A Treatise of Justifying Righteousness, Book 2 · Aphorism 64 – Aphorism 65
Aphorism.
IF there be any sins against the New-Covenant, Page 138.which are not also against the Old; or if any sins be considered in any of their respects, as against the Gospel only, &c.
Animadvers.
I see not how final Unbelief, or any sin whatsoever, can be against the Gospel only, and not also against the Law; sin, as sin, being a transgression of the Law, 1 John 3. 4. And there being no sin prohibited in the Gospel, which is not a breach of some Precept in the Decalogue, as your self confesses, p. 147.
Reply.
1. You do not put a right name on my Assertion, to call it [my Confession] unless you had accused me with contradicting it (which methinks you should not.)
2. Though you be of my judgment in this, yet others are not.
3. I know sin is a transgression of the Law; but our Question is, Of what Law? Old or New? and how far?
4. It is not so easie a matter to conceive suddenly how unbelief and neglect of Sacraments, &c. are sins against the Law of Works, or the Precepts of the Decalogue, as belonging to that Law. 1. As to the Decalogue and perceptive part of the Law of Works, as it is merely in nature, and was delivered at the first, I conceive it doth command obedience in general, and specifie all natural duties, and so forbid the contrary sin: But it doth not specifie each particular duties that after were added. I conceive that the Law of Nature, or Works, doth leave room after the first Institution, for the adding of new-positives, without making a new-form of the Law as to the Sanction. Else every positive that Moses added, should have made a New-Law: So of sacrificing before Moses, &c. the sence of the Law was, [Obey God in all that he now doth, or hereafter shall command;] and Nature speaks so plainly. And when-ever the Positive-Command is added in any age, it is a fresh discovery of God's will, which Nature obligeth us to obey: The Obligation is as much from the general Precept in Nature, as from the particular superadded: And though the general Precept, [Obey all God's Will,] could not oblige to the particular till it was in being; yet when it is in being it doth oblige even to that particular, mediante Revelatione, which enableth us to assume, [but this is God's Will.] The same I say of the Sanction of the Law of Nature: It threatneth Death to all sin, even against a Command that was not at the first Institution in being. It saith, [Whosoever sinneth shall die.] So that it is evident that the Law of Nature in its general Precept, extendeth to all particulars that hereafter shall be revealed to be God's Will. But because I said in my Aphoris. [That as Faith is to such an end required, so it is not specially commanded by the Law of Works.] I must partly explain, and partly recant that. For now I think that all duties, with all their ends, are required by the Law of Nature, or that Law obligeth to them; and so to Faith, as it is a means of Remission, though this seemed strange to me heretofore. But here you must distinguish still, 1. Between the Precept, as it is a Precept, and maketh duty; and the Institution of that duty to be the Condition of Life. 2. Between these two Notions, [The Law of Nature,] and [The Law of Works;] for it is called, [The Law of Works,] in reference to the Sanction, as Works are made the Condition of Life or Death: But it is not called, The Law of Works, when you consider the Precept alone, though it command perfection. 3. You must distinguish between the Law of Natures obliging Man in Innocency, and the same Law as continued, obliging man faln; and also obliging man redeemed, and in hopes of Pardon and Life restored. The change of mans state may cause the same Law to oblige him to new-duties. 4. You must distinguish between [The preparing and giving Christ, Grace, Hope, &c. and revealing them to Mankind in the Gospel,] and, [The obliging hereupon to the duty of Believing and Receiving them.] And so I conclude thus for the Solution.
1. That (as is said) the Law of Nature binding us to Do all that God shall make known to be his Will, doth oblige us to each particular, when it is made known, as it doth generally oblige to obedience before. And so it obligeth even to Faith, Repentance, &c.
2. The Law of Nature doth not reveal Christ, or Grace and Pardon, and Life by him; nor did it make the preparation, by giving Christ to satisfie for sin. This is proper to the Law of Grace, to publish Grace and Christ.
