Regula Vitae, THE RULE OF THE LAW UNDER THE GOSPEL. Containing A Discovery of the pestiferous sect of LIBERTINES, ANTINOMIANS, and sons of Belial, lately sprung up both to destroy the Law, and disturb the faith of the Gospel: Wherein is manifestly proved, that God seeth sin in justified persons. By THOMAS TAYLOR Dr. of Divinity, and Pastor of S. Mary Aldermanburic, London. Numb. 12. 8. Wherefore were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? Imprinted at London by W. I. for Robert Dawlman at the Brazen Serpent in Paul's Churchyard: 1631. The Preface to the godly Reader. WHat Mr. Luther in his last Sermon at Wittenberg observed, and foretold, we see in these our days fully performed and accomplished: he had observed thirty several sects, and sectaries, raised up by Satan in his time against that holy doctrine preached by himself; all which had he not been able by the Scriptures to have resisted, and refuted, he must have been (as himself said) of thirty several religions. Among them he mentioneth the Anabaptists, Antinomists, Libertines, Servitians, etc. of all whom he foretold, that though now they (saith he) by the power of the word, and by the vigilancy of godly teachers lie close and still; yet will they be intent, and ready on all occasions to rise, and raise up their damnable errors to disturb the peace of the Church, and the prosperity of the Gospel. And indeed accordingly have we observed the Church of God in all times since, less or more infested with these dangerous sectaries, I mean the Libertines, the professed enemies to the Law of God, and to the holy obedience of it. Against whom as St. Augustine in his time wrote two books against the Adversaries of the Law: Contra Legis adversarios. so Mr. Calvin dealt worthily in his time, in his book entitled, Adversus furiosam sectam Libertinorum. Against the furious sect of the Libertines: and many other godly men since that time. Let not us be offended that the spawn and succession of those lewd libertine sectaries are now issued forth in troops amongst us, Nemo miretur aut consternetur cum tam insolitos, & ab omni ratione alienos errores cernas: Calv. nor marvel that the hatred of Gods most righteous Law prevaileth amongst a rude multitude, the sons of Belial; whom Mr. Calvin calleth a prodigious and belluine sect, furious and madded in their opinions, and fierce as unbroken colts against whosoever would curb them, and straiten the reins of their unbridled licentiousness. But rather let us observe, 1. Satan's malice in sowing tares where good seed was sown, and that in the Lord's field. 2. God's just permission of so many schisms as tares rising with the grain; and therein revenging the contempt and disobedience of his word, he hath sent strong delusions, that many should believe lies, 2 Thes: 2. who received not the truth in the love of it. 3. The levity, wantonness, and instability of unsettled Gospelers, that are in every new fashion of opinion, with every new man that hath the trick of moulding novel conceits against received truths; that if thirty newminted fancies should rise up in their age, they were like enough to be of thirty religions, and of every last praise God, that the truth was never truly preached till now. 4. Let us excite ourselves to the love of truth, to the hatred of error, and to the fencing of ourselves against seducers; importuning in serious invocation the God of truth, not to punish our wantonness in profession, with taking the word of truth utterly from us: and thus shall we temper poison to a remedy, Quod hostis machinatur in perniciem, convertit Deus in adiutorium: Aug: Epist: ad Sextum 105. and turn that to an help which the enemy intends for our hurt. For the settling of mine own people (some of them looking that way) I delivered lately some grounds, both to enforce the rule of the Law upon the regenerate, as also to refute the contrary error of our new audacious Antinomists, and Libertines, and Famelists, who as the old Manichees and Marcionists, abolish the whole Law, and that wholly. One preacheth, that the whole Law since Christ's death is wholly abrogated, and abolished. Another, that the whole Law was fulfilled by Christ 1600 years ago, and we have nothing to do with that. Another, that to teach obedience to the Law of God, is to teach popery, and to lead men into a dead faith. Another, that to do any thing because God commands us, or to forbear any thing because God forbids us, is a sign of a moral man, and of a dead and unsound Christian. And upon these hollow and deceitful grounds do these masters of error bottom a number other ridiculous conceits, which yet they deliver as oracles, and anathematise whosoever shall not so receive them. As 1. That the Law being abolished to the justified, God can see no sin in them; for he can see no Law transgressed. 2. That the regenerate cannot sin; for where is no Law, is no transgression: according to that Luciferian principle rife among them, Be in Christ, and sin if thou canst. 3. That being in Christ, they are Christed with Christ, as pure as Christ, as perfect as Christ, as far beyond the Law as Christ himself: the right brood and spawn of the old Catharists and Puritans. 4. That the Law is not to be taught in the Church, and they are legal Preachers that do so, and preach not Christ. 5. They hence disclaim all obedience to the Law, and rail at the precepts and practice of sanctification, as good for nothing, but to carry men to hell; and cry out on the Ministers as Popish, and as having Monks in their bellies, who set men on working, and doing, and walking holily. 6. They renounce and reject all humility, confession and sorrow for sin, they scorn fasting and prayer, as the seeking not of God, but of ourselves. One saith, that neither our omissions, nor commissions should grieve us: and another, Neither do my good deeds rejoice me, nor my bad deeds grieve me. They deride and flout the exercise of repentance and mortification, and upbraid such as walk humbly before God. What say they? Will you repent all your days? and, You cannot sin, but you must repent an whole fortnight after. Nay they are set upon so merry a pin, as they can think of their former sins with merriment. I am glad of my sin (saith one) because it hath drawn me to Christ: and why dost thou not mourn that by those sins thou hast pierced Christ? 7. They reject the Saboth as jewish wholly abrogated with all other commandments; as one of them professed, that were it not for offence of men, he would labour in his calling on that day as well as any other. These with many other consequents of the same stamp, all tending to lose the conscience from all awe of God, from all care of duty, from all fear of sin, and judgement to come, (though they walk in all licentiousness, and prodigious courses) are such as a right bred Christian cannot but tremble at; and were there but a few drops of modest blood in their veins, the Masters of such lewd and libertine opinions could not but blush at: who cannot answer before God (without a sea of tears of timely repentance) the mis●●a●ling of simple men (and women especially) into such desperate ways. My intention being only to propound the grounds of naked truth, (which as a right line is the rule of itself, and of that which is crooked) and that to my own, in my own plain and ordinary manner; it was far from my thought to make my labour more public, till partly the scorn and insolency of these schismatical spirits on the one hand, and partly the importunity of many godly both Ministers and private persons thrust me into a second survey, and review of what I had delivered. They said they knew some drawn off their opinions by hearing the doctrine preached; and doubted not but if it were made more public, it would be much more useful to the Church, especially seeing these seducers creep into such corners of the City and Country, where are weakest means of resistance, whose strongest hopes and holds lie in the ignorance and too credulous simplicity of their proselytes. I made many objections to myself, some to them: I knew this argument sound and judicially handled already by others; that it might more profitably and sufficiently be undertaken by some other better furnished with gifts and leisure: how little I could expect the satisfaction of others in an argument of this moment, who in the throng of business, and burden of many weekly exercises, could scarce gain thoughts or time to satisfy myself: How unsafe to thrust into a public quarrel: how importune and lawless the adversaries, who hold not themselves countable to God, for any wrong they do unto man. But yet persuaded to deny myself for the service of God and his Church, and that the seasonableness of the treatise might add an advantage unto it, and that it might be some stay to the teachable until a more elaborate, and complete work might by some other be prepared: I yielded unto the publication of that little which I had done; animating myself with the same arguments that wise and prudent General's use to encourage and hearten their soldiers withal, when they are to join issue with the approaching enemy: and they be four. 1. The goodness and justice of the cause, which is just, and honourable; for we take part with God, and fight his battle in the quarrel of his most righteous Law. 2. The victory is easy and certain, unless God and his Law can be conquered: and who ever rose up against God and prospered? 3. The quality of the adversaries must add courage unto us, Christians in name, but siding, and sorting with the damnable heretics of ancient times: of whom I will not speak what they are worthy to hear, but what I may with judgement write, and whom the sequel discourse will show to be of proud, furious, and audacious spirits. 4. The assurance of divine assistance: for are the adversaries such? certainly then is their strength gone: God's spirit is gone from them, for he teacheth the humble, and sendeth the proud empty away. They pretend the spirit, and outboast all men, that they are taught, and led, and moved by the spirit, and are past all motives and persuasions of man or means: but God's spirit is a soft, sober, calm and quiet spirit, both in Christ the head, and in all his members: and that furious, factious, railing and quarrelsome spirit of theirs, Deus ecce furentibus obstat. is that unclean spirit of Satan, usually breathed into hetickes and enemies of the truth, and of the spirit of truth: by whose only assistance we shall shape them (not as they say in scorn, a garment after our own fashion) but such an answer out of the Scriptures, as shall not hide their nakedness, but uncover their ignorance, emptiness and folly, and vindicate the holy Law of God from their schismatical cavils, and heretical contempt. And why not? For do we exclaim against the Papists for blotting out the second commandment, as sacrilegious persons? and against the Anabaptists for denying the fifth? and shall we be silent at these sectaries, whose blindness hath made them bold to blot out all the ten at once? which although they were written with God's own finger, and that in tables of stone, yet these mad men presume their nails so steeled, as that they can scratch them out all at once, and yet God see no sin in them. I shall speak unto them all along the Treatise; and now will only desire of them, or rather of God for them these two things: First, that my reproof may be a medicine unto them; at least if it be conceived a wound, yet not of an enemy, but of one that out of love desireth to leave them a testimony of faithfulness: and the other is, Optimus portus poenitentiae mutatio consilii: Cic: Philip▪ that the Lord would work in them a timely change both of opinion & practice; so as they may no longer turn the grace of God into wantonness and liberty, but get out of this snare of the Devil, wherein they are held to do his will, ● who in every thing opposeth, and resisteth the righteous will of God re●vealed. But to you that are desirous to walk in the old and good way, and are not yet infected with this spreading gangrene of licentiousness, I shall be bold to give some advice for prevention. As 1. To look carefully to your precious souls, which Satan many ways beleaguereth: let not pretences of faith in Christ lose you from duty towards God; catch not at ease, or presposterous and overtimely comforts, wherein the impostor hath you at advantage. 2. Look well to your estates, and outward means, lest these impostors make a prey, and advantage on you, as they have done on some already, who have confessed that these pedlars have basely inveagled from them even to the very cushions of their windows: for the Apostle observed not in vain, that through covetousness they make merchandise of unwary souls. 3. Suspect such men as come with a strange language, and unwonted phrases and manner of speaking: Etiam loquendum cum Ecclesia recte sentiente: Cyprian: for error is a fruitful mother, yet is she ashamed of her brood, and is willing to cover and apparel them with philosophical and metaphysical phrases; and so these men are willing we should seek out the brats of their own brain, Sublime et tumidum dicendi genus; pere grino quodam idiomate loquuntur, ut qui ipsos audiunt prima facie stupefiant. Calv: advers: Libert: c: 2. in the bushes and thickets of intricate discourses, and in the meanders and labyrinths of uncouth language, wherein they desire to be admired, rather than understood: not unlike their predecessors in Calvins' time, of whom he saith, that they were like Gipsees, that had gotten a cheating, and canting language proper to themselves; Quemadmodum circulatores, aliique errones, &c peculiari sermonis genere utuntur● Vide cap: 7 eiusdem libri. and this is one of the first principles of their cozening trade. Surely the Ministry of Christ, and his Apostles, and of all godly teachers, is to cast off all cloaks of shame, and to walk not in craftiness, neither to handle the word of God deceitfully; but in declaration of the truth, to approve themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. 2 Cor: 4. 2 These clean contrary study how to involve things in darkness, Non est humano aut seculi sensu in Dei rebus loquendum. Hilar. lib. 8 de Trinit. and to obscure and extinguish (if they could) the light, and devise to speak as in the riddles and oracles of old, in ambiguous, and newminted phrases of their own; as if the phrase and expressions of the Scriptures were only to be rejected in opening of the mysteries of Scriptures. Sequamur loquendi regulam quam tradit Scriptura, neque extra illos fines evagemur. But leaving these bold impostors to set the holy Ghost to school to teach him to speak, we acknowledge we have not only a rule of doctrine prescribed us in the Scriptures, but also a rule of speaking, unto which we must frame ourselves; and utter wholesome doctrine, Calv. cap: 7. in wholesome words, and words of understanding: and all other lofty, arrogant, and subtle manner of speaking, so as that which is uttered cannot be well understood, the Apostle rejects it as an idle beating of the air. 1 Cor: 14. 9 4. Nourish the grace of humility, for God teacheth the humble: beware of curiosity and affectation of novelties; be wise to sobriety, and think it an high wisdom to be established in ancient and received truths. The fickleness of hearers, and unsettledness in the grounds of holy truth, together with the wantonness of opinions, have opened a wide door to impostors: and while for want of judgement men are ready with Salomon's fool to believe every thing, all the labour and diligence of able and godly Ministers is too weak, to keep multitudes from running after the Ministers of Satan, furnished with all arts to deceive, and to cheat them of the truth which is according to godliness. Against whom while I endeavour to establish others, I may seem to forget myself, and that I must incur many censures and contempts from this lawless generation of men; but my labour is with the Lord, and my reward is my conscience of well-doing: I shall contemn their contempt, love their persons, hate their errors, and study while I am, to be as serviceable to the Church, and the faith once given to the Saints, as I can. CHAP. 1. Containing the ground of the following discourse and dispute, out of Rom. 6. 14. For ye are not under the Law. IN the words of the Apostle are to be enquired, 1. What is meant by the Law: namely, The Moral Law in the ten Commandments, containing our whole duty to God, and to our neighbour. 2. What it is to be under the Law: namely, not under the rule and obedience of the Law, for our Apostle looseth no Christian from that; but Christians are not under the reign of the Law, by the reign of which, sin reigneth unto death. This being the Apostles reason, that the reign of the Law, puts them under the reign of sin. 3. Who are these that are not under the Law? Ye: that is, believers, justified and sanctified persons, that are dead to sin, and alive unto God in jesus Christ our Lord, verse 11. and only these, seeing the natural man is yet in his sins, and under the whole power of the Law in the rigour and extremity of it. Rome 7. 6. We are delivered from the Law, being dead unto it wherein we were holden. But who are these? those that serve in newness of spirit, not in oldness of letter; that is, which now serve God in a new spiritual manner, excited and wrought by the spirit; and not according to the old corruption of our nature before grace, It is the privilege of believers, not to be under the Law. nor according to the external letter of the law, which only breedeth external actions. And that it is the privilege of believers appeareth by these reasons. 4 Reasons. 1. Because Christ was made under the Law, to redeem those that were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, Galat. 4. 4. The reason is good; Christ was under the Law, therefore Christians believing are not under it; and, Christians are redeemed from being under the Law, and therefore are no longer under it. 2. As many as are under the Law, Gal. 3. 10. are under the curse. But it is the privilege of believers, not to be under the curse; for they that are of the faith of Abraham, are blessed with faithful Abraham. Therefore they are not under the Law. 3. It is the privilege of believers, to receive the spirit of Christ. Rom. 8. 14. As many as are Christ's, are led by the spirit of Christ: and therefore they are not under the Law. Gal. 5. 18. If ye be led by the spirit, ye are not under the law. 4. It is the privilege of believers to have eternal life, and the inheritance, by promise, and not by the tenor of the Law; and therefore all they, and only they are free from being under the Law. Gal. 3. 18. If the inheritance be by the Law, it is no more by promise. But God gave it to Abraham by the promise. Were believers under the Law, they should have the inheritance by the Law: but they have it not by the Law, but by promise; and therefore are not under the Law. For the Law and the promise in the cause of righteousness, and life, will not be agreed, no more than light and darkness, fire and water, whose natures are most abhorring. Quest. But what or wherein is this privilege of not being under the Law? Answ. This privilege will appear the clearer, if we consider the danger of being under the Law, The danger of being under the Law, in 4 things in four things. First, in that the Law wrappeth every sinner in the curse of God, both in this life, as also in the life to come; so as he is no where secure, but lieth naked to the curse meeting him at every corner. The Law is a thunderbolt to blast him in his person, in his estate, in his name, in his goods, in his calling, in his comforts, in all his enterprises, and occasions; the sentence is passed upon him, and where ever he is, he is in the way to execution. It would daunt, and astonish the hardiest, and stoniest heart, to hear the sentence of death pronounced upon it for violating the law of his Prince and Country. It would mar all his merriments to conceive he were presently to suffer but a temporal death for offending the law of man. And it would much more spoil the pleasure of sin, if the sinner could with an hearing ear, hear the sentence of eternal death denounced by the Law, against soul and body, for violating the righteous Law of the eternal God. If an house were ready to fall upon a man's head, how would he bestir himself, and wind every way to hie himself out of the danger. But the burden of the Law is more intolerable than the weight of all the sands, and mountains in the world; and this oppressing weight is ready to fall on the head of every sinner: which how should it amaze, and affright them, and make them restless, till they be gotten without the reach of the danger. 2. The Law in the reign of it shuts up heaven, (which receives no trangressour) and setteth the gate of hell wide open upon the sinner; and not only casteth him into hell hereafter, but bringeth an hell into his conscience before hell; that if his heart be not dead within him as Nabals, it is restless as the raging sea, tormenting him for the present with hellish fears, dreadful horrors, and self-accusing; the biting and gnawing of which worm is the very entrance into hell, and a beginning of the eternal torments of it: for the avoiding whereof many wicked men have chosen death, and hastened their own execution, as far more sufferable and easy. 3. The Law in the reign of it, thrusts the sinner under the power of the Devil, as a condemned malefactor into the hand of the executioner, to be ruled at his will. Now must he blind his eyes, and as it were by an handkerchief over his eyes, he must pinion him, and bind him hand and foot, and by effectual delusions prepare him to his death. And what is more just, than that he who will not be led by the spirit of God, should be given up to be ruled by the Devil. 4. The Law in the reign of it, addeth a sting, and sharpeneth the point of all afflictions, which by it become the beginning of hell, and properly curses; retaining their natural acrimony and poison; and are as the red sea, even a well, and a devouring gulf to drown the Egyptians, which same sea is a wall and paved way to save the Israelites. It armeth all God's creatures against the sinner, who are ready in their several ranks to revenge their Lord's quarrel, till he enter into that new covenant; of which see Hosea 2. 18. It is the Law that makes death a door to hell, and a downfall to eternal perdition: the Law is merciless, and knoweth no other condition, but do or die: so as if a man dye under the Law, there is no expectation but of death without mercy. Quest. 2. But how may a man get from under this dangerous estate? Answ. By the attaining and exercise of three saving graces. How a man may get from under this dangerous state. First, Faith in the Son of God; which 1 apprehendeth Christ's righteousness for the fulfilling of the Law. 2. Faith establisheth the Law; both because it attaineth in Christ Remission of sins, and so remission of the rigour of the Law, as also an Imputation of that full righteousness which the Law requireth. 3. Faith is the Law of Christ, by obedience of which Law every believer must live, Habak. 2. 4. and is answerable to the obedience of the whole Law. The second grace is Repentance, and timely turning unto God; this helpeth a man from under this danger. 1. In that it flieth from the dreadful sentence of the Law, and knocketh at the gate of mercy; it seeks and sues for pardon, and will not give over, till it have got a gracious answer, that all the sins are remitted. 2. In that it wipes off all old scores, repealeth all the actions of the Law, getteth all sins cast into the bottom of the sea, never to be remembered any more: nay it gett●●● not only sin's 〈◊〉, but ●ven the law itself 〈…〉 ●ort buried to the penitent person: as Moses body, and is unknown where it was laid. The third grace is new and inchoate obedience to the Law, which is a kind of fulfilling it. For 1. It is a work of the spirit in the regenerate, who hath written the law in their hearts, and made them of rebels and enemies to the Law, and the righteousness of it, lovers of the Law, and lovers of obedience. 2. It hath the promise of acceptance, and is accounted as full and complete obedience to the Law: and themselves now called perfect and undefiled in the way. God looketh not now on their obedience as theirs, but as on his own work in them, nor approveth the person for the work, but the work for the person. Quest. 3. How may we know a man gotten from under this da●ger of the Law? Answ. By sundry notes or marks. Six notes of trial, to know one gotten from under the danger of the Law. First, by subjection to the Gospel in the power of it; when a man contenteth not himself with a title of faith, or a show of profession, or a form of godliness, or a name that he liveth; but groweth in the knowledge and obedience of the Gospel: for would a man be saved, and obey neither the Law nor Gospel? No, no, the Apostle concludeth him under the whole power of the Law, that knoweth not, nor obeyeth the Gospel of Christ, 2 Thes: 1. 8. 2. By thankful walking worthy of the Gospel: Ephes. 2. 