A39697:78
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.
(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 ⟨p. 12⟩a Covenant of Death and Condemnation; and under the second, as a Covenant of Grace and Justification.
This Dilemma pinches you, to assert, that Moses, and all the Elect of God under that Dispensation were damned, you dare not; and if you had, you must have expunged the 11th Chapter to the Hebrews, and a great part of the New Testament, together with all your hopes of sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. The latter therefore (seeing you cannot avoid) you are forced upon, and in plain words yield it, p. 174, 175. That Moses, and the whole body of the Children of Israel, without exception of any, were under, yea absolutely under the severest penalties of a dreadful Curse; That the Covenant they were under could be no other than a Covenant of Works, a ministration of Death and Condemnation; when yet it is also evident from the same Holy Scriptures of Truth, that at the same time both Moses, and all the Elect among that People, were under a pure Covenant of Gospel-grace; and that these two Covenants were just opposite the one to the other; but to this you have nothing to say, but with the Apostle in another case, O the depth!
This Dilemma pinches you, to assert, that Moses, and all the Elect of God under that Dispensation were damned, you dare not; and if you had, you must have expunged the 11th Chapter to the Hebrews, and a great part of the New Testament, together with all your hopes of sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. The latter therefore (seeing you cannot avoid) you are forc'd upon, and in plain words yield it, p. 174, 175. That Moses, and the whole body of the Children of Israel, without exception of any, were under, yea absolutely under the severest penalties of a dreadful Curse; That the Covenant they were under could be no other than a Covenant of Works, a ministration of Death and Condemnation; when yet it is also evident from the same Holy Scriptures of Truth, that at the same time both Moses, and all the Elect among that People, were under a pure Covenant of Gospel-grace; and that these two Covenants were just opposite the one to the other; but to this you have nothing to say, but with the Apostle in another case, O the depth!