The Doctrine of the Sabbath, Thesis 110 – Thesis 113
Thesis 110.
The Gospell under which Beleevers now are, requires no doing (say some) for doing is proper to the Law; the Law promiseth life, and requires conditions: but the Gospell (say they) promiseth to work the condition, but requires none, and therefore a beleever is now wholly free from all Law: but the Gospell and Law are taken two waies. 1. Largely, the Law for the whole doctrine contained in the Old Testament, and the Gospell for the whole doctrine of Christ and the Apostles in the New Testament. 2. Strictly,Chamie… d… oper. Necess. cap. 3. the Law pro lege operum (as Chamier distinguisheth) and the Gospell pro lege fidei, i. for the Law of faith: the Law of works strictly taken is that Law which reveals the favour of God and eternall life upon condition of doing or of perfect obedience: the Law of faith strictly taken is that doctrine which reveals remission of sins, reconciliation with God by Christs righteousnesse onelyonly apprehended by faith: now the Gospell in this latter sence excludes all works, and requires no doing in point of justification and remission of sins before God, but only beleeving: but take the Gospel largely for the whole doctrine of Gods love and free grace, and so the Gospel requires doing; for as 'tis an act o… Gods free grace to justifie a man without calling for any works thereunto; so 'tis an act of the same free grace, to require works of a person justified, and that such poor sinners should stand before the Son of God on his throne, to minister unto him, and serve him in righteousnesse and holinesse all the daies of our lives, Tit. 2.14. and for any to think that the Gospell requires no conditions, is a sudden dream against hundreds of Scriptures, which contain conditionall yet evangelicall promises, and against the judgement of the most judicious of our Divines, who in dispute against Popish writers cannot but acknowledge them, only thus, viz. conditions and promises annexed to obedience are one thing (saith learned Perable) and conditions annexed to perfect obedience are another: the first are in the Gospel, the other not: works are necessary to salvation (saith Chamier) necessitate praesentiae not efficientiae; and hence he makes two sorts of conditions, some antecedentes which work or merit salvation, and these are abandoned in the Gospel, other… (he saith) are consequentes which follow the state of a man justified, and these are required of one already justified in the Gospell: there are indeed no conditions required of us in the Gospel, but those onelyonly which the Lord himselfe shall or hath wrought in us, and which by requiring of us he doth worke will it therefore follow that no condition is required, in us: but because every condition is promised? no verily, for requiring the condition is the meanes to worke it (as might be plentifully demonstrated) and meanes and end should not be separated. Faith it selfe is no antecedent condition to our justification or salvation, take antecedent in the usuall sence of some Divines for affecting or meriting condition, which Iunius cals essentialis conditio: but take antecedent for a means or instrument of justification, and receiving Christs righteousnesse, in this sence it is the only antecedent condition which the Gospel requires therein, because it do…h only antecedere or go before our justification (at least in order of nature) not to merit it but to receive it, not to make it but to make it our own, not as the matter of our righ…eousness or any part of it, but as the only means of apprehending Christs righteousnesse, which is the only cause why God the Father justifieth, and therefore as Christs righteousnesse must go before, as the matter and moving cause of our justification, or that for which we are justified; so faith must go before this righteousnesse as an instrument or applying cause of it, by which we are justified, that is, by meanes of which we apply that righteousnesse which makes us just. 'Tis true God justifies the ungodly, but how? not immediately without faith, but mediately by faith, as is most evident from that abused text, Rom. 4.5. When works and faith are opposed by the Apostle in point of justification, affirming that we are justified by faith not by works, he doth hereby plainly affirm and give that to faith which he denies to works; look therefore as he denies works to be antecedent conditions of our justification, he affirms the contrary of faith, which goes before our justification, as hath been explained: and therefore as doe and live hath been accounted good Law, or the Covenant of works, so beleeve and live hath been in former times accounted good Gospel, or the Covenant of grace, untill now of late this wilde age hath found out new Gospels that Paul and the Apostles did never dream of.
Thesis 111.