10▪ this man knoweth that all the regenerate are God's workmanship; and that the end of all our freedom from sin, is the free and cheerful praise of God: and therefore he cannot but be thankful to Christ his deliverer from under so hard and cruel a Master as the Law, which did nothing but accuse, accurse, terrify and condemn him: now will he highly prise his freedom, and glory in his happy liberty: now will he live to Christ, and for Christ; and ascribe all his happiness unto him, as doth the Apostle for that happy victory over sin and the Law, 1 Cor: 15. last: and Rome 7. 24, 25. 3. There is now peace of conscience, which formerly (if waking) did bite and sting; but now excuseth and acquitteth. I mean not here a senseless or brawny conscience, the issue of a dead conscience; which like a dead man, lay him under a Church or mountain, he is quiet, feeleth nothing, complains of nothing: so lay the secure sinner under the intolerable burden of innumerable sins, his conscience is quiet, and complaineth not. But this peace followeth not from unfeelingnesse, but from feeling sin pardoned, from perceiving sin subdued, and from discerning sin repent of, striven against and conquered: for the spirit of grace is ever a spirit of mourning, and from that sowing in tears ariseth the harvest of joy. 4. He that is got from under the Law is now a Law to himself, that is, he willingly submitteth himself to the rule and obedience of the Law: the way to escape the yoke and coaction of the Law is to become a free and cheerful observer of the Law. Which standeth in three things. 1. In a care to do the duties which the Law requireth, and in such manner as the Law doth require, so near as we can, Psal: 119. 6. Rome 7. 22. 2. In huhumility and grief that we are so short of the Law in our best duties; that when we have done all we can, we are so unprofitable, and that even all our righteousness is as a stained clout. 3. And all this out of love of God, and of obedience, not for fear of hell or judgement: whence God's people are called a willing people. Psal: 110. 4. This must every believer aim at; for he that willingly liveth in the breach of the Law is certainly under the curse of it. 5. A man gotten from under the Law, giveth up himself to the leading of the spirit: Gal: 5. 18. If ye be led by the spirit, ye are not under the Law. Now to be led by the spirit is, 1. To suffer the spirit of God to guide the mind, with knowledge, for he being the spirit of illumination, his office is to lead the Saints into all ●●uth. 2. To allow him to carry and order the heart, will, and affections with cheerfulness, and constancy in all good duties, whence he is called a free spirit, not only because he worketh in himself freely, and as the wind bloweth where he will; but from his powerful effect in the Saints, who by his strong and mighty gales are carried strongly in their motions of grace and obedience. This find and challenge thy freedom from under the Law. But if the spirit that rules in the world guide the course, or Satan carry a man into the foul lusts of uncleanness, worldliness, voluptuousness, malice, or the like, as the swine into the lake; this man is under the whole curse and reign of the Law, because he is under the power and reign of his sin. 6. There is joy and thankfulness for others freedom as for a man's own: he that is truly converted is unfeignedly glad for the work of God's grace in others, Rom. 6. 17. God be thanked that ye have been the servants of sin, but now ye have obeyed the form of doctrine, etc. Eph. 1. 5. Phil. 1. 5. A godly Pastor with Paul wisheth all as himself, except his bonds. A godly parent will rejoice to see his children to walk in the truth. A father or husband cannot content himself with his own safety from a deadly danger, and see his wife and children left in it still. A godly Master as joshua will have all his house serve the Lord with himself, and will not endure in his family, a wicked servant, a vassal, and slave to the Devil, and sin; but will pull him out of the fire or water, or turn him out of doors: yea every sinner converted himself, will strengthen the brethren, as Peter, and David, Psal: 51. 13. By these notes may a man try and discern whether he be yet under the Law or not. CHAP. 2. Explaining the Apostle, and showing how far the believer is from under the Law. HAving showed that it is the privilege of justified persons not to be under the Law; we are now in the next place to limit this proposition of the Apostle within his own bounds; which ancient bounds while our Libertines remove or break down, they open a sluice or floodgate unto all looseness and licentiousness, both of opinion, and practise. For the right understanding of our Apostles meaning, we must consider the Law two ways. First, in the substance of it: or, secondly, in the circumstances or appendices belonging unto it. The substance of the Law standeth in five things. The substance of the Law in 5 things. 1. The Law in the substance of it, Psal. 119. 89. is an eternal doctrine, showing what is good, what is evil, never changed, never abolished, never abrogated, (no not by Christ) but is as a beam from an eternal Sun; and the Sun being eternal, how can the beam but be so also? and thus believers are still under the teaching of it; without which no man can know what God is, nor what is his worship, nor what is the manner of his worship, nor what duties we are to perform, nor how to perform them, either to himself, or to our brethren. 2. The law in the substance of it, is a revealer of sin. Rom. 3. 19 By the Law cometh the knowledge of sin; and every sinner, yea even believers are still under the rebuke of it, so long as in many things they offend all, and stand in need of the Law, both to work them to humility and repentance after new sins committed, to work them to a fear and reverend awe of God, and to drive them out of themselves unto Christ, for recovery out of their daily infirmities; for were there no law, there were no transgression, nor discovery of it, Rom. 4. 15. 3. The Law in the substance of it is a rule of good life, and as the Gospel teacheth how to believe, so the Law teacheth how to live: the Law is as the touchstone to try what is gold in us, and what is dross; it is as the line and plummet to show what is strait, and what is crooked: and thus is under the direction of it both for matter and manner of all actions which please or displease God. For as the Law civil is the rule of civil life, so God's Law is the rule of godly life: and as a good workman that is Master of his trade, will have his rule ever at his back, or in his hand, to measure every piece of his work, that it may stand level and square; so even the believer hath as continual need of the rule of the Law, which (the Apostle saith) is profitable for doctrine, correction, reproof and institution even of the man of God. 2 Tim. 3. 17. 4. The Law in the substance is the express idea or representation of the Law of nature written in our hearts in the time and state of innocency, and the natural principles of it cannot be quite extinct, or shaken out of the heart of the worst man; for the very Heathens had it written in their hearts, Rom. 2. 15. and much less can it be shaken out of the believer, in whom it is renewed and rewritten in their spirits by the finger of God's spirit, jer. 31. 33. Nay the believer cannot choose but be framed to a cheerful and spiritual obedience of it, so long as the spirit performeth that office in them. 5. The Law in the substance of it, promiseth a righteousness, and eternal life to all the performers of it: and no believer expecteth another righteousness, nor another life, nor on any other condition, than the same in the Law; only in another manner and means the same life must be attained, by our full performance of the law, though not in ourselves, but in our surety; and by the same righteousness, not inherent in us, The believer is under the whole substance of the Law. but imputed unto us. So as by this former consideration we see that the believer is still under the whole substance of the Law. And now in the second place seeing the justified person is so many ways under the Law, how saith the Apostle that the believers are not under it? To resolve which point, we must now consider the circumstances and appendices of the Law, which make it an heavy yoke, Seven appendices of the Law, in none of which the believer is under the Law. an intolerable, and insupportable burden, in regard whereof the believer is not under it. These appendices of the Law are seven. First, one consequent of the Law is, that it yoaketh every man to a personal performance of it; for himself must do all things that are written in the Law, to live in them. And this is now an impossible obedience, Rom. 8. 3. because of our flesh. But Christ having perfectly fulfilled the Law for the believer, and becoming the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth: in this regard they are not under this rigour of the Law, which knoweth no surety, no Mediator, no imputed obedience, but in every man's own person; and yet the Gospel remitteth no part of the substance of the Law, which requireth perfect obedience: only it tendereth it in the person of the surety, and gets acceptance when perfect obedience is done for the person, though not by him. 2. Another appendix of the Law is, that this rigorous exaction of personal, and perfect obedience is urged upon pain of eternal death: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the Law, Deut. 27. 26. and Gal. 3. 10. Now the believer is not under this consequent of the Law: for Christ was made a curse for us, and redeemed us from the curse of the Law, Gal. 3. 13. and by him being justified by faith, we escape this damnatory sentence, Rom. 8. 1. But it is one thing to be free from the curse of the Law, another from the Law itself: and it is no good sequel, We are free from this sanction of the Law; therefore from the substance. 3. Another appendix of the Law is, In which regard it I● called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it urgeth and forceth itself upon the conscience with fear and terror; for as was the manner of the Law's delivery at the first, so it still thrusts itself upon the sou●● by coaction and constraint. A●● thus the believer is not und●● the Law; for the grace of 〈…〉 empteth him from the rigorous exaction of it, and frameth his heart to a willing, and cheerful endeavour in obedience; for what the Law prescribes to be done, it helpeth in the doing of it: and as Christ himself became under the Law not forced or coacted, but freely; so is now the Christian. But this being but an adjunct, shall we argue from removing an accident, to the remotion of the subject? or because we are not under the Law as a rigorous exactor, and terrible revenger, therefore we are not under it as a righteous commander, and holy conductor? The 4 consequent of the Law is, that it acknowledgeth no justification or life, but by complete obedience; 〈…〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no life or sal●ation must be expected by the ●w, but by keeping it wholly 〈◊〉 exactly. And thus it is an impossible yoke; for by the works of the Law no flesh can be justified, Rome 3. 20. so as now the believer is not under the Law for justification, unto whom Christ is made righteousness, and whose perfect obedience is imputed, Rome 4. 5. But it is no good argument, that because the Law is fulfilled by Christ, it is therefore abolished by Christ: surely every simple man can distinguish between accomplishing and abolishing the Law: nor it will not follow, that because the Law cannot justify, therefore it cannot instruct, guide, or edify. The 5 consequent is, that the Law is the vigour and strength of sin; that it arraings, and condemneth the sinner, and is the minister of death, 2 Cor: 3. 7. But there is no condemnation to those that are in jesus, Christ, Rome 8. 1. for that heavy sentence of the Law is transferred upon Christ himself, and carried off the believer. But it will never hold weight or water in argument, that because a believer is freed from the damnatory power of the Law, he is free therefore from the mandatory and directory power of it. The 6 consequent or appendix of the Law is, that thereby sin is excited and provoked by our own corruption rebelling against the Law, Rome 7. 11. which is not by the fault of the Law, which remaineth holy, just, and good, v. 12. but by our wicked nature, Quod non lic●t acrius urit. which is more violently carried to that which is forbidden; Gens humana ruit in vet●tum ●e●as. even as an untamed colt, the more it is hampered, the more mad and stirring it is. But the believer is not thus under the incitation of the Law, who by grace is in great part freed from this reluctation and resistance, and by the same grace made tractable and willingly subject to the Law, which they discern to be so concordant, and a very counterpane of the holiness and justice of God himself; and think themselves so far from being loosed from the Law by the doctrine of grace, that they are faster tied to the obedience of it. The 7 and last appendix of the Law, is to consider it as the Law of Moses, and in Moses hand given to the Church of the jews; in which respect it had many circumstantial references to that people, and many accessories in the administration towards them; besides some strictness, rigour, and terror to that people under rudiments: In regard of which, believers in the new Testament are not under the Law as it was in Moses hand; but sundry references and circumstances, as suppose, time, place, persons, tables, testament, manner, measure, terror, rigour are altered, and changed in the Church since Christ's death. But it will prove no good reason, that because an heir in minority is under tutors and rods, therefore he may being come to years live as he list, and become a lawless man: or that because the Law as given by Moses to the Church of the jews is in some circumstances altered, therefore it must be in the whole substance of it abolished and that wholly: or that because the Church of the old Testament was under a straight Law, therefore the Church in the new Testament must be under none. The sum of all is comprised in these three following conclusions: 1. That the regenerate are never sine Lege, Regenerate are not without a Law. that is, without Law: of wicked men is said, that they are lawless, and described to be disobedient, 1 Tim. 1. 8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. ungodly, sinners, unholy, profane, the genuine epithets, and right characters of our late Anomists and Antinomists; but the regenerate are no such. 2. That the regenerate are not (as our Text saith) sub Lege, Nor under the Law in 5 respects. not under the Law: namely in respect, 1. of justification by the Law: 2. of Condemnation by it: 3. of Personal and perfect obedience, which Ch●ist in their stead hath undertaken, and performed: 4. of Coaction and constraint, from which the spirit of liberty hath freed them in great part: 5. of the sundry accessories of Moses his administration to that people to whom it was delivered: in these regards, and some other they are not under the Law. 3. That the regenerate may be truly said to be in Liege, But under, that is, within the compass of the Law that is, in, or under the Law, or within the compass of the Law; in respect, 1. of the doctrine, rule and instruction of it: 2. of their subjection unto it, who frame their lives secundum Legem, according to the Law: 3. of the spirits inscription, who writing it in their hearts keeps them within the compass of it, and holdeth them in the respect and cheerful obedience unto it. And thus we have cleared the meaning of the Apostle in this, and other phrases of the like sound, Ye are not under the Law. CHAP. 3. Proving believers under the rule and direction of the Moral Law. NOw because the sons of Belial are come out, and tumultuously are risen (as did the heathens) against the Lord, and his most righteous Law, Psal. 2. 2, 3 saying, Let us break these bonds, and cast these cords from us; for we are under the teaching of grace, and under the rule of the spirit, all our work is done to our hand, and we have nothing left for us to do, and therefore the Law to us is as the seven green cords on Sampsons' arms, which he broke off as a thread of tow when it toucheth the fire, judg. 16. 9 and ourselves as lose, and at liberty from it, as he was from them; for the whole Law is abolished to us wholly. Therefore we are to prove against them, that true believers have both a true use of the Moral Law, and besides their lively faith, wherein they have received the spirit, have need of the directions, and doctrines of the Moral Law, for the performance of the duties of it: and that by these reasons. If the same sins be forbidden after faith as before, 1 Reason All the same sins are forbidden after faith as before. then is the Law in some force to believers. But the same sins are forbidden them after faith as before. And therefore the Law is in some force to them. The proposition is clear, because the Law only discovereth and revealeth sin, Rom. 7. 7. as the Gospel doth the remedy. The assumption is also manifest, because the Law is an eternal truth, and is never at agreement with any sin in whomsoever. Concupiscence before faith is sin, and no less sin after faith in the regenerate: David's murder, and adultery were sins after faith; and the same man that believed in God, committed adultery with Bathsheba. Object. These were foul sins in themselves, but not in him because he was justified. Answ. Then Nathan was deceived in saying, Thou art the man: and David, when he said, I have sinned. Had David sin after faith? then was David under a Law for obedience: for every sin is the transgression of the Law, 1 joh. 3. 4. and where no Law is, can be no transgression. The like of Peter in the new Testament apparently a believer, for Christ prayed that his faith should not fail; yet after that fell into those foul sins against the Law, rash swearing, and false swearing, and cursing himself; which were foul sins in him, as well as in themselves; why should he else go out, and weep bitterly? Peter, as full of shifts as he was to save his skin, was to seek in this shift, to turn off all his sin, and sorrow at once, that being a believer, and in the new Testament, the Law had nothing to do with him. This argument our Novatians and Famelists can by no other shift avoid, but by flying to a perfect purity in themselves: for this is a dangerous, and desperate principle of their Catechism rife in the mouths of their Novices, Be in Christ, and sin if thou canst; and is very coherent with their other tenants: for were the Moral Law indeed wholly abolished, why should they not worship false Gods, swear, break the Saboth, rebel, kill, whore, steal? what should hinder them from railing, and reviling all Ministers and people, besides their own sect, as in a dead faith, The Saints are perfect not perfectists. as only moral men in state of death? all this is no sin: abolish the Law, and thou mayst say, Sin if thou canst. But oh vain men. Psal. 119. 120. Can David sin, and for his sin his flesh tremble with fear of God's judgements? Can Peter at the side of Christ sin, and that after so many warnings of Christ himself? Doth Paul know but in part, and after faith find a law in his members rebelling against the law of his mind? Rom. 7. 15. 19 23. and that after grace received, the good he would do, he did not, and the evil he would not do, that did he? and are you in so high a form beyond these worthies, that you cannot sin if you would? Ponder a little these places of Scripture and if you be still mad of your perfection, Hypocratis magis fomentis, quam monitis nostris indigent. I will say of you as jerom of your fellows; You had more need of physic to purge your brains, than persuasion to inform your judgements. Eccles: 7. 20. There is not a just man on earth that doth good, and finneth not. 1 Kings 8. 46. For there is no man that sinneth not. Object. No? He that is borne of God sinneth not. Answ. The Apostle saith not simply and absolutely that he hath no sin, Non dicit non peccat, sed non dat operam peccato. Beza. or sinneth not; but he sinneth not industriously, he makes not a trade of sin, he sins not as the wicked do, nor sinneth not in reigning sin, Qui ambulant in viis Domini, non operantur peccatum, et tamen non sunt sine peccato. August. in Psa. 118 conc. 2. nor sinneth unto death, without return and repentance, because the seed of God abideth in him, and destroyeth in him the work of the Devil. Prov. 20. 9 Who can say, I am pure from sin? Who? I can say so, and I can, saith every Libertine; my sin may be sought for, and cannot be found; and mine, saith another, is washed off, that it cannot be seen; and mine, saith a third, is as a bottle of ink dispersed in the sea, and not to be discerned. And indeed thus it is in the justified in respect of God's account, and imputation; but while they speak so magnifically of themselves in respect of the presence of sin, they only blow up their bladder bigger, which all the while is swelled up but with stinking wind and emptiness. But they would have some places out of the new Testament, as men beyond the reach of the old. Non peccare Dei iustitia est, hominis iustitia, indulgentia Dei. Bern. ser. 23 in Cantic. And so they may. jam. 3. 2. In many things we sin all: We all; all Apostles, all Christians; sin, that is, transgress the Law; in many things, by daily failings and errors: and therefore all we in the new Testament, since Christ's death, though we be justified by faith, Nunc bene vivitur si sine crimine; sine peccato autem qui se vivere existimat, non id agit ut peccatum non habeat, sed ut veniam non accipiat. Aug. Enchirid. are under the rule and obedience of the Law; because we sin in many things. 1 joh. 1. 8. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us. We: Who? The Apostle speaketh of carnal men, say some of the Libertines: as if the Apostle was a carnal man: but the former verse expresseth who they be that have sin; those that walk in the light; Haec est regeneratorum perfectio, si se imperfectos esse agnoscant. August. those that are in communion of Saints, and have fellowship one with another; and those that are justified and sanctified, whom the blood of jesus Christ his Son hath cleansed from all sin. If the same duties be required of all after faith as before, 2 Reas. and every conscience bound to the performance; then the Law in the whole use is not abolished to believers. But the first is true: The same duties are required after faith as before. and therefore the second. The former appears, because where any duty is commanded, there the rule of that duty is implied: and this rule is the Moral Law, which bindeth all men to all duties of it both before and after Christ, being an eternal measure of all that is right or crooked. That it is a rule of duty before Christ, they deny not; and that it is a rule of duty since Christ, I make it plain thus. 1. Because Christ himself did confirm, expound, establish and fortify the Law by his word and authority, which was the scope of his large Sermon upon the Mount, in Mat. 5. 6. and 7 chapters: which had it been to be utterly abolished, Quod accuratius Christus exposuit, magis pertinere ad Christianos creditur. he would rather have declaimed bitterly against the Law as our Antinomists do, & have rather commended the pharisees for weakening it by their glosses; than have vindicated it, and restored to the full strength and power of it. 2. Our Lord not only confirms it in itself by his doctrine and life, but also in the conscience of every Christian. Matth. 5. 19 He that breaketh the least of these commandments, and teacheth men so to do, shall be least in the kingdom of heaven: but he that shall teach and observe them, shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven: that is, shall be honoured, and counted a worthy member in the Church of God. No, saith the Libertine, we must not teach the Law in the Church; and those that do are legal Preachers, that lead men into a dead faith; we must do nothing, because God commands us: nay we not only reverse the least of them, but all at once, and teach others so to do. See now if fire be more contrary to water, or Christ to Belial; than Christ to these sons of Belial, that will be under no yoke of the Law, no rule, no obedience. 3. The Apostles after Christ bring converted Christians every where to the rule of the Law, and frequently allege the Law to urge the duties of it: and therefore the Law ceaseth not to be the rule in the new Testament; for if it had, they would not have pressed exhortations by the Law. Rom. 12. 19 Dear beloved, avenge not yourselves: Why? For it is written, Vengeance is mine. Rom. 13. 8, 9 pressing the duty of love, the only debt beseeming a Christian, he urgeth it by this argument; because, love is the fulfilling of the Law; and repeateth all the commandments of the second Table, not to repeal or reverse any of them, but to confirm them as the rule still, and comprehendeth them all in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Ephes' 6. 1. Children obey your parents; and presseth the duty from the Law; for this is the first commandment with promise. Heb. 12. 