3. The Law of Nature doth not make man any promise of Pardon, Justification and Salvation, if he repent and believe.
4. The Law of Nature did not oblige man in Innocency to repent, or return to God, or believe in Christ. For there was not the matter of, or capacity in us, for such an Obligation.
5. But as soon as ever Man was faln, (even before Christ was promised) the Law of Nature obliged faln Man to repent and return to God. But it gave him no hope of pardon on his Repentance: So that it would have been but a despairing Repentance. Yet hereby it is apparent, that the Law of Nature maketh us new-duties, as our case changeth; and some duties proper to faln Man, which to the Innocent it made not.
6. Though the Law of Nature neither give nor reveal Christ, Hope, Pardon, and restored Life, yet when God by Grace hath redeemed us, and given us up to Christ, and revealed Him, and Hope, and Life by him, then the Law of Nature commandeth us to believe God's Revelation, and accept God's gracious offer, and repent and return, and love him that bought us, and be thankful, &c. Who feeleth not in himself, that Nature and common Reason obligeth to, or requireth this on the foresaid suppositions? So much of the Precept of Natures Law.
7. The Law of Nature continueth to pronounce Death due to every sin, and the greatest punishment due to the greatest sins. And therefore by that Law, Death is due to Unbelief; yea, a far sorer punishment than was due to ordinary sins, in that it hath such aggravations. And though it condemned Man for the first sin, and provided him no remedy, yet a remedy being aliunde provided, it further condemneth him if he reject it.
8. Though the form of the Law of Works was not altered by God; yet the Obligation (as it were) of the promisory or premiant part is ceased, upon Man's first sin, through the utter incapacity of Man to receive it. For it promised Life only to the perfect or innocent; and the first sin made us all nocent, and unmeet subjects. And so Divines use to say, That the Law as a Covenant is dissolved; not that the whole Sanction is dissolved, but per cessation…m, the promissory part is void, or the Promiser disobliged by us.
9. That therefore which is proper to the New-Law is, that it, 1. Be built on a new foundation, viz. Redemption; and so the Legislator is Deus-Redemptor, and not only Deus-Naturae, vel Deus-Creator as such. 2. That it reveal Christ, and his Sacrifice, and Hope, Pardon and Life, &c. 3. That it promise and give all these. 4. That it institute the Condition on which they shall be given, or be ours. All these the Law of Nature meddleth not in; though when the Condition is instituted, it obligeth us not only in general to obey, but in special to obey, and use it to these ends appointed.
10. Yet no man must think, that all the New-Law consisteth in these only, and that the Precept and Threatning are no true parts of the New-Law, because they are common with the Old: For even these are still true parts of it. Even as the earth that man's body was made of, ceased not to be truly earth when it was made man, nor ceaseth to be a proper or essential part of man, because it is earth. Or as a cup of water taken out of the River, and made Beer, ceaseth not to be water, nor yet can be denied to be Beer. Only it ceaseth to be mere or common water, as our bodies do to be mere common earth. So here the preceptive part of the Law of Nature, is comprehensive of the Law of Grace, and all Laws that ever will be (supposing those alterations in rerum Natura which lay the grounds:) But yet, as the Specification of the Covenants or Laws, is (as Camero oft, and others) from the Condition and Sanction, and so the New-Law is specified from thence: So it hence assumeth into its nature, even that which is part of the Law of Natu…. Only as man's body is now no common earth▪ so the Precepts of Faith, Repentance, &c. as tending to recovery, are not common Legal Precepts; But may be considered as belonging to the Law of Grace, and also to the Law of Nature. So that as man's Soul is specifically distinct from earth, and his Body in it self not so, but as pars à toto; but yet is made an essential part of man: So the preceptive part of the Law of Grace, is distinct from the Law of Nature, but as pars à toto; and yet is made an essential part of that Law, whose Promise and Institution of a Condition qua talis, is specifically distinct from the Law of Nature; and from the whole is denominated as specifically distinct.
