A39697:43
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
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.
The Controversy here betwixt us […] not (1.) Whether the Gospel-Covenant requires no duties at all of them tha• are under it? nor (2.) Whether it requires any such conditions as were […] Adam's Covenant, namely, perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience under ⟨image 15⟩the severest Penalty of a Curse; and admitting no place of Repentance? Nor (3.) Whether any condition required by it, on our part, have any thing in its own nature Meritorious of the Benefits promised? Nor (4.) Whether we be able in our own Strength, and by the Power of our Free Will, without the preventing, as well as the assisting Grace of God, to perform any such Work or Duty as we call a Condition? In these things we have no Controversy, but the only Question betwixt us, is,
The Controversie here betwixt us 〈…〉 not (1.) Whether the Gospel-Covenan• requires no duties at all of them tha• are under it? nor (2.) Whether it requires any such conditions as were 〈…〉 Adam's Covenant, namely, perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience unde• ⟨image 15⟩the severest Penalty of a Curse; and admitting no place of Repentance? Nor (3.) Whether any condition required by it, on our part, have any thing in its own nature Meritorious of the Benefits promised? Nor (4.) Whether we be able in our own Strength, and by the Power of our Free Will, without the preventing, as well as the assisting Grace of God, to perform any such Work or Duty as we call a Condition? In these things we have no Controversie, but the only Question betwixt us, is,
Whether in the New Covenant, some act of ours, (though it have no Merit in it, nor can be done in our own single Strength) be not required to be performed by us, antecedently to a Blessing or Privilege consequent by virtue of a Promise? And whether such an Act or Duty, being of a Suspending Nature to the Blessing promised, it have not the true and proper Nature of a Gospel Condition? This I affirm, and he positively denies.