28. Let us have grace to serve God acceptably, with reverence and fear. Why? For our God is even a consuming fire. Did not now the Apostles come as well with a rod, as with the spirit of meekness? 1 Cor. 4. 21 did not they persuade men, as knowing the terror of the Lord? 2 Cor. 5. 11 did not they call men's eyes, not only to behold the goodness of God, but also to behold his severity? Rom. 11. 22. Dare now an audacious Libertine step out and tell the Apostles (as they tell us) that they were legal Preachers, that they taught men popery and justification by works; and that they made men only moral Christians, because they held the Law before them as the rule of all duties both of piety and charity? If Christ came not to abolish the Law, 3 Reas: Christ came not to abolish the Law, and therefore it is not abolished. but to fulfil it, than the Law is not abolished: for either Christ abolished it, or none; and either by his coming, or not at all. But Christ chargeth us, not to think that he came to abolish it, Matth. 5. 17. For what is it to destroy the Law, but to take from it that virtue and power whereby it is a Law, and to make it of none effect. Christ came not to destroy the Law, why? And that Christ came not to destroy the Law is manifest: because 1. It is his own Law, which must endure for ever in heaven, Psal. 119. 2. Because it is holy, just, and spiritual, Rom. 7. 13. Which words imply, 1. That there is in it a supernatural, divine, and unperishing virtue, resembling God himself, who shall as easily be destroyed as his Law. 2. That it serveth to be a divine direction of all men▪ in all holy, just and spiritual duties. 3. That it is an holy instrument of the spirit, by which he leadeth out the faithful into the practice of those duties. 4. That whosoever have the spirit sent to dwell, and rule, and to write the Law in their hearts; they cannot detract from the Law; but the more spiritual themselves are, the more do they discern the spiritual power of it, and frame to the spiritual observance of it: so did the Apostle in this place; so David, Psal. 19 7, 8. and 119. 39 Nay Christ came to fulfil it, But to fulfil it, how? in himself, and in his members. 1. By preaching, illustrating, and enforcing the Law, by vindicating it from false glosses, and restoring to the full and first strength of it; by all which he showeth it to be immutable and eternal. 2. By plenary and full satisfaction of it, and by his perfect, and personal obedience, both active and passive; so as he fulfilled all the righteousness of it; and left not one iota of it unfulfilled. 3. By donation of his spirit, writing the Law in the hearts of the elect, and inciting them to new and cheerful obedience of it; for to this end the Saints receive the law of the spirit of life, that they may not walk after the flesh any more, Rom. 8. 2. but after the spirit, If the Apostles after Christ did not abrogate the Law, 4 Reas. Nor the Apostles abolished the Law. but establish it; than it is not abolished to believers in the new Testament. But they by the doctrine of faith did not. Rom. 3. 31. Do we abrogate the Law by faith? God forbid; nay we establish it. Where the Apostle cries down that gross conceit of the contrariety of the Law and Gospel, so as one of them must needs devour the other, as Moses rod did the rods of the enchanters. True it is they are a distinct and diverse doctrine; but in God and his word is no contrariety▪ And true it is the Law and Gospel will never stand together in the justification of a sinner before God, Lex et fides mutuo se iuvant, mutuo sibi dant manus. P. Mart. yet they friendly concur and agree in Christian conversation, wherein they are inseparable, as also they are in Christian institution: yea here they help one another, as one hand doth another. Whence the holy Apostles who knew that the Gospel was not properly and substantially the Law; yet usually in the publication of the Gospel confirm the authority of the Law. But confirm the authority of it. See some instances. Rom. 1. 18. The Gospel is the power of God to salvation: and by it not only the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, but the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness: not that the Gospel is a ministry of wrath, but a witness that wrath hangs over the heads of wicked men rejecting the Gospel. Rom. 2. 16. Christ shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel: that is, according to the witness of the Gospel preached by me. 1 john 2. 1. Brethren, I write these things to you that you sin not: and what did he write else but the sweet tidings of the Gospel, 1 joh. 1. 9 that is any confess his sins, God is faithful and just to forgive them; and that if any sin, we have an advocate with the Father, & c? For as no man can teach any duty of the Law, but therein calls to faith: for call to the love of God, the substance of the first Table; must not he be first believed, and then loved? or to prayer; how can they call on him on whom they have not believed? and so in the rest: so neither can a man preach faith without some reference to the Law; for can a man believe a remedy without knowledge, & search of the wound? nay it is the Law that fits us to prize Christ a physician, or else would we never meddle with him, no more than he would seek out for a garment that hath no sense of his shame or nakedness. What if the Law know not, nor command one to die, or satisfy for another; yet it doth not deny, or exclude, or hinder the mercy of God revealed in the Gospel, but maketh way unto it. The Apostles therefore did not abrogate the Law by faith; nay (saith our Apostle) we establish it. From whence the argument will rise stronger: If the Apostles did establish the Law by the doctrine of faith, then is not the Law abolished to believers in the new Testament. But they did establish the Law by faith. Quest. How doth faith establish the Law? Answ. 1. In showing that all the menaces and curses of it are not in vain, but all fulfilled in Christ, who was laid under them all to free us from them. 2. It fulfils the Law, because it bringeth before God the perfect fulfilling of the Law for justification; though not in ourselves, yet in our surety, in whom we have perfectly fulfilled it, and shall live by it; the Law must be absolutely fulfilled by us in our surety, or we cannot live. 3. It stablisheth the Law, because faith worketh by love: which love is the fulfilling of the Law: so as by faith being justified, as we are in a stronger obligation to the duties of it, so we begin a new obedience to all the commandments, Dicatur mihi in decem praeceptis quid non fit a Christiano observandum. Cant. Faust. lib. 3. and there is no duty which a Christian is not firmly obliged unto. Tell me (saith Augustine) what there is in all the ten commandments, what it is that a Christian is not bound unto? 4. Because by faith we can pray, and by the prayer of faith obtain the spirit of God, by whom we are supplied with needful strength to obey the Law: Fides impetrat gratiam qu● Lex impletur. so August: faith obtains grace, by which the Law is fulfilled: and Ambrose saith, that faith stablisheth the Law, because faith shows those duties to be done which the Law commandeth to be done. Quia quae in Lege dicta sunt facienda, per fidem ostenduntur facta. Ambros. And thus have we strengthened our fourth argument, which hath proved that the Apostles of Christ abolished not the Law, but established it: and therefore it is not without use and force in the new Testament. In whomsoever must be a constant endeavour of conformity to the Law, 5 Res: Every believer is bound to strive to conformity with the Law. to those the Law is not abolished. This is plain, because where any thing is to be regulated, there the rule is necessary. But every believer after conversion must strive to a conformity with the Law, 1. in his inner man, 2. in his outward man, 3. in his whole man. 1. In his inner man, 1. In his inner man▪ he must delight in the Law of God, Rom. 7. 22. both in his mind he must serve the Law of God, verse 25. and in his affections he must love the Law. Psal. 119. 97. Oh how love I thy Law. Psal. 1. 1. The blessed man delighteth in the Law of the Lord: not only in the knowledge of it (which an hypocrite may) but in the conformity of their hearts and affections with it; they carry friendly affections to the Law. Our Antinomists outboast all men in point of their justification. justificati amici Legis efficiuntur. Ambr. in Rom. 8. But St: Ambrose his rule denieth them to be justified, because they are not friends with the Law. And Mr. Luther, whom they challenge as their friend, and favourer, rangeth them among unjustified, Qui dicit se diligere Legem mentitur; tam enim amamus Legem, quam homicida carc●rem. and unregenerate men; of whom he saith, that they love the Law, as well as a murderer loveth the prison, and so well love these the Law, and therefore by his censure rejected among the unregenerate. 2. In his outward man, 2. In his outward man. and action the justified man must testify that the Law of God is written in his heart: so the Apostle, 1 joh. 2. 17. He that fulfilleth the commandment abideth for ever. What is this commandment, and what is it to fulfil it? The commandment is the same which he had delivered in the former part of the chapter, consisting of two branches. 1. To believe in the Son of God, as our only satisfaction, our only advocate, and the reconciliati on for the sins of the world, v. 1,. 2. That we embrace him as our unerring pattern of our lives, and walk as he walked, v. 6. Quest. How did he walk? Answ. 1. In the general observation of the whole Law. 2. In special: In the perfect love of the brethren, v. 9 and in the contempt of the world. Now must Christ walk in the obedience of the commandments, and must not the Christian? Yes, saith the Apostle, Every Christian must fulfil the commandment. Object. What will you teach justification by works? Answ. No, we call not men to legal fulfilling of the commandment, but evangelical: as 1. when the mind delighteth in the Law of God, as holy, just and good. 2. When the heart hides it, to conform unto it. 3. When the affection desireth to fulfil it, rejoiceth when he can attain to any obedience, and sorroweth when he faileth in it. 4. When in his actions he beginneth that obedience which shall end in perfect fulfilling: this the Gospel accepteth, and accounteth a fulfilling of the commandment. Thus the Apostle, Rome 8. 4. The righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us, which walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit: that is, Christ by his meritorious obedience to the death, hath not only freed us believers from the condemning power of sin, but from the commanding power of it; and so renewed our nature, as that the Law of God shall be fulfilled in us: and that two ways. 1. By application of his own perfect fulfilling of it unto us; with whom we by faith being united unto him, whatsoever is his being the head, is ours also being members. 2. By our sanctification it is fulfilled in us inchoately: that is, by obedience begun here, which at last shall be perfected, so as not the least motion or desire contrary to the Law shall be left in our nature. Thus is the righteousness of the Law fulfilled, not by us, but in us, even here below; and is our rule both in earth and in heaven. 3. In his whole man, 3. In his whole man. the believer must grow up to the image of Christ, and to the conformity of his holiness, which is no other but the perfect image of God expressed in the Law. This growth in grace, and sanctification, is called the rising up to full holiness, as the Sun riseth up higher till perfect day. Prov. 4. 18. The way of the just is as the light, which shineth more and more till perfect day. But this cannot be done without the help of the Law, the only rule by which, and the scope unto which it must be directed. For 1. how should a believer free from sin know himself in the service of righteousness, as Rom. 6. 18. if he be under no command, or if his obedience be without rule or direction? 2. or how should he discover his daily errors, to be humbled for them? how should he remember from whence he is fallen? or be raised to do his first works (for all this must further his sanctification) without the rule of the Law? 3. Or, how should he see the imperfection, and uncleanness that cleaveth to his best duties, whereby he is kept from proud Pharisaisme, and the arrogant conceits of these libertine perfectists; but by this stra●ght, and unalterable rule of the Law? By all which reasons it appeareth it that the Moral law is not without force and 〈◊〉 unto believers. CHAP. 4. Discovering the true grounds of opposing so clear a doctrine. WE never read of heretic, Nisi dum Scriptu●ae bon●e intelliguntur ō● bene, & quoth in iis non ben● intelligitur, etiam temere & audacter asseritur; Aug. expos. in joh. trac. 18. but he would challenge the sacred Scriptures as the grounds of his heresy, which indeed are the only hammer of heresy: and even so these spiders, who suck poison out of the sweetest flowers, set a flourish and varnish over their poisonful opinions with some Scriptures, either wrested and writhe out of their own sense, or broken off from other Scriptures & themselves; Habent ●crip●uras● a● sp●ciem, non a● salutem▪ De● Baptis contra Donat. lib. 4▪ for they have the Scriptures, as Aug: saith, the Donatists had the Sacraments for ostentation rather than for salvation. This vizard we shall put off in the 9 chapter, which shall vindicate the Scriptures foully mistaken and misapplied by them, and restore them to their true sense and strength against themselves; for no sword is so fit to take off Goliahs' head as his own, and no weapons can be more keen against these, as those which we shall wrest out of their own hands. But in the mean time we will first lay open the true grounds of this unhappy schism, and the right rise of these palpable errors. And these I observe to be three. 1. Gross ignorance: 2. swelling pride: 3. love of licentiousness, joined with the hatred of holiness, The first main ground of this schism Ignorance as we shall discover in their order. As truth hath no enemy but falsehood, neither light any contrary but darkness; so the clear rays and beams of saving knowledge, issuing from Christ the Sun of righteousness, are darkened and obscured in corrupt minds by the clouds and mists of ignorance, the common mother of mistakes and errors: for what can a man in the dark do other than miss his way, and mar his work? And what hath made these audacious Libertines bold but blindness? who while they busy their heads in idle and fruitless speculations, and waste their discourses in idle and impertinent questions, are grossly ignorant in the very principles of Catechism, High quidem hom●nes indocti sunt, ac idiotae, qui non usque adeo evolvendis chartis sunt exercitati, ut exijs de●●ria sua addisc●re potuerint. Instruct. advers. Libert. cap. 1. and far to seek in the very lowest grounds of religion. I remember Mr. Calvins' observation concerning the same sectaries of his time: That whereas other heresies were raised, and defended by men of learning, wit, education, and reading: this was set on foot, and maintained by idiots, rude, & illiterate men, that never learned their frenzy by turning books, but in some cobblers or artificers shops and places of rude resort: for the basest school (saith he) will serve to teach a man to blaspheme God: and to prove his assertion, he nameth the two chief champions, who in his time raised and spread it about Geneva, both well known to him and drew a great multitude after them; Alter cubicularius, alter hostiarius libenter fieri sustinuer●t. Cap 4. c●usdem libri. of whom one would willingly have had the preferment of an ostler or porter; and the other of a chamberlain or tapster; fit captains for their skill to levy, and lead such a band: and even such are the bricks that at this day are framed out of such clay; a base sort of people, whose ignorance (in the high conceit of knowledge) lays them open to delusion, and wrappeth them in errors, so as none that savour of liberty comes amiss unto them: whereof while I give a list, or catalogue, let none think that I father any child on them but their own (if they will own their own writings) or any opinion, but such as for the looseness of it, and likeness with the rest of the brood, will father itself. I know I have to deal with men as slippery as eels, who can play fast and loose with their own tenants at their pleasure (for what can hold them whom God's Law cannot) Sure I am, many of them will deny those to be their opinions, or in this sense; or reject them on some private persons, or absolutely deny what they resolutely hold, if any way they may either advantage themselves, or disadvantage their impugner. Nor herein I am not uncharitable: It is not long since one of their Masters (in the hearing of a Minister, june 12. who himself related the story unto me) taught a number of silly women gathered into his house on the saboth day; That the Law was wholly abolished: That God could see no sin in the justified: That they were as perfectly pure as the Angels; yea as Christ himself: with great vehemency and contention both establishing these and the like grounds and principles of his Catechism, and reviling our legal Preachers, that lead men into a dead faith. But upon the thursday after, meeting the same Minister at the High Commission Court, and fearing some danger towards him; he disclaimed to him with as much earnestness, all that he had then taught in every particular. The Minister only dismissing him with admonition, to consider how he could answer God and his own conscience, in seducing so many silly women against his knowledge, only to maintain his teeth. It shall not much trouble me whether they own them or renounce them: I avow them to be errors, and not only creeping in the dark, but emboldening themselves into the light, and such as are very prejudicial to many wellmeaning but weak minds, for whose satisfaction and settling I have set them down as I have met with them in their papers, with some short antidote and preservative against them, intending rather a short survey, than any large refutation of them. 1 ERROR. That Christ came to abolish the Moral Law: and that the Gospel takes away all obedience to the commandments: and that true faith standeth at defiance with working and doing. Answ. This threefold error ariseth out of a threefold ignorance. 1. Out of the ignorance of the end of Christ's coming, Ignorance of the end of Christ's coming. who saith expressly, that he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it: in himself legally; in believers evangelically: as we have proved largely in the former chap: reas. 3. 2. In the ignorance of the nature of the Gospel; 2. Of the nature of the Gospel. which is so far from taking away all obedience to the Law, as that it indeed teacheth and requireth obedience unto it; not whereby we perform the Law; but testify our faith in the Gospel; and is therefore called the obedience of faith. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The Law indeed calleth for personal obedience to satisfy and justify before God, Rom. 1. 5. but so doth not the Gospel; but only for an obedience to testify our love to Christ, who hath satisfied it for us: for this is testified by keeping the commandments. joh. 14. 23. If any man love me, he will keep my commandments. What love then in these men, that will keep no commandments? Object. Our love makes us keep his commandments: but what is that to the commandments of the Law? Answ. As if Christ did not command the same love and duties in the Moral Law. See Matth. 22. 37, 38. where Christ enjoineth the young man all the duties of both tables. 1 joh. 3. 23. This is his commandment, that we should believe, and love one another. Is this his commandment of any other love than that which is the sum of the second table? and what were the commandments of the Apostles, but evangelical commandments, & commandments of Christ? and yet they commanded duties of the Law. 1 Thess. 4. 2. Ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord jesus. What were they? Such as concerned fornication, v. 3. and oppression & fraud, v. 6. and were not these the same duties of the Law? The 3 error floweth from ignorance of the nature of faith; 3. Of the nature of faith. which is so far from renouncing obedience, that it is never severed from obedience; and it is not true faith that worketh not by love: for what is it to believe? it is not only to assent to what the scripture saith; but to adhere and cleave unto it, and to the Lord in the obedience of it: as Henoch by faith walked with God; Abraham by faith left his Country; abode in the land of Canaan as a stranger; offered his son Isaac, etc. And whence is it that obedience is called a fruit of faith? for every act of grace must rise from the root of that grace, as every fruit from his own root; so as works of charity are rooted in charity, which is a distinct grace from faith: yet are they called fruits of faith, because the doctrine of faith enjoins them, and the grace of faith inclines the soul unto them; and because faith receives the spirit of Christ for sanctification, as well as the merit of Christ for justification. But why do they exclaim against us for preaching and embracing a dead faith, while they obtrude on their proselytes a faith which must not work by love; which, if they will believe S. james, is a dead faith 2 ERROR. That godly life hath nothing to do with keeping commandments. Answ. The Scripture saith, Godly life is nothing but keeping commandments. that godly life is nothing else but the fulfilling of the commandment, and will of God revealed. 1 joh. 2. 17. He that fulfilleth the commandment abideth for ever: which is to be meant of evangelical fulfilling, not legal. See chap. 3. arg. 5. One thing it is to exercise good works in way of obedience, another to rely on them in way of righteousness. 2. Our charge is in every thing to prove and try what is the good and acceptable will of God: and have we nothing to do with commandments the rule of trial? certainly we can neither do any just thing without the rule of justice, nor prosecute it justly. 3. The life of Christ was most godly, yet was said of him, Heb. 10. 7. In the volume of the book it is written of me, that I should do thy will: and hereunto must every member be framed that must be in conformimity with the head. 4. Not any duty of godly life can be acceptable or comfortable, but that which is warranted by a commandment, and we must know it so to be; there can be no right worship, or worshipper, but he that doth the will of God. joh. 9 31. If any be a worshipper of God, and doth his will, him he heareth. So dost thou express love, show mercy, execute justice, or practise any virtue, and not by virtue of any commandment? he that will not hear the Lord, saying, What I command thee, that do only: shall hear, Who required these things at your hands? 3 ERROR. That blessedness is merely passive, and therefore it is in vain to put men upon actions for that end. Answ. It is so to us in respect of merit and price; but in respect of fruition, it is obtained instrumentally by faith which is an action, and is said to be ours▪ yea our own; for the just lives by his own faith: Hab. 2. 4. not because we are authors or causes of it, but subjects in whom God worketh it, and because by it things believed become our own. 2. We are mere patients in the causes of blessedness; We are mere patients in the causes of blessedness, but not in the conditions of it. but in respect of conditions we are not so: for as we said of faith, we may also say of good works; God enableth to them, but man worketh them, and walketh in the way of them to blessedness: not that our works are causes, but conditions without which blessedness is not attained. See Matth. 25. 35. 3. This assertion bewrayeth great ignorance of the proper and present use of sanctification, and the duties of it; which they conceive as legally urged, to help the believer in his title and right to the blessed inheritante purchased in heaven: Christ's righteousness only gives right to heaven; but our sanctification gives a fitness and aptitude to it. whereas only Christ's righteousness and merits give right and title unto heaven; but yet the grace of sanctification gives us an aptitude and fitness unto it: for, without holiness none shall see God, Heb. 12. 14. and, no unclean thing shall enter into the gates of that City. Rev: 21. 27 Yea it is proceeding in sanctification to the measure, and stature of Christ, that fits us to the vision, and fruition of the glorious presence of God; and for the full possession of that heavenly inheritance. 4 ERROR. That the justified person is free from all spot of sin, and perfectly righteous: for justice requires that a man should be as perfect as by creation before acceptation. Answ. 1. justice requireth that God's wrath should be pacified, and a righteousness procured whereby the sinner may be accepted to mercy; but not a plenary and personal perfection. 2. They show gross ignorance in the nature of justification, justification freeth the believer from the condemnation of sin, but not from inhabitation. which frees the believer from the condemnation of sin, but not from the inhabitation or molestation: for sin is in the godly after justification. 