A30249:545
Vindiciae legis, or, A vindication of the moral law and the covenants, from the…Vindiciae legis, or, A vindication of the morall law and the covenants, from the…
Vindiciae legis, or, A vindication of the moral law and the covenants, from the errors of Papists, Arminians, Socinians, and more especially, Antinomians in XXX lectures, preached at Laurence-Jury, London / by Anthony Burgess ...Vindiciae legis, or, A vindication of the morall law and the covenants, from the errours of Papists, Arminians, Socinians, and more especially, Antinomians in XXX lectures, preached at Laurence-Jury, London / by Anthony Burgess ...
London: printed by James Young for Thomas Underhill, 1647
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.
To these two, there is also a third thing to be premised, and 1that is, how the word of God in general is a medium, or instrumental to our conversion. For, the clearing of this well, must needs discover, that the Law of God, being part of Gods word, doth convert as well as the Gospel: and this must needs be the opinion of all sound Divines, whatsoever may fall from them at other times, as appeareth by their common answer to the Papists Question. If the Law, and the commands thereof be impossible, to what purpose then doth he command them? why doth he bid us turn to him when we cannot? Then we answer that these commandments are not only informing of a duty, but they are practical and operative means appointed by God, to work, at least in some degree, that which is commanded. Hence those commands are compared, by the Learned, to that command of our Saviour to Lazarus, that he should rise up and walk. It doth also further appear, in those ends they assign of Gods revealing the Law, viz. to make us see as in a glass our Deformity, to be humbled before God; to be affrighted out of our selves, to seek for grace in Christ; now can the mere Law of it self do this; doth not grace work this in us by the preaching of the Law; and is not this the initial grace of conversion? as Austin said, Tract. 12. in Johan: cumcaeperit tibi displicere quod fecisti, inde incipiunt bona opera tua, quia accusas mala operatua: Initium operum bonorum, est confessio malorum: The beginning of good in us, is the accusation of that which is bad.
To these two, there is also a third thing to be premised, and 1that is, how the word of God in generall is a medium, or instrumentall to our conversion. For, the clearing of this well, must needs discover, that the Law of God, being part of Gods word, doth convert as well as the Gospel: and this must needs be the opinion of all sound Divines, whatsoever may fall from them at other times, as appeareth by their common answer to the Papists Question. If the Law, and the commands thereof be impossible, to what purpose then doth he command them? why doth he bid us turne to him when we cannot? Then we answer that these commandements are not onely informing of a duty, but they are practicall and operative means appointed by God, to work, at least in some degree, that which is commanded. Hence those commands are compared, by the Learned, to that command of our Saviour to Lazarus, that he should rise up and walk. It doth also further appeare, in those ends they assigne of Gods revealing the Law, viz. to make us see as in a glasse our Deformity, to be humbled before God; to be affrighted out of our selves, to seek for grace in Christ; now can the meer Law of it selfe do this; doth not grace work this in us by the preaching of the Law; and is not this the initiall grace of conversion? as Austin said, Tract. 12. in Johan: cumcaeperit tibi displicere quod fecisti, inde incipiunt bona opera tua, quia accusas mala operatua: Initium operum bonorum, est confessio malorum: The beginning of good in us, is the accusation of that which is bad.