A39697:94
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.
Reply. Here, Sir, my Understanding is perfectly posed, and I know not how to make any tolerable Orthodox Sense out of this Position: Is the Law preached up as a pure Covenant of Works (that is, pressing Men to the personal and punctual Obedience of it, in order to their Justification by Works) no way repugnant to the Promise; but altogether so, when preached in Subserviency to Christ and Faith? This is new Divinity with me, and I believe must be so to every Intelligent Reader. Don't I oppose the Promise, when I preach up the Law as a pure Covenant of Works, which therefore as such must be Exclusive ⟨p. 25⟩of Christ and the Promise; and do I oppose either, when I tell Sinners the Terrors of the Law serve only to drive them to Christ, their only Remedy, who is the end of the Law for Righteousness, to every one that Believeth, Rom. 10. 4.? are Works and Grace more consistent than Grace with Grace? Explain your meaning in this Paradoxical Expression, and leave not your self and others in such a Maze. I read Gal. 3. 19. for what end God published the Law 430 years after the Promise was made to Abraham, and find it was added because of Transgression, [Greek or Hebrew] it was put to, not set up by it self alone, as a distinct Cov• nant, but added as an Appendix to the Covenant of Grace; whence it is plain, that God added the Sinai Law to the Promise, with Evangelical ends and Purposes. If then I preach the Law to the very same Evangelical Uses and Purposes for which God added it to the Promise, do I therein make an ill use of the Law, and mingle Life and Death together? But preaching it as a pure Covenant of Works, as it holds forth Justification to Sinners by Obedience to its Precepts; do I then make it blessedly subservient ⟨p. 26⟩(as you speak) to the Promise, or Covenant of Grace? The Law was added because of Transgression, that is, to restrain Sin in the World, and to convince Sinners under guilt, of the necessity of another Righteousness than their own, even that of Christ; and for the same ends God added it to the Promise; I always did, and still shall Preach it; and I am persuaded without the least danger of mingling Law and Gospel, Life and Death together, in your Sense.