1 joh. 1. 8. If we (that is, we that walk in the light, and have communion one with another) say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. 3. Faith itself in the justified is sincere, but not perfect; for as we know things believed but in part, so we believe but in part; our eye is not more dim to see, than our hand is weak to receive: yea even in the best faith is imperfect, and mingled with doubting. Moses●aith ●aith quailed at the Rock; Elias in a passion would be dead; yea even Abraham himself, who was strong in faith, though he doubted not of infidelity, yet he doubted of infirmity, Gen. 15. 3. By long delay, his faith was sore shaken, when he said, that Eliezer of Damascus must be his heir. Now would I know how that which is itself imperfect, Imperfect faith cannot make perfect. and not free from spot of sin, can make another altogether spotless. See more hereof in the second ground of this opposition. CHAP. 5. Containing four more pernicious and erroneous opinions. 5 ERROR. That no action of the believer after justification is sin, for unto faith there is no sin; for all sin past, present, and to come, is taken away by the blood of Christ, and no sin remaineth in the kingdom where faith reigneth, and sitteth judge; it is out of the Law's element to judge of this blessed condition: Neither can God allow any work that is defective in the believer. Answ. Here is the ghost of H. N. in this piece of new Gospel, which tells us a dream of an absolute reign of faith, where is still remaining sin. True it is that faith deposeth the reign of sin, that it rule not, but so as that itself never reigneth in this life without the presence and assault of sin; for such as say they have no sin with their faith, deceive themselves. 2. It is enough for the state of this life, that faith frame the heart to willing and sincere obedience▪ though not to perfect and absolute. 3. It argues their gross ignorance in the Scriptures, Persons of believers imperfect, yet pleasing to God. which affirm, that both persons and duties of believers, though imperfect & defective, are yet pleasing. 1. For their persons, God looketh upon them in Christ, & pronounceth of them, that though they be black, yet they are comely. Prov. 12. 22. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him. Psal. 147. 11. The Lord taketh pleasure in his people. Acts 10. 35. In every Nation he that feareth him is accepted of him. 2. For their duties, And duties also. though they be imperfect, yet they please him, because their persons do. Mal. 3. 4. Then shall the offerings of judah and jerusalem be pleasing unto thee. Phil. 4. 18. An odour of sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable and wellpleasing unto God: speaking of the alms and charity of that Church. Col. 3. 20. Children obey your parents, for this is wel-pleasing to the Lord. And our comfort and happiness is, that he pleaseth to accept from us that which is sincere, though weak, and imperfect. 6 ERROR. That our Preachers teach Popery in persuading good works to further men's own salvation. Answ. Our doctrine and practise herein agreeth with the doctrine of the Scriptures, Godly Ministers preach not popery in calling for good works to further men's salvation. and with the practice of Christ and his Apostles, and because the Sectaries cast this imputation upon godly Ministers, to weaken their authority among their people, it will not be amiss in few words to clear it: and that in these positions. 1. We teach according to Scripture, That every good work must rise from a good worker, for the tree must first be good: and men gather not figs of thistles. So as a good work is proper to a justified person, Non praecedit iustificandum, sed sequitur iustificatum, Aug. and the use of it cannot be to justify, because he is justified already. 2. We teach the necessity of the duties of the Law to salvation; not as causes or merits of our salvation or justification; Non necessitate efficientiae, sed necessitate praesentiae. which were to dethrone Christ, and preach Popery, but as a way and means appointed by God to walk into heaven: Via regni non causa regnandi. and so the Apostle preached them necessary. Tit: 3. 14. Let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses: and every simple man knoweth, that the holding of the way must needs further the journey, and conduce to the place intended. 3. We carefully always distinguish between the justice of works, Distinguish between the justice of works, and the presence of them. which conduceth nothing to salvation; and the presence of works, without which there is no expectation of salvation: for without their presence all faith is dead, Iam: 2. 26. and all religion vain. Iam: 1. 26. 4. We distinguish in this doctrine, the principal efficient cause of righteousness and salvation, from the instrumental. Is it a good reason, that because Christ is the principal efficient, The meritorious cause of salvation, excludeth not instrumental. and the only meritorious cause of our salvation; that therefore all the instrumental and adjuvant causes and means of salvation must be cut off and cast away? True it is that God alone decreeth our salvation, Christ alone meriteth it, the spirit alone sealeth it: but yet the Gospel revealeth it, and that saveth; faith apprehendeth it, and that saveth: the Ministers they preach it, and they save, namely ministerially. 1 Tim: 4. 16. Thou shalt save thyself, and them that hear thee. Did the Apostle write popery, or derogate from Christ, in saying that Timothy did save himself and others? or is it such a piece of popery to say, that the use of the means doth further the end? 5. What will you say of St. Paul, who commands us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling? It seemeth he thought that men must do something toward their own salvation: Qui fecit te sinc te, non salvat te sine te. as that Father did, who saith, that though God made us without ourselves, yet he saveth us not without ourselves. And Phil: 4. 17. when he calleth duties of beneficence and charity, a fruit furthering our reckoning; that is, as a means, not as a merit. I would know how they should further our reckoning, and not further our salvation. True it is that mercy accepteth that for a furthering of our reckoning, which in strict justice would not go for payment: but yet seeing the same mercy takes us into the work, we may persuade also with the Apostle, that Christians would be still thus furthering their own reckoning. The same Apostle speaking of the same duties, 2 Cor: 9 6. calleth them a sowing, and saith, He that soweth liberally▪ shall reap liberally. Whether do not these men think, that sowing is a furtherance to the harvest? Surely S. Paul thought so, & yet minded not to strengthen popery: for neither is he that soweth any thing, neither he that reapeth any thing, but God that giveth the promise, and increase. The same Apostle speaking of the duties of Christian suffering, saith not only that they turn to the salvation of the Saints, Phil: 1. 9 but also that our light and momentany afflictions cause unto us an eternal weight of glory. & do they not then further our salvation? and what doth the Apostle Peter say less? when he saith, that by addition, and exercise of graces, 2 Pet. 1. 11. an entrance is ministered abundantly into the kingdom of Christ. And why doth the Apostle excite Christians every day to further themselves in the way of salvation, as runners by speed and strength get nearer the goal; if we may not urge the doctrine of good works, and Christian duties, in pretence of the Law's abolition? which certainly was as much abolished in the Apostles days as now? 7 ERROR. That not as much as any outward worship of God required in the Law is to be performed by true believers since the coming of Christ: because all the worship of the new Testament is inward and spiritual. Ioh: 4. 23. The hour cometh, etc. and to receive the doctrine of the Gospel by faith, is to worship the Father: Neither hath any other good work done in obedience to the Moral Law any reward: because all is the free gift of God. Answ. 1. Here is a bundle of errors tied together, all for the upholding of atheistical liberty; whereby they would trample under foot all Gods sacred ordinances at once, and lose themselves from all care, and conscionable use of the means of salvation: these wild conceits come in as the ill favoured lean kine in Pharaohs dream, that eat up all the fat kine. For how wild and loose a consequent is it, that because God will be worshipped in all places, therefore he must not be worshipped outwardly: or because he will be worshipped spiritually, therefore he will not be worshipped externally. 2. How madly and confusedly is all worship inward and outward, resolved into a fantastical faith, neither required in the Law, nor evidenced by works, as the faith of the Gospel; nor distinguished from the faith of Devils, who by assent receive the doctrine of the Gospel, and believe it? This is mechanical divinity beseeming a shop, for never came it out of the schools: That there is no worship since Christ but inward: nor that, that inward worship is nothing but faith: nor that, that faith is nothing but to receive the doctrine of the Gospel. 3. As simple is that they say, that no works have reward, because all is free gift; as if free gift and reward cannot stand together: the reward being freely promised by God, and God not unjust to forget either his own promise, or our labour of love. 4. Are they such strangers in the Scriptures, that they have not read neither of recompense nor reward? not indeed merited by the worker, nor deserved by the work; but reckoned (not to the work but) to the worker being in Christ; and bestowed of free grace, for the faithfulness of the promiser, not for the desert of the work, or worker. In which sense, let them run and read these places. Prov. 19 17. Blessed is he that hath mercy on the poor, the Lord will recompense him that which he hath given. Matth: 10. 42. A cup of cold water, shall not lose his reward. Mat: 10. 25. Come ye blessed, etc. for ye gave me meat. Rev: 22. 12. Behold I come shortly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be. And Psal: 19 In keeping the commandments there is great reward. 8 ERROR. That God seeth no sin in the justified: for he seeth no iniquity in jacob: Numb: 23. 21. Answ. Unhappy was his schism, and unworthy was his suffering, that wilfully disturbed the peace of the Church, and ruined his own peace, only for a strife of words, and mistaking a phrase of Scripture which he would not understand. How God sees no sin in his children. The phrase is a borrowed speech (as all may see) ascribing eyes unto God; and taken from the custom of men, who turn away their eyes from that they would not see. God's eye is his knowledge; and this knowledge is twofold. 1. A simple eye an●●●owledge, 1. Simplex rerum notitia. whereby he cannot but see all things, and actions that ever were, or shall be. Heb: 4. 13. All things are naked to him with whom 〈◊〉 have to do. jer: 23. 24. Can any man hide himself in secret places, that I should not see him? Thus he seeth all the sins of all good and bad. Psal: 69. 5. O Lord thou knowest my foolishness, and my faults are not hid from thee. 2. A respective eye or knowledge, 2. Scientia coniuncta cum Dei voluntate. joined with purpose and affection: and thus what he cannot but see with the eye of his simple knowledge; he sees not with this judiciary eye: so he sees not the sins of the elect with the eye of severity; he discerns the sin, but not with purpose of revenge. When God is pleased thus to behold sin, he is said in Scripture not to see it. 1. Because he sees it not to punish it; 2. not to impute it or lay it to the charge of the sinner; 3. when he seeth it to pardon it, and to cover it, yea and to cure it. And this phrase of not seeing sin, is the same with those other, of casting sins behind his back, Isay 38. 17. and casting them into the bottom of the Micah 7. 10. of putting them away as a mist, Isay 44. 22. all improper and metaphorical speeches; but such as deceivers wrap themselves in, to hide and colour their ignorant and witless schism; Si Deus texit peccata, noluit advertere; si noluit advertere, noluit animadvertere; si noluit animadvertere, no●luit 〈◊〉▪ maluit agnoscere, maluit ignoscere. Quid est enim Deum videre peccata, nisi punire peccata? In Psal. 32. taking that in the simple and literal sense, which is to be understood in the metaphorical, and respective: and willingly shuffling and confounding those things, the distinguishing whereof would help them back into the way of truth and sobriety. This is also St. Augustine's exposition of the phrase: What is it for God to see sin, but to punish sin? But for a man to say, that God can no way see the sins of believers, is to open a wide gate to all libertinism, epicurism, atheism, and whatsoever else is an enemy to the fear of God, and the awful regard of his allseeing eye; and the expression was as foolish, as the conceit itself is novel, and false▪ The sins of believers are covered as close from God's sight, as this salt-celler is now covered with my hat. Can you now (saith he) see this salt-celler? no more can God see the covered sins of believers. The man did not consider that God could see under the hat, though his disciple could not. Somewhat would be said against this ignorant conceit, to instruct and stay such ingorants as are teachable, and willing to see the truth. He that must bring every action good and bad into judgement, must see every action. And therefore thus I reason. 1. He that must bring every work into judgement, must see every work: but God will bring every work into judgement, whether it be good or evil: therefore he must see every work, as well those that he bringeth into the judgement of absolution, as those which he bringeth into the judgement of condemnation. 2. What God seeth once by his simple and absolute knowledge, he ever seeth, by one eternal and simple act, Nunquam vartatur Dei aspectus, nihil novi unquam vidit, nulla mutatio 〈◊〉 in Dei scientiam, cum ipsa scientia Dei est ipsa Dei essentia; & in Deo nil nisi Deus. which is not capable of change, or forgetfulness; not now seeing, and now not seeing; he never seeth any new thing, but seeth and knoweth all things at once with one and the same sight; for the knowledge of God is the essence of God: according to that ancient and approved saying, Nothing is in God but God. 3. What God directeth and ordereth to a certain end, he must needs see and know: but he directeth and ordereth all the sins of believers (though past and pardoned) to a certain end; namely to his own glory, to the praise o● his mercy, and to their humiliation, repentance and salvation: therefore he must needs see that which he so wisely and powerfully ordereth. 4. One Attribute of God destroys not another, his mercy must not destroy his wisdom; he must see the sins that he pardoneth, and in which he magnifieth the riches of his mercy: and if God knew not all evils of whomsoever, his knowledge were imperfect, Cognitio mali bona est. and he should want some good knowledge; for the knowledge of evil is good. 5. What God makes them see in themselves, himself must necessarily see; but he makes the believer see, and confess and bewail his sin, even past and pardoned: therefore himself seeth them much more. For we have no eye, nor faculty of mind to discern any thing, Nihil in nobis 〈…〉 quae est a Deo, vel 〈◊〉 quo● est a 〈◊〉▪ vel gratiae qua datur in Christo, quin Deo notum est, & totum adprime cognitum. but from him that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world, john 1 Doth he work in us the knowledge o● our sins, and he not know them? Nay doth he enjoin the Saints to set before his eye daily their sins in the humble confession of them and prayer for pardon, and doth he not yet see them? Do we not hear David confessing the sins of his youth long after they were not only committed, but remitted? Psal. 25. and doth he not confess with humility those foul sins, after he had a special message from God, that they were pardoned? Psal. 51. And in the new Testament did not Paul long after his conversion and justification, confess sins pardoned? I was a blasphemer, and a persecuter, etc. And did not God now see and know these sins past and pardoned; or not hear their confessions? 6. If the spirit of God maintaineth a continual combat against the sins of the justified, than he sees those sins against which he fighteth: for we must not think that the spirit of light and wisdom either fighteth in the dark, or blindfold; or that the elect can ever find the power of the spirit subduing those sins which he cannot see. 7. He that recordeth the sins of the elect many years and ages after they are pardoned, He that recordeth sins past, and pardoned many ages before, must needs see them. seeth sin in the justified: for how could he inspire his servants in that which he did no way see? But so doth the Lord. For of David was said long after his death, that he was right save in the matter of Vriah. Rahab was called an harlot many ages after her, and yet the holy Ghost forgot not that she was a believer. Heb. 11. 31. By faith Rahab the harlot perished not. Elias was said to be a 〈◊〉 subject to the same infirmities, james 5. God that sees the infirmities of the Saints so many ages after, seeth and knoweth greater errors much more, though not to impute them. Object. But these were in the old Testament; but since the death of Christ God cannot see sin pardoned. Sol. O gross ignorance! Many examples hereof in the new Testament Was the death of Christ less efficacious in matter of remission of sin, and righteousness to believers in the old Testament than to us in the new? was he not the same lamb slain from the beginning of the world? even the same yesterday, to day, and for ever? 2. Do they never read the Scriptures, or do they read them, and wink at such pregnant and plentiful examples of believers recorded, and yet many ages before pardoned? 1 Corinth. 6. 11. speaking of thiefs, covetous, etc. And such were you, but now ye are justified, now ye are sanctified. Did not God and his spirit see sin past, and pardoned in the justified▪ Rom. 6. 19 Ye did give up your members weapons of unrighteousness. These were sins past and pardoned in justified persons in the new Testament, and after Christ's death. Ephes: 2. 11. Remember that ye were Gentiles, in the flesh, without God: aliens without hope: it seems God saw, and remembered sins past, and pardoned, and putteth them in remembrance of them. Col. 3. 7. The Apostle chargeth the Colossians with what they had been, and in what fearful sins they had walked, though now they were justified. Did the Lord charge them with that he did not see? I might be abundant in such testimonies: but if these places cannot clear this truth to them, let them still shut their eyes against the Sun, and hide themselves in their own thickets; to enjoy more securely all their licentious courses; as those wicked men that say, Tush God seeth us not, there is no knowledge in the most High. CHAP. 6. Containing four other as libertine and dangerous Errors as the former. 9 ERROR. That God is not displeased with the sins of the justified, and much less correcteth them; for he is fully satisfied in Christ for all the sins of the elect: and how can he be displeased with them for that, for which he hath received full satisfaction? Answ. 1. The perfect good must for ever hate that which is perfectly evil: so as God can never be at agreement with sin in any; nay he so hateth sin even in the justified, that he maintaineth in them a perpetual combat, and irreconciliable war against it. 2. They conceive not that anger and love may be at the same time tempered in a father to his children, whom because he loveth he chasteneth. Ira Dei est vel But this hatred is not a simple hatred, 1. Paterna et castigans quam vibrat in filios or an hostile wrath, or a revenging anger, such as he putteth forth upon contumacious sinners; 2. Hostilis & exterminans in contumaces. but a loving, fatherly and fruitful chastisement upon sons: neither doth this wrath redound and seize upon their persons, but upon their sins. But these confused men not distinguishing between persons and sins, cannot conceive how God can hate their sins, and at the same time love their persons. Neither can they apprehend aright the nature of reconciliation, which is a freedom from revenge upon the persons; because they are sons; but not a freedom from the chastisement of their sins, for then, saith the Apostle, Heb: 12. 8. they were bastards and no sons. Object. But ha●h not Christ borne all the punishment of the sins of believers? Answ. Yes all the punishment of malediction, Christ hath borne all our punishment of malediction, but not of correction. which is indeed properly called punishment; but not of correction: for we must daily bear his cross, and fulfil the remainders of the sufferings of Christ. 2. Christ hath most fully satisfied the justice of God for the sins of the elect; so as no punishment satisfactory remaineth to purge or satisfy for sin past, but there remaineth a monitory castigation, to bring the Saints to mourn for sin past, and to watch against sins to come. Object. But can God punish one sin twice; once in Christ, and again in the person himself? Answ. No, if we understand it of the punishment of divine revenge, and not of fatherly correction; intended not for perdition, but for erudition, and caution, and to make them partakers of his holiness. Object. It is true, the godly are afflicted, but these afflictions have no respect to sin, but only for trial. Answ. What none? are they not merited by sin? are they not from the just God, whose justice cannot punish the guiltless? far be it from thee to do this thing, to punish the righteous with the wicked, Gen. 18. 25. Surely correction must needs imply offence, and affliction cometh not without respect of sin, either past, to correct it; or present, to mourn for it; or to come, to prevent it. Micah 1. 5. For the wickedness of jacob, and for the sin of Israel is all this. Lam. 3. 34. Man suffereth for his sin. Micah 7. 9 The Church will bear the wrath of God, because she had sinned. Object. Yea this was in the old Testament; but since that time Christ hath died, and actually borne the punishment of sin: and you can bring no such place out of the new Testament. Answ. Hath Christ done less for believers in the old Testament than in the new? Believers in the new Testament corrected for fin. did they bear more wrath for their sin than we? or did not Christ carry as much wrath from them as from us? was not his death as virtuous to the first ages of the world, as to the last? or did the virtue of it begin at the time of his passion? or is not the faith of Messiah to come alike precious as the faith of him come already? 2. But have we no place in the new Testament to show believers corrected for sin? What is that, 1 Cor. 11. For this cause many are weak, and are sick, and many die? It is too rash to say (as one) that these were carnal, and hypocrites; unless they be carnal and hypocrites, that must not be condemned with the world. 1 Pet. 4. 17. judgement must begin at God's house. Heb. 12. 6. He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Why? because they are sons, or because they have sins? Object. joh. 9 3. Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; therefore afflictions are not for sin: and jobs afflictions were all for trial, not for sin. Answ. 1. In general. Difference of the judgement of the godly and wicked wherein. The difference of the judgements of the godly and the wicked, is not either 1. in the meriting cause, for both are merited by sin. 2. Nor in their matter, being materially both one; the same sword, the same plague, the same famine, the same blindness, sickness and death. 3. Nor in the ground of them; for both are threatened and inflicted by the same Law. 4. Nor in their sense and feeling; for there is no difference between the smart of sons and slaves. But the difference is in, 1. the person inflicting: 2. in the persons bearing and suffering: 3. in the end of God which is not the same: 4. in the fruit and issue which are much different in different persons: the serious consideration of these grounds would let them see wherein their error lurketh, if they will not be willingly ignorant. 