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…

The Law therefore and the Gospel admitting of such a different acception, I shall first show the opposition between the Law and the Gospel taken in their large sense and then in the limited sense, And this is worth the while, because this is the foundation of all our comfort, if rightly understood. Now the Question in this larger sense is the same with the difference between the Old and New-Testament, or Covenant; wherein the Learned speak very differently, and, as to my apprehension, most confusedly. I shall not examine whether that be the reason of calling it Old and New, which Austin Chemnitius, and others urge, because it presseth the old man & condemneth that; whereas the new encourageth and comforteth new: I rather take it to be so called, because the old was to cease and vanish away, being before the other in time. Now in my method I will lay down the false differences, and then name the true.

The Law therefore and the Gospel admitting of such a different acception, I shall first shew the opposition between the Law and the Gospel taken in their large sense and then in the limited sense, And this is worth the while, because this is the foundation of all our comfort, if rightly understood. Now the Question in this larger sense is the same with the difference between the Old and New-Testament, or Covenant; wherein the Learned speak very differently, and, as to my apprehension, most confusedly. I shall not examine whether that be the reason of calling it Old and New, which Austin Chemnitius, and others urge, because it presseth the old man & condemneth that; whereas the new incourageth and comforteth new: I rather take it to be so called, because the old was to cease and vanish away, being before the other in time. Now in my method I will lay down the false differences, and then name the true.

The false differences are first of the Anabaptists and Socinians, ¹who make all that lived under the Law to have nothing but temporal earthly blessings in their knowledge and affections. And for this they are very resolute, granting indeed that Christ and eternal things were promised in the Old Testament but they were not enjoyed by any till the New Testament, whereupon they say, that grace and salvation was not till Christ came. And the places which the Antinomians bring for believers under the New Testament, they take rigidly and universally, as if there had been no eternal life, nor nothing of the Spirit of God till Christ came. Hence they say, the Gospel began with Christ, and deny that the promise of a Christ, or Messiah to come is ever called the Gospel, but the real exhibition of him only. This is false; for, although this promise be sometimes called