And hence it is that the Law of Christ is oftner called, a Testament, Covenant, Gospel, &c. than a Law: Which hath occasioned the Lutheran Divines (some of them) against Scripture, and all Antiquity, to deny it to be properly a Law, and confine its whole nature to the foresaid proper parts, which in specie differ from the Old. It must be known, that as the Righteousness of Faith (in it self, as the Condition of the New-Law) is but subservient to Christ's Righteousness, and required for it; so the New-Law is a subservient Law to the Law of Nature, being but Lex remedians, to destroy the Obligation of the Old (ad poenam) and conduce to the attaining of its ends.
And so much for explication of my thoughts on this point; which I write to satisfie my self as I go on in reviewing my Writings. I think the right stating, and clear apprehension of this point (of the difference between the Law and Gospel, and how far the Law of Works is abrogated) to be of greater moment and difficulty by far, than your Animadversions take notice of; or than any thing (as to difficulty) that you deal with, as far as I remember.
The sum of all is, That the promissory part of the Law of Works doth not oblige, but is destroyed, not by an Abrogation, but Cessation, cessante materia vel capacitate subjecti: But the Precept ceaseth not (except some Positives, which may be added or taken away without alteration in the nature of the Law;) nor the Threatning (because nec abrogatur, nec cessat materia:) That the Precept of the Law of Grace is now under the general Precept of the Law of Nature. Yet is it not fit to call Faith and Repentance, and Sacraments, &c. [Precepts of the Law of Nature,] without Explication; because they have now a super-added new-form, by conjunction with the Doctrine and Promise of Grace (as the water hath a new-form by commixtion, when it is made B…er; and the Body of man, when of earth it was made man, and yet retaineth the form of water, and earth still: But the denomination must follow the new super-added form.) And so the Denomination of Faith and Repentance must be from the super-added form, and they must be called, [Parts of the New-Law.] Yet the whole bulk of the Precepts of the Law of Nature, remain in conjunction with the Threatnings of that Law: But the Promise of the New-Law is a remedy at hand to dissolve it. And the Threat of the New-Law hath in it somewhat common to it with the Old; (viz. The Institution of the dueness of Punishment to Impenitency and Unbelief, proportioned to their nature) and something proper to the New-Law; viz. in the Negative, not to institute the penalty due to each particular sin; Positively, to make its Obligation to Punishment for final Unbelief and Impenitency, to be remediless, and irreversible, and peremptory, determining not only de Debito (as the first Law doth, and all Laws do;) but also by Prediction de Eventu which is a thing super-added to the strict nature of a Law as such. Besides, that it incorporateth the common part of the Threat also into its own body, and maketh it essential to it self; viz. the Debitum non▪liberationis, & majoris poenae.
Aphorism.
FOr to all that Ʋnbelief, and other sins of the Ibid.godly which are forgiven, the Gospel doth no where threaten death.
Animadvers.
Not so indeed threaten death, as not withal to offer life upon Condition of repenting and believing: Which also the Gospel doth even to the ungodly, Acts 3. 19. & 13. 38, 39. But the Gospel establishing, and not repealing the Moral Law (as you confess, pag. 154.) doth threaten death to all Unbelief, and to all sin, that so the Grace and Mercy offered to men in the Gospel, may be accepted of them.
Reply.
The [Moral Law] is usually taken for the mere Preceptive part of the Law of Nature, as absolutely considered without the Sanction: And so the same thing which is the Law of Nature, may be also the directive or preceptive part of the Law of Grace: (Though I am unsatisfied, whether it be sit to say, The Law of Christ doth constitute that duty a-new, and take in the Moral Law as part of it self; or only suppose it, and make use of it.) But you here take the [Moral Law] for the Precept, as conjunct with the Threatning (else you would not say, it threateneth death:) But so I take it to be no true part of the New Law, though not dissolved or abrogated by it. Else I think we shall make the first Law of Nature, and Christ's Law of Grace all one.