2. For the instances: First, of the blind man. I answer, that the position of one cause is not the remotion of another, where many concur: neither doth the affirming of the principal cause deny the less principal. God in this judgement principally intended his own glory, in the honouring of his Son, and not principally the sin either of the parents or son. 2. Christ speaketh not of the meritorious cause of this judgement, but of the final cause: and so the objection is not to the purpose. Secondly, The like we may say of job, the principal end of his affliction was for trial, and not for correction: but this excludeth not the meritorious cause, nor proves that there was no correction in it, at least might not be. Object. But Christ was extremely punished, but not for sin; and therefore there are afflictions without sin. Answ. This is as impertinent a cavil, as the case is singular. Christ had no sin in him, but had sin on him: he had none inherent, but had enough imputed: he had none of his own, but the infinite burden of all the sins of all his members lay upon him; for which he was plagued of God, Maximu● homicida, latro, et haereticorum h●retic●ssimus. Luther because he stood before God as the greatest malefactor that ever was: not because he had proper sin, but appropriated; not because he did any sin, but was made a sin for us, ●hat we might be made the righteousness of God in him: God's justice could not have punished him, if he had not stood before him as a sinner. So the objection turneth quite against themselves. Object. But Christ by his Kingly power reigneth to maintain in the conscience the peace procured, both against the Law, and sin, and the Devil, and the world, and worldly reason. Answ. Peace without disturbance neither within nor without the Apostle knew not, Rom. 7. nor yet Christ himself, who so left his legacy of peace of his Disciples, as that notwithstanding in the world they must have affliction. 2. It is enough that Christ reigneth to maintain our peace by weakening and subduing the power of sin daily, although he totally and wholly abolish it not here below; and fatherly and loving correction rather furthers and strengtheneth his reign, than hinder or weaken it in us. 10 ERROR. That justified persons have no more to do with repentance; and to repent of every particular sin is to believe that a man is not perfectly justified, or at once▪ but by piecemeal as sin is committed; yea it is to undervalue the sufferings of Christ, as not ha●ing sufficiently satisfied for all sins past, present, and to come. Answ. A desperate principle, as much abolishing the Gospel, as any of the former doth the Law: and indeed no enemy to the Law can be a friend to the Gospel. But we must know, 1. That never can man be free from repentance, till he be free from sin to be repent of; Believers must continue their repentance which can never be shaken off in this world. The whole life is but one day of repentance, and repentance is the work of that whole day; and who but a profane libertine would not have his Master find him so doing? Assidue peccantibus assidua poenitentia est necessaria. august▪ We sweep our houses every day, and wash our hands every day, because one contracteth dust, and the other soil every day: much more have we need to cleanse daily the houses of our hearts. See my treatise entitled, The practice of Repentance, Cap. 10. and therein many reasons for continuance of repentance. 2. They forget that David and Peter repented after saith: That the Church of Pergamus, that kept the name of Christ, and had not denied the faith, must yet repent herself, else Christ will come against her, Rev. 2. 12. and 16. And how much cause have the best men to repent of their daily sins, that must repent daily of their best duties, which they must confess are as a filthy clout? 3. Although the spirit by faith assureth the believer, that all his sins are satisfied by the death of Christ; yet the spirit also persuadeth the heart, that in this way of humiliation and repentance we shall receive assurance of remission of daily sins, and particular infirmities: for else the spirit should fail in his office, which is to bring even the house of David, and the inhabitants of jerusalem (that is, true believers) to the fountain of grace, and stir up in them deep sorrow and earnest lamentation in seeking pardon for daily sins, and special provocations against the Lord, whom by their sins they have pierced. 4. Prayer for forgiveness of daily sins is an act of repentance enjoined by Christ on him that hath formerly repent, is justified, and calleth God Father; as in that petition of his most holy prayer, Forgive us our trespasses. 5. They that overflow with love, and outboast all others in their pretence of love, which is so strong and active as they need no other mover, forget that increase of love to God must needs increase repentance and sorrow for offending him: if love be great, so will sorrow, as in Peter. In a word, their harvest of joy is too hasty, and will prove like an inheritance hastily gotten: this is not the time of wiping away all our tears, nor is our dripping seedtime yet over, but even we sigh in ourselves, waiting for the adoption, even the redemption of our bodies, Rom. 8. 23. 11 ERROR. That no believer is to pray for pardon of sin, seeing all his sins past, present, and to come are already pardoned. Answ. Then must you blot out that petition of the Lords prayer, Believers must pray for pardon of sin pardoned. wherein he hath taught those that call God Father, to pray daily, Forgive us our trespasses: which petition implieth (as we have showed) daily repentance, even in them that have repent. A man would wonder what shift they make to repeat the Lords prayer, or to pray in his words, unless they have learned the trick of the old Pelagians, Modestiae tantum causa, non ex humana fragilitatis conscientia. jerom. who would repeat the pe●ition for modesty sake, but not out of the sense or conscience of their own need; which modesty is indeed a lie, and feigned humility. 2. Prayer for pardon will stand with assurance of pardon, and assurance of pardon will not stand without prayer for pardon; for then are we assured of pardon, when we can pray for pardon, God being found favourable only in his own way. 3. Though we know our sins pardoned, yet must we pray for pardon; neither doth assurance of pardon and mercy dead our prayer for pardon, but quicken it. Christ knew his sheep should never perish, joh. 10. 28. but yet he prayeth for them, that they might not perish, joh. 17. 11. He knew that his Father would glorify him, but yet prayeth that his Father would glorify him, joh. 17. Who will say this his prayer was needless? Paul knew that God would deliver him from every evil way, yet prayed for it. So though we know our sins to be pardoned, yet it is not needless to pray for pardon. 4. Though God in heaven have by an eternal sentence blotted out the sins of the believer in the first act of his conversion, We must pray for pardon of sin in the court of our own consciences, as well as in the court of heaven. and this sentence can never be blotted out, yet we may and must pray for pardon of sin; namely, that this sentence of pardon may be pronounced in our own consciences: and thus it seems David prayed earnestly for forgiveness of his sins, Psal. 51. when he knew long before that God had forgiven them; for Nathan had told him, that God had put away his sin: he prayed that God would not only forgive his sin in heaven, but even in his own heart also. 5. Though our sins be forgiven even in our own consciences, And for a more comfortable measure of assurance. yet because of the stain and guilt of new sins our assurance is sometimes weakened, and not so comfortable, we must pray for pardon of sin still; that is for a greater, and more comfortable measure of assurance, and a sweeter taste and apprehension of God's favour in remission of sin; for who can taste of this sweet honey, and not long for more? and whereas our weakness cannot so firmly apprehend it, and our corruption doth daily weaken it, we must pray for the continuance of our comfort and mercy; whereof prayer is a principal means. 6. Suppose we have pardon of sin in the beginnings of it, And in the full and final fruits and effects of pardon. and some sweet fruits, yet we must pray for it in all the fruits, in all the effects, in the full comfort and accomplishment of it; for by remission of sin we are now freed from the damnation of sin, and from the domination of it; yet are we not freed from all the remainders of sin, nor from all fruits, and molestation of sin: for notwithstanding the pardon of our sins, we have the presence of sin, and are in conflict with terrors of conscience, God's just desertions, calamities, afflictions, and fear of death. Now must we pray according to our faith for full pardon, even for the full acquittance promised, and that solemn sentence of absolution by the mouth of the judge, which shall fully and really give us complete possession of God's whole mercy; which we now have by right and title, but not in all the fruits, effects, and full comfort of it; and never do the Saints pray for Christ's coming without implication of full and final remission of sins. All which manifestly bewray the black and blockish ignorance of this erroneous assertion 12 ERROR. That Preachers ought not to preach the Law to believers, whom the threatenings of the Law concern not, as being out of the reach of the Law, and beyond all fear of condemnation: and these legal Preachers deal very lewdly in bringing men back to the obedience of the Law, and so make them seek righteousness in themselves. Answ. These are merry men, and might well set themselves on so merry a pin, if the way to heaven were so wide and roomy as they imagine it. For 1. Neither can they sin being in Christ if they would. 2. Neither if they should, could God see it. 3. If he should chance to see it, he could not be displeased with it. 4. If he should be displeased, his hands are bound, he cannot correct it. 5. Themselves ought not now to sorrow or repent for any sin any more. 6. It is idle to pray for pardon of sin, which is already pardoned, whether it be past, or present, or to come. 7. And now they must not so much as hear of their sins any more, and all their religion is turned into a merriment, which they call a meeting with such comfort as they never found before: but this comfort will prove but a laughter in the face, when the heart hath cause to be heavy. For, 1. Is there nothing else to be feared of a Christian but final condemnation? a child may fear to be whipped, though he fear not to be disinherited: Psal. 52. 6. even the righteous shall see and fear. 2. A man may fear that which he is sure to escape; but this is a fear of watchfulness, not of distrustfulness. 3. No man is so holy but hath need of threatenings, and faith believeth threatenings as well as promises; not only barely apprehending them as true and certain, but with application to decline them, and frame to obedience even in regard of them. Holiest of men have need of threatenings. This is plain, because even in state of innocency was use of the threatening to keep our sinless parents from sin: and job a just and holy man by Gods own testimony durst not lift up his hand against the fatherless: why? because destruction from God was as a terror unto him. And even those that receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, must serve & please God with reverence and fear; because Our God is a consuming fire, Heb. 12. 28, 29. 4. Suppose the threatenings shall never take hold of a believer, may ●ot he therefore hear of them? To hear them is not to cast him into them, but to keep them off him; the hearing of legal threatenings is very useful to the best. Quanto reatus ●er legem factus ●st gravio●, tanto immensitas grat●●e facta est illustrior. Par: 1. It makes them relish and prise the promises of much the more, and stick faster to them, & hold in the way unto them. 2. The hearing of threatenings kindleth a flame of love to God for delivering from them. 3. Incieth our charity and compassion to our brethren, to help them from under them, and provoketh the Saints themselves to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, Phil: 2. 11. 5. Are we lewd Preachers for urging the Law upon men? then why were not Christ & his Apostles so, in pressing on believers the obedience of the law? Yea to the law more strictly expounded than by the Scribes and pharisees? and in urging on them a righteousness exceeding the righteousness of the Scribes and pharisees: which was not an imputed righteousness of faith for justification before God, but a righteousness of sanctification in their persons performed through grace by themselves. So when our Lord affirmeth, that in the kingdom of heaven, that is the Church of the new Testament, He that doth the commandments, and teacheth men so to do, shall be called great: that is, shall be highly esteemed: was he a lewd and false teacher, leading men away from himself, and the grace of the Gospel? or if he were not, why are we so for teaching the same doctrine? 6. No man can teach obedience of faith, The same works are both the works of the Law, & of faith, how? but therein he must teach the obedience of the Law also: for the same works are both the works of the Law, and the works of faith; which are distinguished, not divided. For example. Lex fidei aeque atque lex factorum ait, ne concupiscas; sed quod operum lex minando imperat, fidei lex credendo impetrat, August: Love or charity (which containeth all the duties of the second table) is called a work of the Law. Luk. 10. 27. What is written in the Law? how readest thou? and he answered, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, etc. Thus it is a work of the Law in respect of canon, rule, direction. But it is called also a fruit or work of faith. james 2. 17, 18. Show me thy faith by thy works: and, faith worketh by love. Thus it is a work of faith in respect of the cause, and adhaesion, being an inseparable issue of it. How can a man persuade love as a work of faith, and not the same a work of the Law? 7. How false and absurd is it to say that Preachers teaching obedience to the Law of God, teach men thereby to hang upon their own righteousness, or to seek their justification by their own performances? Far are we from teaching that judaical righteousness, performed in way of justification; all which is a filthy rag in the sight of God and his strict justice. Isay 64, 6. But we persuade a Christian righteousness of sanctification wrought by the spirit of holiness; We call for obedience, not for justification, but for sundry other ends ▪ of which holy obedience are many other uses (which they are loath to see) besides the justifying of their persons in the sight of God. As, 1. It is called for in way of Christian conversation, that our light may shine before men. 2. In way of imitation of Christ our head, and of conformity of his members to his righteousness, which derogateth nothing from his righteousness. 3. In way of testification of our righteousness before God: for He that doth righteousness is righteous, 1 Ioh: 3. 7. Thus having set down these twelve Articles of libertine and famelisticall faith, I will content myself therewith, although I could have easily set down twelve more, so fruitful and generative error is: but that I intended in this only to give a proof of their gross ignorance in principles of religion, which was that I undertook. I could easily have refelled that mystical and spiritual (but fantastical union of theirs) with Christ before faith; their sanctification before justification, their elevating the sin of infidelity, (which strongly savours also of liberty) as that it is no sin; Unbelief an high sin against the Law and Gospel. ● or at least of the moral Law, wherein I will not strive; though I am sure the Scripture maketh it a sin of sins: john 3. The Law commands not expressly faith in Christ: but implieth it when Christ is revealed. and Christ calleth it, the great condemnation: and perhaps they shall hold a more sound tenant, that shall hold it both against the Law, and Gospel. For 1. It may be not unprofitably enquired, whether the first commandment do not bind to all commandments both ordinary, Adam was not bound in innocency to believe in Christ, for as he was not revealed, so Adam needed him not, but yet he was bound by the Law to believe every word of God, whensoever it should be revealed▪ and eztraordinary, both d● praesenti, and de futuro: whether the Law do not bind us to believe all that God shall utter, as well as what he hath uttered. 2. Whether the second commandment doth not enjoin whatsoever is a means of salvation, and an inward religious worship, for then the contrary must needs be sin. 3. Whether it be not a sin against the second commandment, not to believe that branch of the same commandment, that God will show mercy to thousands of them that love him, The Law commands faith as a work done, the gospel as it is an instrument apprehending Christ, Perk. on Math. page 70. and keep his commandments. And if it be, than infidelity is a sin against that Law. But I forbear many things, and perhaps some will think I might have spared some pains in refuting the former, which at the first sight are so distasteful to the judicious, as the reciting of them might seem a sufficient confutation: Solo auditu horrorem incutere debent, Calvin. but my desire of helping the weak, who are easily overreached, drew me thus far beyond mine own purpose; and my endeavour was to contract many things into as narrow a room as I could. CHAP. 7. Showing the second ground of this opposition, which is horrible pride, especially discovered in their ridiculous conceit of perfection. THe undivided companion of ignorance is pride; for no man that ever aright knew God or himself, but the nearer he approached to God with Abraham, the more did he humble himself in dust and ashes. But here is a generation of men swelled up with pride, and blown up with a presumption, that they are gotten into the highest form of perfection: they can scorn and disdain the directions of the Law, as being far beyond it; for they have attained a full perfection not of justification only, but of sanctification also already; they are free not only from the power of sin, but from the presence also: Christ himself is not purer, or more free from sin than they are: nay being borne of God they cannot sin if they would: if they do acts of sin in high nature; yet where is no Law is no transgression: God cannot see them in that glass. Hence they can lose themselves from most ministeries, but some teachers of their own sect; and deride the holy labours of godly Preachers, who with zeal and piety persuade men to walk according to rules. Oh what an height of pride are those private peremptory persons come unto, who complain that their heads have ached to hear some godly and worthy Preachers; and have professed, So Quintinus the Libertine told Calvin to his face, that he disliked his course, because he understood it not. Instruct advers. Liber. cap: 7. that for the gift of two pence they would never more hear sundry such, as I know to be of long continuance as shining and burning lights; as they may well be in the first rank of God's worthies, that have been of best desert in our Church. And where is the humility of that teacher that makes his brag, Your teachers understand not me. No? the more is your sin and shame. Do you preach amongst a tumult of artisans, and illiterate men, so as our Ministers cannot understand you? what is the reason you do so hide yourself; seeing light feareth nothing but darkness, and truth nothing but to be hid. I must say to you, as Jerome of the crabbed Poet Persius: Si non vis intelligi, non debes legi. If you will not be understood, you ought not to be read: so if you will not be understood, you ought not to preach; unless perhaps it may be more beneficial to the Church, that if you do preach, you be not understood. Alas that men professing the doctrine of godliness, and pretending the practice of wisdom and sobriety, should by the pride of their hearts become thus disguised, and transported into raptures and fits next to frenzy and madness. But against this windy conceit of perfection I will now say the less, The windy conceit of perfection refuted because I have dealt more fully against this pernicious error before in the third chapter. Yet here 1. let it be considered wherein the Scripture placeth the perfection of Saints here below; and that is not in the want of sin, but in the fight against sin; and not in the absence, but in groaning in the presence of sin. For 1. would Christ teach men without sin to pray daily for forgiveness of sin? 2. Would he command those to pray daily not to be led into temptation, that cannot sin if they would? 3. Did he ordain the Sacrament of the Supper for men perfect, that want nothing, to whom nothing can be added; or to the sick, who need the physician, and to such as hunger and thirst after righteousness, which is a sen●e of defect, not of perfection. Magnum illud electionis vas perfectum abruit, profectum fatetur, Bern. in Can● ser. 49. 4. Are they in holiness and perfections of grace beyond the Apostle Paul, who many years after regeneration complaineth that he found evil present with him, and a law in his members rebelling against the law of his mind; Cunctorun in carne iustorum imperfectae perfectio est, Hieron: lib. 1. advers: Pelag: and professeth that he had not attained, and that all is here in part, and imperfect till that perfect come. 5. Are they perfect without sin, why do they then as other sinful men do? hath death any commission where is no sin? or if their sins be gone, and their persons justified, and yet they die: why deny they that any correction abideth any whose sin is pardoned, unless they will say they die only for trial. Secondly, Sanctification hath three degrees in this life, Three degrees of sanctification, and the highest imperfect. the highest of which is imperfect. 1 Is the death of the body of sin. Which is not all at once, but resembleth the death of Christ's body on the cross, which was diminished by degrees, till his spirit by his last breath was surrendered to his Father. Thus is it in the christian, whose last breath of sin, and of the body go out together. The Second degree is the burial of the body of sin, which is a further proceeding in mortification, as burial is a proceeding of death, and a consumption of the dead body not all at once; but by little, and little. So mortification is not an act of a day, but of the life. The Third degree of sanctification, is a raising from the grave of sin to a new life, by virtue of Christ his Resurrection: that look as a graft set in to a new stock, draweth juice and life from that stock, not all at once and then no more; but still draweth, and by drawing, groweth by degrees unto the full height and age of it: even so is it here, christian life is continued as natural by daily supply and addition of that which is daily wanting. Why God would not free his servants from all sin in life as well as in death God indeed if he had pleased, might in a moment have freed his servants from all sin, as well in life as in death; but he would not: because his wisdom procures himself more glory in his protection and assistance of the Saints: and in the victory of his servants against sin, than if they were free from sin. The fiercer the enemies were that rose up against Moses in the wilderness, and against josua in the Land of Canaan, the more it turned to the glory of God's mighty power, in giving them possession in despite of them all. And so greater honour returneth to the Lord, because greater is his grace in making the sins of the Saints remedies of sin; to humble them for sins past, to shame them for sin present, and to work in them fear & watchfulness against sin for time to come; then if he should at once abolish sin in them. All which, these men shake off their hands as easily as Samson did the green cords, when the Philistines came upon him. Thirdly, As he that exalteth himself must be brought low; so the Scriptures show those to be in highest estimation with God that have been, and are least in their own eyes: The lowly speeches of Saints. Abraham seeth himself but dust and ashes. jacob seeth himself less than the least mercy. Gideon saith of himself, Who am I? or what is my Father's house, but the least in all Israel? judge 6. 13. john Baptist, than whom a greater was not borne among women, said, I am not worthy to lose the latchet of his shoe. The Centurion, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under the roof of my house. Peter, Go from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. Paul, I am the least of all the Apostles, but the chief of all sinners. But we never read nor heard those vain voices from any truly regenerate man: The haughty and lofty speeches of Libertines. I am perfect. I am pure, so as nothing can be added unto me: I cannot sin if I would: Gods eternal power can see no sin in me: I am beheld no otherwise than Christ himself, Tu audes Novatiane mundum te dicere; qui etsi operibus mundus esses, hoc ipso verbo immundus ●●eres: Ambr: de poenit l. 1. c. 6. for I am Christed with Christ, and Godded with God: I will neither grieve for my sin, nor pray for pardon of sin, and the like. No no, true grace (which St. August: calleth the first, second, and third grace of Christians) would keep the heart from these high stairs, and strains of pride; it would fetch them off such mounted thoughts, and change them into mournful complaints, that they must needs, will they nill they admit the Cananit and jebusits within their borders, & that they must find sin in them as a law forcing them to the evil they would not. Rom. 7. 