A servant and a son may be set to do the same work, and have the same rule given them to act by; but the motives to this their work, and the stripes and punishments for neglect of their work, may be various and divers; a son may be bound to it, because he is a son and beloved; a servant may be bound to do the same work, because he is hired and shall have wages▪ if the son neglect his work, his punishment is only the chastisement of a father for his good; if a servant be faulty, he is turned quite out of doors: So although Beleevers in Christ, and those that are out of Christ hauehave divers and various motives to the obedience of the law of God, yet these do not vary the rule; the law of God is the rule to them both, although they that be out of Christ have nothing but fear and hope of wages to urge them, and those that are in Christ should have nothing but the love of a Father, and the heart-bloud mercy of a tender Saviour and Redeemer to compell them: the one may be bound to do, that so they may live, the other may be bound to do, because they do live; the one may be bound to do, or else they shall be justly plagued, the other may be bound to do the same, or else they shall be mercifully corrected: It is therefore a meer feeblenesse to think (as some do) that the law or rule is changed, because the motives to the obedience of it, and punishment for the breach of it, are now (unto a beleever) changed and a…t…ed; for the Commandment urged from Ch…ists love, may binde strongly yea most strongly to doe the same thing which the same Commandment propounded and received in way of hi…e, may binde also unto.
Thesis 112.
Some think that there is no sin but unbelief (which is a sin against the Gospel only) and therefore there being no sin against any law (Christ having by his death abolished all them) the law cannot be a rule to them. An adulterous and an evill generation made drunk with the cup of the wine of the wrath of God, and strong delusion, do thus argue: Are drunkenesse, whoredom, lying, cheating, witchcraft, oppression, theft, buggery, no sins, and consequently not to be repented of, nor watcht against, but only unbelief? Is there no day of judgement, wherein the Lord will judge men (not only for unbelief) but the secrets of all hearts, and whatever hath been done in the body, whether good or evil, according to Pauls Gospel? Rom. 2.16. 2 Cor. 5.10. How comes the wrath of God to be revealed from heaven, not only against unbelief, but against all unrighteousnesse and ungodlinesse of man? Rom. 1.18 If there was no sin but unbelief, how can all flesh, Jews and Gentiles become guilty before God, that so they may beleeve in the Gospel (as 'tis, Rom. 3 21, 12, …3, 24) if they are all guiltlesse untill unbelief comes in? There is no sin indeed which shall condemn a man in case he shall beleeve; but will it follow from hence that there is no sin in a man but only unbelief? A sick man shall not die in case he receive the Physick which will recover him; but doth it follow from hence that there is no sicknesse in him, or no such sicknesse which is able to kill him, but only his wilfull refusing of the Physick? surely his refusing of the Physick is not the cause of his sicknesse which was before, not the naturall (for that his sicknesse is) but only the morall cause of his death. Sin is before unbelief comes, a sick sinner before a healing Saviour can be rejected; sin kils the soul, as it were, naturally, unbelief morally; no sin shall kill or condemn us if we beleeve; but doth it follow from hence that there is no sin before or after faith, because there is no condemning sin unlesse we fall by unbelief? No such matter, and yet such is the madnesse of some prophets in these times, who to abandon, not only the directive use of the law, but also all preparing and humbling work of the law, and to make mens sinning the first foundation and ground of their beleeving, do therefore either abolish all the being of any sin, beside unbelief, or the condemned estate of a man for sin, yea for any sin, untill he refuse Christ by unbelief; for publishing which pernicious doctrines it had been well for them if they had never been born.
Thesis 113.
One would wonder how any Christians should fall into this pit of perdition, to deny the directive use of the law to one in Christ, if either they read Ps. 119. with any savour, or the Epistles of Iohn & Iames with any faith; in which the law is highly commended, and obedience thereto urged as the happinesse and chief evidence of the happinesse of man; but that certainly the root of this accursed doctrine is either a loose heart, which is grown blind and bold and secretly glad of a liberty, not so much from the law of sin, as from the law God; or if the heart be sincere in the main, yet it slights the holy Scriptures at present, and makes little conscience of judging in the matters of God according unto them; for if it did, it could hardly fall into …his dirty ditch, out of which the good Lord deliver, and out of which I am perswaded he will deliver in time all those that are his own: for I much question the salvation of that man, who lives and dies with this opinion: and as every errour is fruitfull, so this is in speciall; for from this darkning the directive use of the morall law, arise (amidst many others) these ensuing evils, which are almost, if not altogether deadly to the souls men; they are principally these three.