A39697:264
Vindiciæ legis & fœderis
Vindiciæ legis & fœderis: or, A reply to Mr. Philip Cary's Solemn call Wherein he pretends to answer all the arguments of Mr. Allen, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Sydenham, Mr. Sedgwick, Mr. Roberts, and Dr. Burthogge, for the right of believers infants to baptism, by proving the law at Sinai, and the covenant of circumcision with Abraham, were the very same with Adam's covenant of works, and that because the gospel-covenant is absolute. By John Flavel minister of the gospel in Dartmouth
London: printed for M. Wolton, 1690
A REPLY TO Mr. Philip Cary's Solemn Call. › Section 3 › Argument 5: Argument V.
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.
Reply. Here we see into what Brakes and Pits Men run themselves, when they depart from the plain and safe Path in Explications of Scripture. Here is such a tripartite Distinction of Holiness, as I never met with before. (1.) Here is personal Holiness inherent in Gods intention. By this you must either mean Sanctification decreed for them, and to be bestowed on them at the time of their Calling; and then it is coincident with the third Member of your Distinction: Or else you mean, that it is Holiness inherent in the Intention of God, as an Accident in its Subject; and then the Simplicity of Gods Nature resists your incongruous Notion. But it would be a less Crime, to confound the first with the ⟨p. 121⟩last Member of your vain and self-created Distinction, than to speak things so repugnant to the simple and uncompounded Nature of God.
Or if your meaning be, That this Holiness is in God by way of Intention, but in them by way of Inhesion; that will not deliver you out of your Confusion neither, but run you into greater; for then you confound the immanent with the transient Acts of God, and make the same thing, at the same time, to be purely in Intention, and in Execution; or to be only in Gods Purpose to bestow hereafter, and yet at present inherent in the Persons he intends it for; so that I must leave your strange Notion of Personal Holiness inherent in Gods Intention, to be cleared by a more Metaphysical Head than mine; or else to stand among other rare and unintelligible Notions, to be admired and applauded by the ignorant Reader.
Or if your meaning be, That this Holiness is in God by way of Intention, but in them by way of Inhesion; that will not deliver you out of your Confusion neither, but run you into greater; for then you confound the immanent with the transient Acts of God, and make the same thing, at the same time, to be purely in Intention, and in Execution; or to be only in Gods Purpose to bestow hereafter, and yet at present inherent in the Persons he intends it for; so that I must leave your strange Notion of Personal Holiness inherent in Gods Intention, to be clear'd by a more Metaphysical Head than mine; or else to stand among other rare and unintelligible Notions, to be admired and applauded by the ignorant Reader.