covenant which they made in Baptism. Did ever any sober man make such a Covenant with Christ, as to promise him never to sin against him? Or doth Christ call us to such a Covenant? Doth his Law threaten, or did we in our Covenant consent, that we should be condemned if ever we committed a gross sin? I conclude therefore, that those sins which do consist with true faith, can be no breaches of the Covenant of Grace; For else (Faith being the condition) we should both keep it, and break it, at the same time.
2. But all the doubt is about the sins which are inconsistent with Faith. Those are either, 1. Disobedience to the Law of Works; (but that cannot violate the Covenant of Grace as such.) 2. Or else Refusall of Christ by Rebellion and Unbelief privative,) for of negative unbelief I will not speak:) And that Refusall is either, 1. Temporary, (of that I have spoken already:) Or, 2. Finall (and that I acknowledg is the violation of the Covenant.)
Perhaps you will object, That the sin against the Holy Ghost also is a damning sin, and so a breach of the Covenant. To which I answer, Finall Unbelief is the Genus, and hath under it these three sorts. 1. Ordinary finall Unbelief, viz. against Ordinary means. 2. The sin against the Holy Ghost. 3. Totall Apostacy: All these are unpardonable sins.
I have in another Treatise adventured to tell you my judgment concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost viz. That it is when a man will not beleeve in Christ notwithstanding all the testimoniall miracles of the Holy Ghost, which he is convinced de facto were wrought, but yet denyeth the validity of their Testimony. This is the unpardonable unbelief, because uncureable: for it is the last or greatest Testimony which Christ will afford to convince the unbeleeving world; and therefore he that deliberately refuseth this and will not be convinced by it, is left by God as a hopeless wretch. So that the sin against the Holy Ghost is but a sort of finall unbelief. Lay by your prejudice against the singularity of this interpretation, and exactly consider what the occasion of Christs mentioning this sin was, and what was the sin which those Pharisees did commit, and then judge.
Lastly, For the sin of total Apostacy, I confess it is the most proper violation of the Covenant, not only as it is a Law and Covenant offered, but also as it is a Covenant entred and accepted. But it is unbelief which Apostates do fall to; for it is only an explicite or implicite renouncing of Christ either as Lord or Saviour, or both, which is the unpardonable sin of Apostacy, which is called falling away (that is, from Christ and the Covenant,) and crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting him to open shame, Heb. 6. 6. And which is called Heb. 10. 26, 29. sinning wilfully, that is, considerate, resolved rejecting Christ, or refusing his Government,) and so called, treading under foot the Son of God, and counting the blood of the Covenant, vvherevvith they vvere sanctified, an unholy thing, and doing despight to the Spirit of Grace. As the nature of this Apostacy lyeth in returning to infidelity, so being Totall it is alwayes also Finall; God having in his just Judgement resolved to withold from all such the grace that should recover them; and so this is a sort of finall unbelief.
A second distinction, which I must here mind you of, is, betwixt 1. the main Covenant of Grace: and 2. Particular, subordinate, inferiour Covenants, which may be made between God and a believer. The former is not violated, but as I have shewed before: The latter is ordinarily broken by us. If any man make a vow like Saul's or Ieptha's, he may break it possibly, and not be damned, but recover by repentance. If in your sickness, or other affliction, or at Sacrament, or on dayes of Humiliation, or Thanksgiving, you should Covenant with God to forsake such a sin, or to perform such a duty, to mend your lives, to be more holy and heavenly, &c. this Covenant you may perhaps break, and yet recover. And of such Covenants it is that I mean, when in confession I do bewail my Covenant-breaking with Christ, and not of the main Covenant of Grace; for then I should confess my self a totall irrecoverable Apostate. The Covenant which ought to be made with Christ in Baptism, and which Baptism is the professing sign and seal of, is the main Covenant of Grace; Therefore is there no use for re-baptizing, because such Apostacy is an unrecoverable sin.
So you see what Covenant it is that the godly break, and what breach it is that they use to confess.