A39697:265
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.
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.
But then, when we come to the Second Member of your Distinction, I am as much at a loss to find your Sense as before: For there you tell us, The Holiness here spoken of is a Derivative Holiness also, and that from Abraham only, and ⟨p. 122⟩from him not as a natural, but a spiritual Father, resembling Christ herein.