A39697:76
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 1: I Position.
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.
That the Covenant made with Israel on Mount Sinai, is the very same Covenant of Works made with Adam in Innocency, ⟨p. 11⟩P. 122. and divers other places of your Book the very same.
Now, if I prove that this Assertion of yours doth naturally and regularly draw many false and absurd Consequents upon you, which you are, and must be forced to own; then this your Position cannot be true, for from true Premisses, nothing but truth can naturally and regularly follow; but I shall make it plain to you, that this your Position regularly draws many false Conclusions and gross Absurdities upon you, some of which you own expressly, and others you as good as own, being able to return nothing rational or satisfactory in your own defence against them.
Now, if I prove that this Assertion of yours doth naturally and regularly draw many false and absurd Consequents upon you, which you are, and must be forced to own; then this your Position cannot be true, for from true Premisses, nothing but truth can naturally and regularly follow; but I shall make it plain to you, that this your Position regularly draws many false Conclusions and gross Absurdities upon you, some of which you own expresly, and others you as good as own, being able to return nothing rational or satisfactory in your own defence against them.
(1.) From this Assertion, that the Sinai Covenant was a pure Covenant of Works, the very same with Adam's Covenant, it regularly and necessarily follows, that either Moses and all Israel were Damned, there being no Salvation possible to be attained by that first Covenant; or else that there was a Covenant of Grace at the same time running parallel with that Covenant of Works; and so the Elect People of God were at one and the same time under the first, as