Discourse of Mental Errors, Appendix 1 · Part · Section 4
Argument IV.
That which in its direct and primary end teacheth Man the corruption of his Nature by sin, and the mortification of sin by the Spirit of Christ, cannot be a condition of the Covenant of Works.
But so did Circumcision in the very direct and primary end of it. Therefore, &c.
Your Reply to this is, That when I have substantially proved that the Sinai Covenant, as it contained the Passeover, Sacrifices, Types and Appendages, under which were vailed many spiritual Mysteries relating to Christ, and mortification of sin by his Grace and Spirit, to be no Covenant of Works, but a Gospel-covenant; you will then grant with me, that the present Argument is convincing; p. 96, 97. of your Reply.
Sir,Reply. I take you for an honest man: and every honest man will be as good as his word. Either I have fully proved against you, that the Sinai Law (taken in that latitude you here express it) is not an Adam's Covenant of Works, or I have not. If I have not, doubtless you have reserved your more pertinent and strong Replies in your own breast, and trust not to those weak and silly ones which you see here baffled, and have only served to involve you in greater Absurdities than before. But if you have brought forth all your strength (as in such a desperate strait no man can imagine but you would) then I have fully proved the point against you. And if I have, I expect you to be ingenuous and candid in making good your word, That you will then grant with me, that this Argument is convincing to the end for which it was designed. And so I hope we have fully issued the Controversy between us, relating to God's Covenant with Abraham. You have indeed four Arguments, p. 59, 60, 61, 62. of your Reply, to prove Abraham's Covenant a Covenant of Works of the same nature with Adam's Covenant.
(1.) Because as life was implicitly promised to Adam upon his obedience, and death explicitly threatned in case of his disobedience, which made that properly a Covenant of Works; so it was in the Covenant of Circumcision, Gen. 17. 7, 8. compared with vers. 10, 14.
This Argument or Reason can never conclude:Reply. 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 threatned to Adam. Circumcision (as I told you before) was appointed to be the discriminating Sign betwixt Abraham's Seed, and the Heathen World: and the wilful neglect thereof is here threatned with cutting off by Civil or Ecclesiastical Excommunication from the Commonwealth, and Church of Israel, as Luther, Calvin, Paraeus, Musculus, &c. expounds; not by death of Body and Soul, as was threatned to Adam, without place for repentance, 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. 4. 9, 10.
This is weak reasoning.Reply. 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 Believers before they partake of it. Beside, you cannot deny but it sealed the Righteousness of …aith to Abraham: and I desired you before, to prove that a Seal of the Covenant of Works i… capable of being applied to such an use and service, which you have not done, nor ever will be able to do; but politickly slided by it.
(3.) You say it cannot be a Covenant of Grace, because it is contra-distinguished to the Righteousness of Faith, Rom. 4. 13.
The Law in that place is put strictly for the pure Law of Nature,Reply. and Metaleptically signifies the Works of the Law, which is 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 of God made with Abraham, and his Seed, Gen. 17. cannot be a gracious, but a legal Covenant? This Promise mentioned Rom. 4. 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 alledged to prove God's Covenant with Abraham, Gen. 17. to be a Covenant of Works, I am utterly to seek. If it be only because Circumcision was added to it, that's 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's represented to us in Scripture as a Bondage-covenant, Acts 15. 10, &c. Gal. 5. 1.
'Tis time,Reply. I see, to make an end. Your discourse runs 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 were under it, and to say it was an Adam's Covenant? Are these two parallel distinctions in your Logick? 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, vers. 11. 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 under this yoke, were saved by Faith in the way of Freegrace, 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 15. 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 confidence and obstinancy remain. It were easy for me to fill more Paper than I have written on this Subject, with Names of principal note in the Church 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 comprehends the Ceremonial Rites and Ordinances whereunto Circumcision pertains, is, and can be no other than the Covenant of Grace, though more obscurely administred. But because Latin Authors are of little use to you, and among English ones, the Judgment of Dr.Vol. 2. Serm. 2. pag. 247, 248, 250. Crisp, I suppose, will be instar omnium with you: I will recite it faithfully out of his Sermon upon the two Covenants, where he makes the Old and New Covenants 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 imployment of the Priests of the old Law, was altogether about remission of Sins, and the exhibiting and holding forth of Christ in their fashion unto the People. In the 15th of Numbers, vers. 28. (I will give you but one Instance) there you shall plainly see, That the administration of that Priestly Office had remission 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 ignorantly, and it shall be forgiven him: See, the main end is administring 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 9th Chapter of this Epistle. And the truth is, the usual general Gospel that all the Iews had, was in their Sacrifices and Priestly Observations.—
So that it's plain, the administration of their Covenant was an administration of Grace, and absolutely distinct from the administration 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. 8. 8. where the Apostle distinguishes of a better and a 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 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 Ieremiah adds it, for the Apostle takes all this out of Ier. 31. 31.) although I was an Husband to them; and in the close of all, Your Sins and Iniquities will I remember 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 Ieremiah, 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 Husband to a People under the Covenant of Works, which was broken by man in innocency, and so became disannulled or impossible by the breach of it? The Covenant of Works runs thus: Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written 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 Covenant as the Lord became an Husband in, and that must be a Covenant of Grace, &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 concernment 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 common among our Divines, than to prove not only the Sinai Law, but God's Covenant with Abraham, Gen. 17. to be the Covenant of Grace by this Medium, That God having entred into a Covenant of Grace with Abraham before, would never bring him under a Covenant of Works afterwards, which must nullify and void the former. And beside, 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 rigorous and impossible Terms of Adam's Covenant.
By this time, I presume, you must feel the force of those Arguments produced against your vain and groundless notion; and how little you are able to do to deliver your Thesis from them, but the more you struggle, the more still you are intangled. Go which way you will, your Absurdities follow you as your Shadow. —haeret lateri lethalis arundo. Leaving therefore all your Absurdities upon you, till God shall give you more illumination and ingenuity to discern and acknowledge them; I shall pass on to the examination of your third Position, which led you into these other 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.
III. Your third Position is, That God's Covenant with Abraham, Gen. 17. can be no other than the Covenant of Works, because Circumcision was the Condition of it: For (say you) the new Covenant is altogether absolute, and unconditional.