24. And godly experience concludeth, that humility is a sign of worth, but haughtiness is never without emptiness and vanity. Emptiest vessels sound loudest; and the husbandman liketh better those heavy ears of corn that hang down their heads, than the light and empty ones that stand so upright. Fewer words would serve wiser men. I will only say to this proud perfectist, as Constantine the great did to Acesius one of the proud Bishops of the Catharists, Pone Ac●siscalam, qua solus coelum ascend. Set up a ladder Acesius, by which thou alone mayst climb to heaven. CHAP. 8. Discovering the third proper ground of this opposition, which is affectation of licentiousness, and love of a lawless liberty, joined with hatred of holiness, and the power of godliness. AS pride attends ignorance, so an inseparable fruit of pride, Col. 2. 18. is vainly to be puffed up by a fleshly mind, not holding the head: for pride resteth not in those low and humble principles of Christ, but not enduring God's yokes, nor the suit and service of Christianity, raiseth vain reasonings against obedience, and plotteth new devises for more scope and elbowroom than the Gospel alloweth them that must walk in the straight and narrow way to eternal life. And this righteous judgement of God hath overtaken this sect of men with whom we deal: of whom, the Apostle affirmeth, 2 Pet: 2, 19 that while they promise liberty, themselves are the servants of corruption. I know that many that as yet know not the depth of Satan in this error; Many too charitable, not seeing the depth and danger of this error. nor are dived into the mystery and mischief of these opinions, do conceive more slightly of their tenants, and more charitably of their persons than there is cause; and some may think it were fitter they should fall of themselves, than be thrust down by the hand and strength of others: and that the labour might have been better bestowed against more dangerous persons, and fundamental errors much more prejudicial to the truth of the Gospel. But I wish such to consider whether any error can be more pernicious than that which rejecteth all rules of holy, and strict walking with God? What will it avail us to contend for, or establish a faith which is dead, Iam: ay, 26. severed from the life and fruits of holiness? or what greater enemies can we deal against than enemies of righteousness, who are not only fallen from the abnegation of the known and received truth, but to the oppugnation of it: a fearful fruit indeed of their declining: but men having once lost the way of truth, know not where they shall lodge. And it will not be amiss to look into their model of new Divinity, and how cunningly they have moulded the whole lump, and kneaded it together, that every piece and position of it may let themselves loose from all bands of duty and obedience. For, 1. They must not live in the presence of God, The confused lump of Libertinisme in 9 poisonful positions. nor hold him in their sight as a God seeing their sins or actions, or displeased with the evil of them: and why now should they forbear any sin? 2. They must not acknowledge God a rewarder of his own grace, or any good duty to which he enableth: and how then can they desire to do good, or be good? 3. They must not see their sin a violation of the Law, nor as it is an enmity against God, nor as causing wrath to work in them either humiliation for sin past, or detestation of sin present, or fear of it for time to come. 4. Neither Gods will, nor their own wills moves them not to forbear any sin: not the former, because they are free from all laws; not the latter, because the will of man is turned against sin by virtue of inherent holiness wrought by the spirit (which they disclaim) so as only the light of their mind may condemn it; and the unseemliness of it in a professor may restrain it, else they are loose to any. 5. They cannot be sick of evil motions, nor detest evil thoughts, nor watch against temptations, nor care for the purging of their hearts; for how can they sin being born of God? or if they could, they are not to be countable for any sin, nor can God take notice of them. Christ's most innocent soul was vexed with the molestation of injected motions of evil, though instantly rejected, but these must not, they are so holy 6. They must not live by any rules, Lex Donatistarum. Quod vos lumus sanctum est, August. but by a wild and spacious pretence of immediate, and enthusiastical direction. Enemies are they to persuasion and exhortations; for because Christ's perfections are their perfection. In vain it is to persuade either for good thoughts into the mind, or good inclinations into the will, or good actions into the life. They desire not their hearts, nor wills, nor actions to agree with God's law, for it is quite abolished. And much less do they turn the precepts of God into prayers as the Saints ever used to do. Oh with what violence must headstrong men be carried unto unrighteousness, when the word as a bridle must not hold them in, nor check or control sin in the soul, to lessen either the power or practise of it? 7. They must not brook any longer the difficulty of repentance, nor endure the pains of mortification, because they cannot deny themselves, nor must they ever remember sins past, as the Saints have done with much ●●uite, both 〈…〉 own humiliation, Deut. 9 6. ●. and for their excitation to gratitude and thankfulness to God for mercy, as the Apostle 1 Tim 1. 12. 13. 8. That they may hold their sins more securely, they free themselves from all fear of woe and judgement, and from all the strokes of God, or his word, and so by themselves dote in a false peace. For God's hand cannot reach them, for he cannot be displeased with their sins, and much less temporally correct them: and thus they refuse all crosses, either as means of mortification, or of profiting in holiness. Heb. 12. 7. Psal. 119 71. And they fly the stroke of God's word, in a faithful and free ministry, and cannot endure this legal preaching, as men that must hold their sins; but must not hear of them, nor bear reproof of their iniquity. 9 To all these profane opinions, The extreme danger of Libertines A rai●ing R●bsakey, whose papers I have in my hands, revileth our Ministers, & denounceth them ipso facto to stand accursed by the holy ghost, & excommunicate by S. Paul, for going about to establish and set up the golden calf of their own sanctification. They be his own words. The Lord rebuke thee Satan. they disclaim all precepts, and practise of sanctification, and all increase in holiness. They revile the Preachers that call and urge men by rules and motives to sanctification, as calling men back to the justification of the Law. What a case now are these men in? how can they expect heaven, that not only lose themselves from the holiness of them that must be inhabitants there, but hate it, and resist it? whereby they cast themselves from the turret of perfection, far below the state of nature. For though every natural man is destitute of personal holiness, and of the love of it; yet every natural man will not disclaim, revile, or contest against it. 2 How can they justify their calling, and out-boast all men in the assurance of their calling? Seeing there is no effectual calling but unto holiness. 1 Thes. 4. 7. God hath not called us to uncl●anes, but unto holiness. And if every believer be a Saint by calling, Rom. 1. 7. how can they be called that sever sanctification (that is the love and practise of holiness) from effectual calling? They only have received the grace of new creation, that are created to good works, which God hath ordained to walk in, Eph: 2. 10. 3. How do they frustrate the end of their adoption, which they pretend▪ for why are we adopted to be sons, but to be made conformable to the image of Christ? Rom. 8. 29. for can he be a son that beareth not the image of his father? That only was Caesar's Coin that carried Caesar's superscription 4. May this loose conceit prevail, The sacred office of Christ's Priesthood violated. the main office of Christ's priesthood shall be in vain, both in respect of his Sacrifice, and of his Intercession: his Sacrifice, because for this Cause he sanctified himself, that believers should be sanctified through the truth, joh. 17. 19 His intercession and prayer is that the elect may be sanctified, verse. 17. Father sanctify them. Shall Christ as a Priest sacrifice himself, and make such earnest prayers for sanctification of believers? and is there no such thing, or if there be, may not we preach it, and urge it? or can any libertine disavow and scorn it, but he must also renounce & reject the priesthood of Christ? I hope no man will conceive these to be slight things which entrench upon the foundation. 5. But how comes it to pass, that they reading the scriptures, and in them so many, and so express and unavoidable places▪ calling the saints not only to the study, and practise of holiness, but also to growth and increase in holiness, that yet they should persist in this delusion; How they come to be blinded against so clear a light. yea and defend it against so clear a light? Surely because they will not submit to God's authority, but have pulled themselves from under his rule, he hath in justice put them out of his favour, and given them up to themselves, and to Satan to blind them, who are so willing to be blinded: and he is cunning enough under a pretence of Christian liberty to hold them in perpetual chains of spiritual bondage; else could they not seek to elude so clear places. As 1. call us to holiness, 1 Thes. 4. 16. 4. This is the will of God, even your sanctification. 1 Pet. 1. 15. be ye holy in all manner of conversation, for it it is written, Be ye holy as I am holy. 2 Which call God's people to increase in holiness, 1 Thes. 4. 1. We exhort you to increase more and more, and this is a commandment given us by our Lord jesus Christ. verse 2. 2. Pet. 3. last, But grow in grace, and in the knowledge, etc. 1 Cor: 15. 58. Be abundant in the work of the Lord. Rev. 22. 11 Let him that is righteous be righteous still, and let him that is holy be holy still. Is now the spirit of God idle in all these and the like precepts? or doth he call men now to the justification of the Law? or is he idle in his exhortations to sanctification? or are we so while we urge men in the words of the same spirit? The objections are light and windy, as the opinion itself is. 1 Object. That believers are carried by an inward principle of new creation: a good tree cannot choose but bring forth good fruit, without all these outward motives. Answ. The principle of good fruit is within the sap in the root, but there be external helps, without which it will never be produced; as the Sun, the soil, the air, the showers, the gales of wind. So a believer, a tree of righteousness, hath an inward principle flowing from his root, which is Christ, without whom he can do nothing; but it is fruitful by means not to be neglected, because they are of his own appointing, and wherein he will make us fruitful. 1 Cor: 15. 10. By the grace of God I am that I am: and his grace was not in me in vain; but I laboured, though not I, but grace in me. 2 Object. God spirit is all in all, and doth all in us, and we have nothing to do. Answ. God leadeth believers by his spirit into good works, and produceth holy acts in them, but not without use of means. For 1. he puts the Law into their hearts: 2. transforms them by obedience into the image of the word: Rom. 6. 12. 3. He still prompteth and suggesteth according to the word, in the things of God's glory and worship; the spirit incites to the use of the means of grace, of the holy ordinances, to the pleasures and delights of God's house, and such things as uphold our spiritual being. 3 Object. But Christ is our righteousness, and sanctification; what use of any righteousness or holiness of our own? Answ. Christ is not the righteousness of justification to any person that is not washed, and sanctified, 1 Cor: 6. 11. 2. None can be righteous by a righteousness infused from Christ, but thence floweth an inherent righteousness renewing our nature: for he gives us a godly nature, 1 Pet. 1. 2. and purifieth our souls by the spirit: and thence issueth an external righteousness of life, which is an evidence of our justification by faith: joh. 4. 14. for he that doth righteousness is righteous. 4 Object. But what can be added to perfection? If we be not complete in Christ, there is defect in his merit; and they that drink of his waters thirst no more: and we can desire no more than we have in Christ. Answ. But that perfection here to which nothing can be added, is the dream of waking men, contrary to the Scriptures, contrary to the practice of Saints, whose study was and is to increase more and more. Contrary to their experience, the best of whom complain, that they have not yet attained, nor never shall, till that perfect come. Contrary to their prayers, and vehement desires after further grace. Contrary to the nature of true grace, which is still desirous of more. For it is not possible, but that they which have tasted how good the Lord is: 1 Pet: 2▪ 2. should desire the sincere milk of the word to grow by it. 2 The Saints have not so drunk as yet, that there remaineth no thirst after Christ▪ for there is a twofold thirst. Sitis duplex, vel Indigentiae totas●s, Coposioris fruitionis. The former is of total indigency, or a whole want of Christ; and this is satisfied in the believer, that he shall never so miserably thirst again. The latter is a thirst after a more plentiful fruition of Christ and his spirit, and graces; and this is never fully satisfied in this life, but the privation of the former thirst, is the generation and position of this latter. Revel. ●2. 17. Let him that is athirst come. 5. Object. But we are called to the liberty of the Gospel, and are free from all compulsion of Laws, and from all other rules than the motions of the Spirit: for where the spirit of God is, there is liberty. 2 Cor. 3. 17. Answ. What kind of liberty this is, we have seen already, which is not from the rules and direction of the Law, for the Apostle saith not, that we are called to libertinism, or a freedom from obedience to do what we list, Our liberty here is not from the rule of the Law; but from the rule of sin. as being without the reach of the Law; but a freedom from the rule, and command of sin, and a sweet peace and ease in in the soul, not grounded on rejecting the commandments, but rather upon a free and sincere regard and love of them. Thus David professeth, that he will walk at liberty, not because he will cast off the precepts, but because he did seek the precepts. But we have stayed long in discovering 1. the ignorance, 2. the pride, 3. the profane licentiousness of this schism: we must proceed to that which followeth. CHAP. 9 Answering some of the principal objections of the Libertines. 1 OBJECT. Is this our text, Rome 6. 19 Ye are not under the Law, but under grace. Whence thus they reason. To them that are not under the Law, but under grace; to those the Law doth not belong, but it is to them abolished and void: But believers are not under the Law, etc. Therefore. Answ. 1. There is a twofold being under the Law. First, a being under the curse, burden, malediction, condemnation, and coaction of the Law; thus no believer is under it. Secondly, there is a being under the obedience, rule, counsel, and direction of the Law; and thus believers are under it much more than before; as Christ himself also was. For they are now by the free spirit of Christ framed to a free and voluntary obedience of it. Lex reos faciebat ●ubendo, et non adiuvando: gratia adieu vat ut quisque sit legis factor. So saith August: The Law made us guilty by commanding but not assisting; but grace assisteth every believer to be a keeper of the Law. 2 This objection willbe also fully satisfied by applying the former distinction of the Law. Considering it 1. in the matter and substance of it. And thus believers are still under it; both for performance of all holy duties of it, and forbearance of all the evils prohibited by it: 2. in the manner of obedience, and in the consequences, and appendices of it; and thus are they not under the rigour, coaction or strict exaction of it, and much less under the curse, malediction or condemnation of it. But this objection hath been before abundantly satisfied in the 2. & 3. Chapters. And therefore I pass it now more briefly. 2 OBJECT. Gal. 3. 10. So many as are under the works of the Law, are under the curse. Therefore, Either the Law is utterly void to Christians, or they are still under the curse of it. Answ. The Apostle saith not, that those to whom the Law appertaineth, are under the curse; but those that are under the works of the Law. 2. The works of the Law are twofold. Either works of obedience, done in humility, by way of duty, in testimony of thankfulness, and of our conformity with Christ. Or 2. works of the Law done in pride, to seek justification by the Law, and the works of it, and so to promise to themselves eternal life by the observation of the law. And those only that are thus under the works of the Law, are under the curse: and the meaning of the holy Apostle is no other, whose scope in his whole discourse is to beat down such as sought to set up justification by the works of the Law, and not by faith only; as appears plainly in the next verse 11. for that no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith. But though no believer can in the second respect be under the works of the Law for justification; Believers under the works of the Law for obedience, not for justification. but he must be under the curse of it: yet it follows not that he is not under the works of the Law for obedience, and yet not under the curse of it. This place is indeed an hammer and hatchet against popery, who by seeking justification by the works of the Law, thrust themselves under the curse of God; for if the curse, attacheth him that seeketh righteousness before God by Moses Law; how much more accursed are they that by observation of humane Laws and traditions, by humane satisfactions and impositions, seek to demerrit God, obtain without Christ, what only Christ can procure. The greater is their sin and danger, who after the knowledge and profession of the truth for some politic and worldly ends run back into recusancy, and popery, which is the way of perdition, apparently renouncing the blessing of justification by free grace; and choose the curse of the Law, which shall run into their bowels as water: of such apostasy may be said as of judas, it had been good for them they had never been borne. OBJECT. 3. To whom the Law is not given, to those it belongs not at all, But the Law is not given to the righteous, 1 Tim. 1. 9 Therefore it belongs not to believers being justified. Answ. 1. The scope and intention of the Apostle is not to abolish the Law, who in the words immediately going before saith that the Law is good if it be used lawfully: which words clearly import and imply, that among believers there is a good use of the Law, which true use he shows in the fifth verse, namely, to be a guide and direction to the duties of love and charity, which is now the effect of faith, as the words plainly show: for the end of the commandment is love, out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. Note, that the Apostle maketh that love which is the end of the commandment, a fruit and effect of faith: and therefore a believer is not loosed from the love and obedience of the Law by faith, but tied unto it. 2. The sense of the Apostle is not, that a righteous man can be under no laws; for Adam in innocence was a most righteous man, and yet was under the Law, both in general, under the whole Moral Law; and in special, under the Law concerning the forbidden tree: and this Law was given to the most righteous man in the world. The Law is given unto a righteous man, but not against him. Innocency and righteousness in perfection exempts no creature from the Law of his Creator. But the Apostles meaning is, that the Law is not given against a righteous man, that frameth his course according to the Law; it dealeth not with him as an enemy that assenteth unto it, that is delighteth in it in the inner man, that is ruled and ordered by it; it can pronounce no sentence of damnation against him; it neither can justify him who is already justified by faith, nor yet can condemn him. And that this is the true meaning of the Apostle appeareth by 2 arguments in the text. Non dicit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, non est ●ata lex, sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, non est posita. 1. In the original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which implieth an action or plea of God against a man; and that the Law is not God's action, or plea against a righteous man to bring him under judgement, or subdue him under the sentence of it; for Christ hath freed such a one from the curse by his merit, and obedience, as also by his spirit made him a lover of the Law. And this is the same in sense with that of the Apostle, Gal: 5. 23. Against such (namely as express those recited fruits of the spirit) there is no Law: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Law is so far from condemning such, as it is a witness rather of their conformity to itself, and consequently of their love and obedience unto God, and of their similitude with jesus Christ. 2 Argument in the text is, in that the lawless and disobedient are said to be wrapped up in the full damnatory power of the Law: against all whom it is God's plea and action, yea the bill of indictment to their condemnation. 3. Neither is the Law given to the just, The Law not given to the just man for servile, but free obedience. to wring obedience from them by terrors, or threatenings, or expectation either of threatenings or rewards: the just are not under the Law in this servile manner of obedience, as are the lawless and disobedient: for by a free spirit of grace they do the works of the Law, so far as they are regenerate; and the Law to them is not a compelling commander, but a sweet and faithful counsellor, and rule of life. But although the Law be not given to the just, to fasten any crime or curse upon them, nor to exact personal, and perfect obedience for righteousness before God; nor to force, compel, or rigorously exact obedience from them: will it follow, that it is no way else given unto them? or not as a rule of direction for obedience, and a line and square of good works and christian life. And these answers will fully satisfy all those other places of like sound and sense: as Gal. 5. 18. If ye be led by the spirit, ye are not under the Law▪ Rom. 7. 6. Now ye are delivered from the Law being dead unto it: that is, ye are freed from the Law as it is the strength of sin, as it irritateth, and provoketh to sin, as it did while we were in the state of nature, as it wrapps the transgressor in the curse, and as it forceth itself by terror and constraint: for now the believer serveth in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter; that is, freely from a renewed spirit obeyeth the Law as the rule of holy life. OBJECT. 4. Gal: 5. 1. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free; and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage: that is, say they, the Law▪ Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath freed us from the curse of the Law. Answ. It is not said that Christ hath freed us from the obedience, or command of the Law, but from the curse of it; which we question not. 2. Christian liberty is not a freedom from the obedience of it, but rather from the disobedience of it: Rom. 6. 18. Being free from sin, ye are made the servants of righteousness: We are called to liberty, Christian liberty frees us not from the obedience of the Law, but the disobedience of it. but we must not use our liberty as an occasion to the flesh; but to frame to the commandment, By love to serve one another, Gal: 5. 13. Where the Apostle plainly proveth, that Christian liberty looseth us not from the observation of the Law, but straight enjoineth it, for the whole Law is fulfilled in one wo●d, which is love▪ v. 14. 3. ●s they 〈◊〉 the same stone, Wherein Christian liberty consisteth. so i● must return upon themselves, we must therefore again tell them, what are those parts of ●●ristian liberty, which the Apostle aimeth at: and if they think that the Apostle best knew his own meaning, they shall take them from himself. The first of them is, freedom from the burden of legal ceremonies, sacrifices, circumcision, and beggarly rudiments, which were heavy yokes; which being abolished by Christ, Christians must never entangle themselves with them any more: and that the Apostle directly speaketh of these in the place alleged, see v. 2, 3. If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing: therefore stand fast in your liberty. The 2 branch of our liberty is from the curse of the Law, in that Christ was made a curse for us: with which most ponderous and pressing yoke we must never entangle ourselves any more, by seeking justification by the works of the Law, and to settle us firm in this our liberty is our Apostles aim and argument. Gal. 3. 10. 13. The third branch of our liberty is freedom from perfect impletion, and personal performance of the whole Law for justification: for thus we are no more debtors to the Law, Gal. 5. 