A39674:680
Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and…
Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and remedies of mental errors written some months since, and now made public, both for the healing and prevention of the sins and calamities which have broken in this way upon the churches of Christ, to the great scandal of religion, hardening of the wicked, and obstruction of Reformation : whereunto are subjoined by way of appendix : I. Vindiciarum vindex, being a succinct, but full answer to Mr. Philip Cary's weak and impertinent exceptions to my Vindiciæ legis & fæderis, II. a synopsis of ancient and modern Antinomian errors, with scriptural arguments and reasons against them, III. a sermon composed for the preventing and healing of rents and divisions in the churches of Christ / by John Flavell ... ; with an epistle by several divines, relating to Dr. Crisp's works.Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and remedies of mental errors written some months since, and now made publick, both for the healing and prevention of the sins and calamities which have broken in this way upon the churches of Christ, to the great scandal of religion, hardening of the wicked, and obstruction of Reformation : whereunto are subjoined by way of appendix : I. Vindiciarum vindex, being a succinct, but full answer to Mr. Philip Cary's weak and impertinent exceptions to my Vindiciæ legis & fæderis, II. a synopsis of ancient and modern Antinomian errors, with scriptural arguments and reasons against them, III. a sermon composed for the preventing and healing of rents and divisions in the churches of Christ / by John Flavell ... ; with an epistle by several divines, relating to Dr. Crisp's works.
London: printed by R. Roberts for Tho. Cockerill, 1691
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.
(1.) You boldly tell me, That God doth in the Covenant of Works make over himself to Sinners to be their God by way of special interest: but it being upon such hard terms, that it's utterly impossible for Sinners that way to attain unto life, he hath therefore been pleased to abolish that, and make a new Covenant: and bring Exod. 20. 2. to prove it.
This is new and strange Divinity with me.1 (1.) That God should become a People's God by way of special interest, by virtue of the broken Covenant of Works. This wholly alters the nature of that Covenant; for then it was a Law that could give life, contrary to Gal. 3. 21. unless you can suppose a Soul that's totally dead in Sin, to have a special interest in God, as his God. (2.) This Answer of yours yields the Controversy about the ⟨p. 224⟩nature of the Sinai Law: for this very Concession of yours, is the Medium by which our Divines prove it to be a Covenant of Grace. (3.) This Concession of yours confounds the two Covenants, by communicating the essential property and prime privilege of the Covenant of Grace; to Adam's Covenant of Works. Either therefore expunge Jer. 31. 33. as a Covenant of Grace, I will be their God, and they shall be my people; or allow that in Gen. 17. 7. to be specifically the same; and that Exod. 20. though more obscurely delivered. (4.) You assert, That God may actually become a Peoples God by way of special interest, and yet the salvation of that People be suspended upon impossible terms. You sent them before to Purgatory, but by this you must send them directly to Hell: for if the salvation of God's peculiar People be upon impossible terms, 'tis certain they cannot be saved. And lastly, It is an horrid reflection upon the Wisdom and Goodness of God, who never did, or will make any Covenant, wherein he takes fallen Men to be his peculiar People, and make over himself to be their God; and yet not make provision for their Salvation in the same Covenant,