A26864:771
Rich. Baxters apology against the modest exceptions of Mr. T. Blake and the digression…
Rich. Baxters apology against the modest exceptions of Mr. T. Blake and the digression of Mr. G. Kendall whereunto is added animadversions on a late dissertation of Ludiomæus Colvinus, aliaà Ludovicus Molinæs̳, M. Dr. Oxon, and an admonition of Mr. W. Eyre of Salisbury : with Mr. Crandon's Anatomy for satisfaction of Mr. Caryl.
London: printed by A.M. for Thomas Underhill, 1654
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§. 90.
R. B. ALL this will be easily granted you by those of the contrary part, as nothing to the purpose. It follows not, that because there is condescension in the Condition, that therefore there is such an abatement in the Precept, or that the Covenant hath no Precept but de praestanda Conditione. 2. It were strange if the Covenant should require more then it accepts. Did ever sober man (much less such as your Reverend adversaries) imagine a thing so Impious! as if God would not Accept that which himself commandeth. But if you would have said, as your arguing requires, that the Covenant accepteth no less then the whole which it commandeth or requireth, then not only your Antagonists, but my self and many another will deny it, and demand your proof. But here I take this as granted by you, that you take not the word Covenant at least so restrainedly as excluding all Precept; for I suppose you mean Commanding, in the terms requiring, and calling for as duty.
§. 91.
Mr. Bl. The alone Argument, so far as ever I could learn, that hath brought some of Reverend esteem into this opinion, is, That if the Covenant requires not exact perfection in the same height as the Law calls for it, then a Christian may fall short of the Law in his Obedience, and not sin; perfection being not called for from him, nor any more called for from him then through Grace he doth perform; he rises as high as his Rule, and sins not through any Imperfection; therefore to make it out that a Believers Imperfections are his sins, it must needs be that the Covenant requires perfection; as to make good that he may be saved in his Imperfections, it must be maintained that he accepts sincerity. But this Argument is not of weight: Christ entering a Gospel-Covenant with man, finds him under the command of the Law, which command the Law still holds, the Gospel being a confirmation, not a destruction of it. All Imperfection thn is a sin upon that account, that it is a Transgression of the Law, though (being done against heart, and laboured against) it is no breach of Covenant: we are under the Law as men; we are taken into Covenant as Christians: retaining the humane nature, the Law still commands as; though the covenant in Christ through the abundant Grace of it, upon the terms that it requires and accepts, frees us from the sentence of it.