3. Nor must ever return to that bondage to seek righteousness and justification by the Law, in whole or in part: For Christ is become of none effect unto you, whosoever of you will be justified by the Law, ye are fallen from grace, verse 4. The 4. branch of our purchased liberty by Christ is a freedom from the threats and terrors of the Law, compelling and forcing obedience: and now not fear but love must chiefly constrain us to duty; not compulsion, or carnal respects, must ca●●, u● as slaves to the commandment, but now discerning the holiness, excellency, and righteousness of the Law, the heart is moved freely to run the ways of God, Gal. 5. 25. If we live in the spirit, we must walk in the spirit. OBJECT. 5. The Law of Moses was given only to the jews, and was to endure but unto Christ, Luke 16. 16. The Law and the Prophets were till john. And Christ is the end of the Law to every believer, Rom. 10. 24. Answ. 1. The Law for writing, and some Circumstances was given to the jews by the hand of Moses: but in respect of the substance, and matter obedience, belongs unto all men of all ages and nations. Because, 1. It must stop every mouth both of jew and Gentile, Rome 3. 19 2. It must judge every man according to his work, both jew and Gentile. 2. It seems the Prophets are abolished as well as the Law. Law and Prophets, how far abolished. But I hope they will not say, that all the doctrine of the Prophets is abolished. It is true, that the whole Prophetical doctrine, Legis ●t Prophetarun ordo exinde cessavit peradimpletionem, non per destructionem. l. 4. cont. Marc. c. 33. which did signify, or prophecy, or promise good things to come; when Christ was actually come, received accomplishment, but not abolishment: which is Tertullians' distinction. But much other positive doctrine of the Prophets, is as useful and proper to us, (for whom it is by special divine providence reserved) as it was to the ages to which it was first directed. And even so the Law, which in respect of shadows was to continue till john; in the substance of it is a permanent and everlasting doctrine, directory, and deriveable to all the ages of the world. 3. Christ is the end of the Law; but as Augustine wittily distinguisheth; Finis perfic●ens, snon interfictens. Aug. in Ioh: tracked. 5▪ 5. the perfecting end, not the destroying end. For, 1. He was the end or scope, unto whom the Law, Christ the end of the Law 5 ways. especially the pedagogy of Moses was directed. 2. He was the end also of the Moral Law, because he fully and perfectly obeyed the law, and so the Law in him attained his proper end, as it had not else done among all the sons of men. 3. He is the end of the Law, on whom all the male diction of the ●aw fell fully, and perfectly, and had on him full accomplishment. 4. He is the end of the Law, in whom all the blessings and promises of the Law attain their end; for they are all in Christ yea, and amen: all of them in him, 2 Cor: 1. 20 & for his obedience, are exhibited & complete. 5. He is the end of the Law to every believer for righteousness, in that he doth bestow and impute unto us that full righteousness which the Law requireth of us; and in that by the donation of his spirit, he kindleth in believers a new obedience framed unto the Law; so as they begin a renewed obedience of it in earth, and fulfil it perfectly in heaven. Whence issueth a clean contrary conclusion. If Christ be the end of the Law, we are therefore faster tied to the obedience of it than before. Very false therefore is that position, That the Law is at such an end, as it can nor command a man in Christ, than a dead man can command his wife; How we are dead to the Law and the Law not dead to us. or a Master his servant when he is made free. To which traditionary doctrine carried from woman to woman I answer. 1. That the Apostle saith indeed, Legem autem Decalogi nec posse, nec debes re dici nobis mortuam; quam vis dicantur Legi mortui in quibus non invenit vim pe●catricem regnan●em etc. Beza ad defence. contra castle: in Rome 7. 6. Rome 7. 4. that by Christ's death we are dead to the Law; namely in regard of the curse, and of those rebellious motions excited in us by occasion of it; and in regard of the terror and rigour of it; as a woman is from the threats and rigour of a dead husband: but the Apostle saith not, that the Law is dead either in respect of the direction of it, or our obedience to those directions. 2. As the Apostle saith, we are dead to the Law: so he showeth the end of our freedom from so hard an husband; Et postea, Legem nusquam invenio dici mortuam, sive de impiis, sive de pijs agatur. namely that we might be married to another: i. to Christ raised from the dead; the effect of which marriage is not a barren life, but to bring forth fruit unto God: the blessing of the marriage between Christ and the faithful soul is fruitfulness before God; so as this death of ours to the Law bringeth in a new subjection unto it: which is indeed the height of our Christian liberty here, and proceedeth from the spirit of freedom. 3. His shift is too short to shuffle from the first covenant to the second; and as false is it to say, that the Law is the rule in one covenant, and not in another: as if the matter of the first covenant and second were not one and the same; the righteousness, and obedience of both were not one in substance, differing in manner of apprehension and application. Shall any live by virtue of the second covenant, that doth not these things, or that brings not the righteousness of the Law in himself, or his surety? CHAP. 10. Resolving sundry other objections alleged to prove the abolition of the Law. OBJECT. 6. To whom all the commanding power of the Law, under pain of the curse, and the enjoining of good works for justification: as also to whom the condemning power of the Law is abolished and ceased, to them the Law is altogether made void, and abrogated. But to believers both such commanding power, and condemning power is ceased. And therefore, etc. And thus they further explain it. Suppose a justified man commit adultery, or murder, or be drunk, the Law of God can take no hold of him, nor the just God can punish him by the Law, being utterly abrogated to such a person. Answ. The former proposition is apparently false for the Law both for ma●ter and form stands in force to justified persons, and retaineth on them a commanding power, and enjoineth on them good works, although the manner of commanding in the rigour of it is to them abated: for how ordinarily did Christ and his Apostles command the works of the Law to believers, and that under straight penalties read Math. 5. and 6. Chap. and telleth his followers that when they have done so far as they can all the things of the Law; they have done what was their duty, and that they were bound unto, Luke 17. 10. 2. These confused men distinguish not between the condemning power of the Law and the Law itself; yet this distinction cutteth the sinews of this objection: for can it prove the Law itself abolished, Non est recess nos ab obedientia Legis libera●●, quin Legis aliquod munus abrog●tur. Whitak ●●●tra Dur. pag. 714. because the condemning power of it is to some removed by Christ? or if certain uses of the Law be abolished, as in way of righteousness, life and salvation; or in way of terrifying, accusing, or condemning the justified by faith: must therefore the Law itself, and all other uses of it be abolished. 3. What believer conceives himself under the commanding power of the Law, to be justified by it? or to expect to stand righteous before God by their obedience? as these men vainly dream: no they have other ends of their obedience to the commandments of the Law. As, 1. To testify their endeavour in obeying the righteous Law and will of God, and their conformity to his image in the same. 2. Not for the justification of their persons, for that is only by Christ's complete obedience made theirs by faith; but for the testification of their justifying faith: according to the direction of the Apostle, jam. 2. 20. Show me thy faith by thy works. 3. Not for the attaining of salvation it● Pet. 1. 10. Give all diligence to make your election sure. How may we? for if we do these things etc. 4 Not to merit any thing, but to encourage themselves in the way of obedience, by casting eye on the blessed remuneration freely promised, and performed to duties of love to God, and man; begun and perfected by faith in Christ. Heb. 11▪ 26. Moses had respect to the recompense of reward. Yea our Lord himself, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross and despised the shame. Heb. 12. 2. All these are other ends which believers propound to themselves in their obedience then to be justified by it. 4. I answer, it is utterly false and wicked, that God's Law taketh no hold of a justified person committing hateful sins, as of murder, adultery and the like. For although Christ have freed him from the curse and vengeance, and the eternal damnation of his sin. Rom. 8. 1. Yet may the Law take hold on him for a stinging correction, and a sharp punishment according to the scandal of his sin. Did not the Law take hold on David, when with so many other evils; God's sword was upon his house for ever, for his scandalous sins? Did not God's Law lay hold on Moses & Aaron, than whom none was more faithful in God's house; when for sin they lay under sharp rebukes, and chastisement, and were barred the land of Canaan? Object. But these were examples in the old testament, before Christ's death. Answ. And are not believers in the new testament subject to the same law, and penal statues of correction? Were not examples of the old Testament examples to us that we should not sin as they sinned? 1 Cor: 10. 6. How could we sin as they did, if we were not under the same Law? Or what else but the law taketh hold on believers in the new testament, when for the unworthy use of the Lords ordinances they are judged of the Lord, 1 Cor. 11. even for this cause, saith the Apostle. Object. Some say, they were hypocrites that were judged. Answ. As if they be hypocrites that must not be condemned with the world. 5. But of all their assertions, tha● is a● blind as bo●de, That if God call a believer to account for the breach of his Law: he may say, God hath nothing to do to call him to account: he may refuse to be tried in that Court. If God shall say, leave such a sin▪ or be damned; do such a duty, a●d ●e saved: he may say, We will do neither the one nor the other on these terms. Well may he say, and more, that his tongue le's fall unseemly terms: and it hides his nakedness but a little to drop out, that his meaning is, that God hath nothing to do to call a believer into the court of nature. For howsoever he will teach God what he hath to do, or what he hath not to do; he might long since have been taught, that God will require of us even that righteousness which he put into our nature: and that is a talon which we must be countable for as well as any other. OBJECT. 7. Those that have the spirit of God for their rule, and do all by a free spirit, they need not the Law to rule or urge them: to them it is vain and needless. But all believers have the spirit to rule them; and they do all by a free spirit. Therefore. Answ. The former proposition is false, that those that have the spirit to rule them, have no need or use of the Law: and as gross to conceive the spirit and the Law contrary: which are indeed inseparable: for the Law is the instrument, the Spirit is the workmaster; the Law is the rule, the Spirit the applier of that rule. The spirit is so far from destroying the Law, that he writeth it in the inner parts, he addeth clearness and light unto unto it; he worketh love and delight unto it. 2. It was ever the wicked conceit of Libertine Enthusiasts, that the spirit worketh our obedience immediately, and by himself alone, rejecting all means; whereas he worketh it in us ordinarily by the word, the Law and the Gospel. joh. 16. 13. The spirit sent to believers, shall not speak of himself: but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. He is in himself the spirit of illumination, but enlighteneth believers by showing them what is to be done by the Law, and what is to be believed by the Gospel. 3. Is the spirit therefore a free spirit, because he frees us from the Law? no verily, but because he sets us free to the performance of it. This reason holy David gives us, Psal: 119. 32. I will then run the way of thy commandments, when thou hast enlarged or set me free. Or is that the duty of a free and willing subject to cast off the laws of his King? No but most freely and willingly to obey his Law: and this is the freedom wrought by the free spirit in free and ingenious Christians. 4. To say, we obey God by by the spirit without a Law or a commandment, is a mere non sense: for is any obedience without a Law? Is not our rule to do only what the Lord commandeth? what can be more ridiculous than for a subject to profess obedience to his Prince, but yet he will not be under any Law? And to say they obey of love, and yet obey no commandment, is as fond and false. 1 Ioh: 53. This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous Ioh: 14. 15. If ye love me, keep my commandments: love must ever look to the commandment. OBJECT. 8. Those that are under the Law of Christ, are not under the Moral Law. But Believers are under the Law of Christ, Gal: 6. 2. and so fulfil the Law of Christ. Therefore. And thus do they further unfold themselves, that we may understand them: consider (say they) men as creatures in their natural being, thus are they under the Moral Law given by their Creator: But consider them as redeemed and new creatures, they are freed from that Law, and only tied to precepts taught by Christ in the Gospel: which teacheth to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly justly and godly in this present world: Tit: 2. 11. Answ. Here is a whole bundle of errors to be untied. 1. The proposition is false, that believers who are under the Law of Christ, are not under the Moral Law; seeing the Law of Christ is for substance the same with the Moral Law: for what is the Law of Christ in the place alleged, but the doctrine, precept, and commandment of Christ enjoining the love of our brethren, & bearing their burden: which the Apostle opposeth not to the Moral Law, (as these sectaries do) but enjoineth it as a more necessary Law, than all that heap of ceremonies to which the false Apostles would have brought them back: against whom he strengtheneth the believers of that Church, through that whole Epistle. 2. It is frivolous and popish to conceive the Gospel a new Law: for is not the covenant of grace the same in the old Testament, and new? and did not the holy men in the old Testament, Mose● David, Samuel, Daniel, and the rest enjoy the same covenant with us or were they saved by another Gospel than we? or did not they frame their lives to the same sobriety, righteousness and holiness that we do? 2 Did not the Apostles preach and write the Gospel? Yet 1. joh. 2, 7. they profess: We write no new commandment, but the old which ye have had from the beginning. And what was that, but the same which was written in man's nature before the fall, and after written by God's finger in tables of stone: which same commandment, though he call a new commandment in the next verse; that is not, because it is another in the substance, but the same law of love renewed, and reinforced upon new grounds by Christ the great Lawgiver. And ratified both by his own doctrine and example, and in this new manner it was never urged before. 3. So far is the Law of Christ fro● 〈…〉 moral la 〈…〉 according that 〈…〉 of S. August. The Law knows to command, L●x●u●ere no rit, gratia i●var●▪ Epist 95 add Innocent. but the Gospel to assist to the commandment. True it is, that Christ abolished all Laws that made difference between man and man, jew and Gentile, Eph. 2 14. Yea and the Moral Law, so far, as it made difference between God & man believing. And 2. as it is opposed to the Gospel: And 3. as it hindereth entrance into the kingdom to believers. And 4. as any thing in it was accidental, significative, circumstantial or tempoall. But all matters substantial, essential and eternal, Christ by his Law hath confirmed to continue for ever. This harmony of the Moral Law and Christ's Law, judicious Calvin in his harmony avoucheth, Teta Lex est consentanea cum doctrina Evangelij, de vi tijs vitandis, et virtutibus parsequendis. page 443. Errand qui putant Legem repugnare Christo▪ The whole Law (saith he) agreeth with the Gospel both in condemning the sa●e vices, and commanding the same virtues. And if this be so, then certainly it destroys not the Law. And Pareis on Rome: 10. 14. saith, They err that think the Law repugneth Christ in the Gospel. 4. It is little under blasphemy, that they oppose the Father, and the Son, as if they had divers wills▪ diverse rules, or contrary Laws; whereas the Son professet●, that he spoke nothing from himself, but from the Father▪ joh. 5. 16: Besides, how doth ignorance befool them, in ●e●ling us that Christ as 〈◊〉 hath loosed us from the obedience of the Moral Law due to our Creator? For is not God the Redeemer the same with God the Creator? Is any honour due to the Father for creation, that is not due to the Son for creation? Ioh: 5. 23. That all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father: or is any honour due to the Son for redemption, that is not due to the Father for redempt ●? Did not God the Father give up his Son for our our redemption: & shall not we well requite him in casting off all duty belonging to him as our Creator? Or can the addition of the greatest & most singular benefit that we are capable of, lose us from our former duty, or rather tie us faster? Certainly the gift of Christ for our Redemption, doubleth, and fasteneth the bond of love and duty between our creator and us, but no whit doth slack or loosen it. Such poor shifts, and doubts are they driven un to, as a silly hare close followed, and hard run. CHAP. 11. Showing how these Libertines run against the stream of our worthiest Writers, graciously instructed to the kingdom of heaven. IT is not unusual with impostors, when they ure driven off the authority of the Scriptures, to shroud and hide themselves with some humane testimonies wrested, and for most part distorted from the true meaning and intention of their alleged Authors: and even so do these men pretend that they have the consent and authority of sundry Protestant Writers, of great note and name in the Church, to strengthen and confirm their novelties: wherein they are impudent to admiration; seeing there is never a learned man that ever I met with that sideth with them in the abrogation of the Law; nay not any, but as occasion is offered, doth urge the Moral Law as of great use to guide all true believers, and justified persons in the right way of godliness, and all Christian duties. One of this learned sect said. We are of Luther, and was before the Apostles. With what boldness do they claim Mr. Luther to be wholly theirs, and themselves to be wholly of his judgement: and that they hold nothing in this point but what they sucked from his breests? let us therefore see in this one instance how they serve all the rest. And first I affirm that M. Luther was so far from being an Antimonian▪ that no man doth more expressly and sound overthrow and contradict this wicked opinion than he, neither can any man desire a stronger humane witness against them than M. Luther. Read his words with a pause and judge. Satan (saith he) stirreth up daily new sects: and now last of all he hath raised up a sect of such as teach, the ten commandments are to be taken out of the Church, Luther. preface to Comment on the Gale. & that men should not be terrified with the Law. And after, such is the blindness and presumption of frantic heads. And are they other that challenge Luther the patron of a Sect, which himself saith, the Devil hath raised? And page 171. He speaketh of three sorts of men that abuse the Law. First those that seek justification by the Law. Secondly. Those that will utterly exempt a christian man from the Law, as the brainsick Anabaptists went about to do. And of this sort are very many also at this day which profess the Gospel with us, who dream that Christian liberty is a carnal liberty to do whatsoever they list, etc. on cap: 3. 25. And on cap. 3. 19 pag. 153. Here I admonish (saith he) all such as fear God, and especially teacher of others, that they diligently learn out of Paul to understand the true and proper use of the Law; which I fear after our time will be trodden under foot, and utterly abolished by the enemies of the truth. It is easy from these words of Mr. Luther to collect, that, 1. He did not conceive the Law thrust out of all use by Christ: for then why should men fearing God learn the true use of it? 2. That if he feared men would abolish it, than his judgement was it ought not to be abolished. 3. That if he esteem this sort of men that would abolish the Law, enemies of the truth: then certainly he is not their patron in this loose and carnal opinion. And pag. 154. Forasmuch as we diligently and faithfully teach these things: we do therefore plainly testify, that we reject not the Law, and works, as our adversaries do falsely accuse us: but we do altogether establish the Law, and require the works thereof, and we say the Law is good and profitable. And cap: 5. 14. pag. 254. It is necessary that godly Preachers should as diligently teach the doctrine of good works, as the doctrine of faith: for Satan is a deadly enemy to both. Is Luther now yours? Is he not as contrary, and directly contradictory to your foolish tenants as the Sunshine of midday is to the darkness of midnight? Doth not he disclaim you as adversaries, yea as false accusers, while you challenge a line or syllable of his doctrine in the patronage of your delusions? You reject the Law, and works; he professeth, he rejecteth neither: you abolish the whole Law wholly; but he establisheth it: you reject them for legal Preachers that teach not Christ aright, who urge men to the duties of the Law; but he imposeth it as a necessary part of their office to urge the Law, yea as necessary as to teach the doctrine of faith. For shame therefore never claim Luther more, nor father your fooleries on him, than whom you have no stronger enemy. Object. But doth not Mr. Luther say, on ●ap. 3. 28. That Christ hath abolished all laws of Moses that ever were? Answ. Y●s, all the laws of Moses whereof he speaketh in that place: for take the whole sentence, and ye shall know his mind. Where Christ is put on, (saith he) there is neither jew, nor circumcision, nor ceremony of the Law any more: for Christ hath abolished all Laws of Moses that ever were: that is, all ceremonial Laws. Yea and the Moral Law so far as in Moses hand accusing, terrifying, and condemning the believing conscience: in which regard it should be utterly ignorant whether there were any Moses, any Law, any jew. Ibid: Object. Page 177. So many as are justified, are justified not by observation of man's Law, nor God's Law, but by Christ alone, who hath abolished all Laws. Doth not Mr. Luther clearly say, that all Laws are abolished? Answ. Nothing is more true; for even the Moral Law in respect of justification is abolished to the believer, which is Mr. Luther's expression: but that either the Law itself in the substance of it, or in respect of all other uses is abolished, Luther saith not: and we say with Luther, Accursed be that doctrine, life, and religion, which endeavoureth to get righteousness before God by the Law, or works thereof. Ob. Luther on c: 4 27 p. 222. saith, that a Christian laying hold on Christ by faith, hath no Law, but all the Law to him is abolished with all his terrors, and torments. And page seque: We say that the Moral Law, or the Law of ten commandments hath no power to accuse, and terrify the conscience in which jesus Christ reigneth by grace: for he hath abolished the power thereof. Answ. And we say so too, and hold it our happiness to believe this sweet Gospel. But Luther speaks here, and every where else of certain uses of the Law, either for justification, righteousness and salvation; or else for terror, accusation and condemnation: and thus we have proved long since, and at large, that it is abolished to the believer. 2. We say, that to abolish the power of the Law, is not to abolish the Law: and to abolish the power of accusing and terrifying, is not to abolish all the power of it. And all their shred and cuttings, and poor allegations out of Mr. Luther's works, do only prove the magnifying the Article of Christian righteousness against the righteousness of the Law, and works: wherein Luther was for the singular good of the Church most vehement: but none of them do so much as glance at the abolishing of the Law as a doctrine or rule of life; Non sunt su● lege quoad iustificationem, accusationem, condemnationem, coactionem, etc. which Mr. Luther not in a few places acknowledgeth to bind all men from the beginning of the world to the end of it. But whereas no man better knew Mr. Luther's judgement than his own scholars and followers, it will not be amiss to hear them expressing their Master's mind in this argument, Est igitur sententia vera, et forma sanorum verborum, esse aliquem legis usum in renatis, & is triplex est etc. and delivering unto us what they received from him, from whom to depart in any thing they held almost piacular. Chemnitius a most learned and moderate Lutheran, in his common place de lege cap. 10. and 11. directly refuteth these Antinomists, De Lege Dei cap 10. circiter fi●em, & cap. 11. De dignitate doctrinae Legis contra Antinomos. and showeth that the regenerate are not under the Law in respect of justification, accusation, condemnation, or coaction: but yet affirmeth a threefold use of it in the regenerate: 1. as a doctrine to direct in duties: 2. as a glass to see the defects of them: 3. as a correcter, and restrainer of remanent corruption. In all treading in the very steps of of Luther, as we have declared. Fredericus Baldwinus a learned professor in Wittenberg, Sanctissimo suo merito tabulas Legis abscondit, non ut Leginullam a●plu● debeamus obedientiam, sed ne maledictione f●r●at ●os qui sint in Christo. Passionis typicae lib: 2. typ: 6. hath these words. Christ our Saviour by his most holy merit hath hid and covered (alluding to the propitiatory) the tables of the Law; not that we owe no further obedience unto it, but that it may not strike with malediction those that are in Christ: for the Law is abrogated by Christ, Abrogata Lex non quoad obedientiam, sed quoad maledictionem. not in respect of obedience, but in respect of malediction. Many more were easily induced to speak the same thing; but I content myself with these, from whom none of the rest descent: and conclude, that if Mr. Luther's scholars understood their Master's doctrine better than these Libertines; then they sew but a fig leaf to cover their nakedness, by stretching any of Mr. Luther's phrases to the proving of their profane opinion. And as Mr. Luther hath abundantly cleared unto us this truth, so have we the consent of all godly, learned Protestant Writers both ancient and modern, whom I might induce as a cloud of witnesses; not like that cloud which Elias his servant did see as big as a man's hand, but like the same cloud when it covered the whole heavens. My spare time is not so much, nor perhaps the Readers, neither in so clear a case were it so needful to make this volume swell with such numberless testimonies of orthodox Divines, as professedly refute this profane and lawless, and as brainless a fancy. I will only therefore show these delinquents against the Law to be cast by the verdict of an whole jury of godly Divines. And because they shall not deny but they have fair trial and proceeding, we have empanelled twelve men, the most of which they acknowledge their friends and well-willers, (even as they challenge Mr. Luther the foreman to be wholly theirs) and one man shall not speak for all, as in ordinary trials; but as it is in great and extraordinary trials, every one shall deliver his own sentence. The first of them is Mr. Calvin, Tametsi digito Dei Legem scripta● in cordibus habent, bifariam tamen adhuc in Lege proficiunt: est enim illis optimum organum, etc. who in the second book of his Institutions, cap. 7. sec. 12. having spoken of two uses of the Moral Law; addeth a third, which especially concerneth the faithful: namely that thereby they must daily more certainly know what is the will of God to which they aspire: as also by the frequent meditation of it, Vt frequentie ius meditatione excitetur ad obsequium, in eo roboretur, & a delinquendi lubrico retrahatur. they should be excited to the obedience of it, and strengthened in that obedience, and restrained from the offences of it. In the 13 section he answers the Libertines objection: But because the Law contains the ministration of death, therefore Christians must reject the Law. far be from us (saith he) such a profane opinion: Facessat longe ex animis nostris profana istaes opinio. for Moses excellently showeth, that the Law which can beget nothing but death among sinners, Sed una est, perfecta, et inflexibilis vivendi regula. hath among the Saints a better and more excellent use: and what that is he showeth, namely to be one, perpetual, and inflexible rule of life. In the 14. section he answereth at large that objection, that the Law is abrogated to the faithful, De morali adhuc loquor. Non quod illis amplius non iubeat quod rectum est, sed dumtaxat ne sit illis quod antea erat, hoc est ne eorum conscient as perterrendo etc. speaking still of the Moral Law: namely, not that it doth not still command what is right as it did before, but that it is not that to them as it was before, in terrifiing their consciences, confounding, condemning and destroying them. In which sense saith he, Paul manifestly showeth that it is abrogated; not in respect of institution of life, but of the former vigorous obligation of conscience. sect. 15. Thus have I abridged M. Calvine his larger Tractat upon this Argument, Non ad institutionem pertinet, sed ad constringendae conscientiae vigorem. wherein we see him wholly consenting to the doctrine we have propounded through our whole discourse. Add only her unto that in the 3 book cap. 19 sect 2 Christian liberty, Vt fidelium conscientiae sese supra Legem erigant, totamque Legis iustitiam obliviscuntur. consisteth first in this: That the consciences of the faithful in the confidence of their justification before God, must lift themselves above the Law, Neque hinc recte quis colligat Legem fidelibus supervacaneam esse, quos no● ideo docere et exhortari, etc. & forget the whole righteousness of the Law (Yet saith he no man must hence collect that the Law is needless: For it doth not therefore cease to teach, to exhort, and incite to good, though before God's tribunal it hath no place in their consciences. The Law therefore, Manet igit●● per Christum 〈…〉 Legis 〈…〉, quae 〈◊〉 do cendo, adm●ne●do, ob●urgando, co●rigendo ad omne opus b●num formet ac comparet. by Mr. Calvins' de e●mination abideth by Christ a● inviolable doctrine, the which by teaching us, by admonishing, by rebuking, and by correcting, doth secure & prepare us to every good work. The second is Reverend Beza, in his defence against Castillion, on Rom. 7. 6. far be it from me saith he, that I should assent to you, who say the Law is dead to them, to whom it is chiefly alive, Absit ●t ego tibi assentiar; qui d●cis legem iis esse mortuam quibus maxime vivit, id est, quos h●bet maxim of sequentes. Veque enim rex, 〈◊〉. that is, those that are most obedient unto it, meaning believers. For a King doth not more manifestly regine over any, than those which freely and willingly obey his Laws. See also his judgement constant to himself in his annotations upon 2 Cor. 3. 11. In what regard the ministry of Moses is abolshed; concluding that the ministry of the Law is ever to be retained in the Church. And in his notes upon 1 Ioh: 2. 7. he saith. Neither is the Law abolished by the Gospel so far forth as it commandeth that which is right: Neque enim Evangelio Lex 〈…〉 est praecipit. sed, etc. but only so far as it threateneth death to all that do not perfectly fulfil it: and as the Law by the terrors of death admonisheth us to think of seeking life in the Gospel, so the Gospel supplieth us with the grace of regeneration, whereby according to the measure of the spirit and grace, Vt Lexiam sua vis sit nobis secundum interiorem hominem Magister. we begin to will and to do: that now the Law becometh to us in respect of the inner man, a sweet Master, as the Apostle plentifully teacheth, Rome 6. 7. and 8. chapters. The third is learned Doctor Whitaker, the jewel of the University of Cambridge, who when Duraeus the jesuit objected against Mr. Luther the same which these Libertines affirm of him, that it was his judgement that the Decalogue appertaineth not to Christians; thus gravely answereth: That Luther most truly affirmed the Decalogue, that is, that condition of the Decalogue, either of full and perfect obedience, or of malediction for disobedience not now to pertain to Christians; because Christ to them hath taken away that condition. 2. That Luther saith no more than the Apostle doth in six or seven places there alleged: Per Lutheri latera Apostolo vulnus infligunt. and therefore they must first accuse the Apostle, or through Luther's sides wound the Apostle. 3. He sets down his own judgement most expressly. The Law (saith he) pertaineth to Christians; Lex pertinet ad Christianos', nec id unquam negavit Lutherus: nam illa tustitia Legi● 〈…〉 Lib. 8. de paradox, p. 703 neither did Luther ever deny it: for that justice of the Law is immortal, and every one ought to endeavour with all his strength to live mo●t exactly according to the prescript of the Law. Thus we have this pro●ound and most worthy Doctor affording us a double strength; and together with 〈◊〉 brings us Mr. Luther wholly and constantly avouching the same truth which we have defended through our whole discourse. The fourth is, judicious Mr. Perkins, from whose gracious mouth and Ministry I received in my youth often the same holy truth, as now in his fruitful writings appeareth every where. As in his golden chain, chap: 31. having set down the use of the Moral law in the unregenerate, he concludeth, that the use of the Law in the regenerate is far otherwise: for it guideth them to new obedience, which obedience may be acceptable to God through Christ. And upon Gal: 3. 12. he answereth this question; why the Lord saith, He that doth the things of the Law shall live: considering that no man since the fall can do the things of the Law: and showeth that still the Lord repeateth his law in the old tenure: 1. To teach that the law is of a constant and uncheangable nature: 2. to advertise us of our weakness and show us what we cannot do: 3. To put us in mind still to humble ourselves, after we have begun by grace to obey the law; because even then we come far short in doing the things which the law requireth at our hands. And on verse 23. he inquireth, that now seeing faith is come, what is the guard whereby we are now kept? Answ. The precepts of the Moral Law. The sayings of the wise are as nails, or stakes fastened, to range men in the compass of their own duties. Ecclesiast. 12. 11. And most plainly he coucheth our whole doctrine concerning the Law, in the answer of our question upon vers. 15. eiusdem capitis. The question is how far the Moral Law is abrogated. Answer. Three ways. 1. In respect of justification. 2. Of malediction. 3. In respect of rigour. For in them that are in Christ, God accepteth the endeavour to obey for obedience itself. Nevertheless (saith he) The Law as it is a rule of good life, is unchangeable, and admitteth no abrogation: And Christ in this regard did by his death establish it. Rom. 5. 31. And on c. 4. 5. The Law must be considered two ways. First as a rule of life. Thus Angels are under the Law, and Adam before his fall, and the Saints now in heaven: and none yield more subjection to the Law than they, and this subjection is their liberty. Again consider it as a grievous yoke three ways, none can bear it, etc. And in his Treatise of conscience, cap. 2. saith, That the Moral Law bindeth the consciences of all men, at all times to obedience. The fifth is our learned and industrious Doctor Willet: Bellarmin (saith he) is not ashamed to slander us, that we affirm christian liberty to stand herein, that we are altogether freed from the obedience and subjection of the Law: Vt Moses cum suo decalogo nihil add not pertinent. But we call God and all the world to record, that we witness no such thing: knowing tha-Christ came not to dissolve, but to fulfil the Law. Here therefore Bellarmin fighteth with his own shadow. But Christian liberty consisteth in three things that we are exempted: 1 From Ceremonies: 2 From the curse and guilt: 3 From the servitude and reign of sin. etc. And upon Exod. cap. 20. commandment 10. quest. 9 saith thus. The Moral Law is not now in force quoad justificationem: that is, in respect of justification; but it bindeth quoad obedientiam, in respect of obedience, for we are bound to keep all the precepts of the Law: but yet quoad modum obedientiae et terrorem, in respect of terror, and rigorous manner of obedience we are not bound. etc. The sixth is that grave and learned Bishop Downam, whom I must honourably mention, not only for his worthy parts and labours in the Church; but in the special reference of a painful and worthy Tutor and teacher of myself in the University. That right Reverend Bishop, in his Treatise entitled, The doctrine of Christian liberty, doth exactly (as his manner is) open and clear this whole doctrine, and in section or paragraph 15. hath these words: The Papists charge us, that we place Christian Liberty in this, that we are subject to no Law in our conscience, and before God, and that we are free from all necessity of doing good works, which is a most devilish slander; for though we teach that the obedience to the Law, is not required in us to justification: but that we are free from the exaction of the Law in that behalf: yet we deny not, but that unto sanctification, the obedience of the Law is required, & we by necessity of duty bound to the observation thereof. And again, We confess to be free from obedience, is to be servants of sin, and the willing & cheerful worship of God is true liberty. And we acknowledge that the Moral Law of God is perpetual and immutable, and that this is an everlasting truth, that the creature is bound to worship and obey his Creator: and so much the more bound, as he hath received the greater benefits. And after, the more a man is assured of his free justification, the better he is enabled, and the more he is bound to obey it. And the Law hath singular use in them that are justified, 1. as a rule of direction for all obedience. 2 As a glass of detection of our imperfection to keep us humble. 3 As a rod of correction in respect of he flesh and old man for mortification etc. And concludeth that section thus. We are therefore in our sanctification freed, though not from the obedience; yet from the servitude and bondage of the Law, in three respects. The seventh is, that learned Bishop Davenant a special ornament of our Church, and one worthy to succeed that famous jewel in the sea of Salisbury. In his elaborate commentary upon Coloss: hath these words on cap: 2. 14. Cum Chirographum legis abr●gatum et deletum sit quoad vim damnatoriam, colligimus illud adhuc habere vim di●rectoriam: non igitur, etc. Seeing this handwriting of the Law is abrogated and abolished in respect of the damnatory power of it; we gather that it yet retaineth a directory power; we may not therefore hence take to ourselves a liberty to sin, but an alacrity in our service to God, etc. The eighth is, Bishop Cowper▪ an ingenious and reverend Divine, who in his fruitful Commentary on the 8. to the Romans, delivereth himself wholly unto us in this point, & in the end of the 4 verse hath these words: Albeit by Christ we be delivered from the curse of the Law, yet we are not exempted from the obedience thereof. In respect of the one, the Apostle said, we are not under the Law, but under grace. In respect of the other he had said, that the Law is good, and our Saviour protesteth, he came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it, both in himself and his members, not only by righteousness imputed, but also inherent. For the Law stands to us as a rule of our life; we love the holiness thereof, and strive to conform ourselves unto it. The ninth is that most sound and learned professor of Divinity in Basil, Amandus Polanus, who in the 6. book of his Syntagma cap. 10. proveth the decalogue, which is the sum and substance of the Moral Law, to belong unto believers, and is of great use among Christians, by nine strong arguments. I will forbear the recital of them, because the book is common, and easy to be consulted. The tenth is learned Amesius, professor of Divinity in the University of Franeker, Quasi abrogata et quoad ●im iustificandi, et quo●● vim condemnandi, etc. who speaking of the Moral Law saith, that although in respect of the faithful, it is as it were abrogated, both in respect of the power of justifiing which it had in the state of integrity: and in respect of the power of condemning, Valet tamen ac viget quoad vim dirigendi, et aliquam etiam vim retinet condemnandi, quia peccatum arguit, et condemnat●m ipsis fidelibus, quamvis, etc. which it had in the state of sin: yet it is of strength and force, in respect of the power of directing. Yea, and it retaineth (saith he) some power of condemning: because it rebuketh, and condemneth sin, even in the faithful: although it cannot indeed condemn the faithful themselves, that are not under the Law, but under grace. The Eleventh is Hieronimus Zanchius, a laborious and perspicuous writer. Who in 1 joh. 2. saith, Observation Legis est ne●essaria Christiano homini, neque a fide seperari potest. that the observation of the Law is necessary to a christian man: neither can it be separated from faith. And in his Common place on Eph. 2: Loco quinto de legis Mosaicae abrogatione, sect. 9 speaking of the Moral Law saith, consider the substance of it, it is manifest that it is not abrogated: that is, that Christ hath not delivered us from our duty, whereby we are bound according to the eternal will of God, to worship God, to love our neighbour, and to demean ourselves honestly and modestly, etc. And after, If we consider the substance of the Law, that is, the sum of doctrine concerning piety; we deny with Christ, that the Law is simply abrogated; who said, I came not to destroy the Law. But if we consider the accidents which we have declared, it is manifest that it is abrogated. Thus Mr. Zanchius wholly agreeth with us in our grounds laid down for the opening of the point: cap. 2. The twelfth is our own worthy Estius, from whose learned tongue I received many gracious instructions in my youth whilst he lived in the University. This godly man in his exposition on the commandments, pag. 37. saith, That the Law shall keep the use that ever it had since the fall till the general resurrection, and therefore is as needful now to be understood as at any time. To whom agreeth Bucanus, who saith, that the Law in respect of the precepts of it shall not be abolished neither in this life, nor in the life to come; for God requireth perpetual love both toward himself, and toward the Creator suo ordine, etc. loc. de lege. All these worthies have passed a joint sentence against these violaters of Gods most righteous Law, and pronounce them guilty of high treason & transgression against the Lord; and of spreading scandalous words and writings against the dignity, equity and validity of his eternal Law; and so against himself the most righteous judge and author of it: and in so high and presumptuous a sin, in vain expect they that any should plead for them. It was Elies' speech to his sons, 1 Sam: 2. 12. sons of Belial, that is, lawless men, and Libertines, that knew not the Lord. If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge it: but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall plead for him? verse 25. which implieth a sin of an high nature directly against God, and very hardly forgiven: surely so is this sin of an high nature directly against the glory of God, and the majesty of his Law; yet upon their return and repentance, as they have a Mediator in heaven to plead pardon, so also the Saints in earth cannot but plead and pray for the pardon of those for whom Christ in heaven pleadeth: and even so is our earnest prayer that they may be helped out of their error, and come back into the way of truth. But in one sense (howsoever they applaud themselves) they have none to plead for them, never a learned man, nor judicious Divine that came in my hands, or under mine eye in all my reading for these many years; nor any classicke author that leaneth that way. I must needs witness to Mr. Calvin, that they learned not their delirium (as he calleth it) out of books. And if you will yet persist selfe-wise, and ascribe more to yourselves, than to all the Protestant Divines of such singular learning and holiness; then may you make use of my service in producing so many godly writers and witnesses against you; I have one of your frantic papers, that have accursed four most worthy Preachers by name, and all the rest whom you are not at leisure to name, that are on their opinion and practice. to fill up your list and catalogue of false teachers that preach not Christ aright: and to the names of London Preachers, which your scandalous scattered papers, and lost libels mention as Pharisaical enemies to the truth now by you discovered: you may put in Calvin, Beza, whitaker's, Perkins, and the rest of the godly Bishops, and renowned Doctors, who are so clear also against that which you call truth. It will make a greater noise, that you can contemn such conquered adversaries: for what are your London Ministers to them? Much rather do I wish you would in time consider how dangerous your way now is, while you rise up against the most impregnable, and unconquerable Law of God: how the Scripture brandeth them for wicked men, Prov. 28, 4 that forsake the Law, Psal: 119, 15 and depart from the Law; and much more that disclaim and revile it. And if those that be partial in the Law, that is, take some, and leave some, be made despised of God, Mal. 2. 9 and vile before all people: how much more shall those that reject it all, and in every part, be justly branded (as you are) for a vile generation of men. CHAP. 12. Containing the conclusion, and a short direction how the people of God should carry themselves towards the Law of God. THese premises being all duly considered, it remaineth that such as desire to learn Christ aright, should take his directions how to demean themselves towards his Law, which is so holy, just, and good. To which purpose it shall not be amiss to lay these grounds in our consciences, and order ourselves by them. First, That in the Liberty from the Law, consists the chief stay and comfort of a Christian; because being now freed from the guilt of sin, from the curse of sin, and from exaction of an inherent and personal righteousness to justification: he may now without respect of his own obedience, and without regard of any righteousness of his own, rely upon the mercies of God, and merits of Christ, and challenge his righteousness before God, with the the Apostle, Phil: 3 9 Secondly, That upon this liberty of justification, (wherein is no respect at all of our personal obedience) issueth another liberty of sanctification; which is a freedom from the bondage and stain of sin, not wholly and at once, (as is our justification) but in part and degrees: and here although the obedience of the Law be quite shut out of our justification, yet it is required unto sanctification, and we necessarily bound unto it; but not to be thereby justified, seeing we must necessarily be justified before we can be obedient. Thirdly, that the Law is an eternal doctrine, Psal. 119. 89. and abides for ever; yea David saith, it endures for ever in heaven: that is, not only his decree appears stable by the government, and perpetual Law which he hath set in the heavens, and cannot be broken: but as Saint Basil expoundeth it, it abideth inviolably observed by heavenly inhabitants, even the holy Angels themselves: so as though it may be contradicted, controverted, and resisted by Libertines on earth; yet it is not abrogable for ever, but abideth stable in heaven. Do the Angels in heaven observe it as a rule of holiness, and do not the Saints in heaven? do they live by diverse charters? And if the Saints in heaven, who have attained full perfection, and perfect sanctification, are bound to the Law, are the Saints in earth so perfect, as they are loose from it? Hath not Christ done as much for them as for these? Fourthly, That the Law of God is the rule of godly life: Psal. 119. 24 in which regard holy David calleth it a counsellor, and a director unto good duties: and therefore we must acknowledge the necessity of this part of the word. The Sun is not more necessary for the day, nor the Moon to govern the night, Psal, 119, 105. nor a lantern or candle for a dark house; than this part of the word, so long as we are in the night of the world: for without this light we grope in the dark, nothing can be seen, no action can be well done, nothing wanting can be found, no crooked thing can be straightened, no straight thing tried; nay all our way in which this light of God shineth not, is darkness, and tendeth to utter darkness. The pillar of the cloud and of fire, was not more necessary to Israel in the wilderness, for their station or motion towards Canaan, than is this shining pillar of God's Law to guide us unto heaven: and as it was their happiness that their pillar lasted them till they entered Canaan; and it had not been for their ease to have rejected it in their way: so ought we to esteem ourselves happy in the fruition of this holy doctrine, and direction; and on the contrary these Libertines to be unhappy men, who being in as dark, as heavy and dangerous a way, and wilderness, put out their light, and break to pieces, and cast away their lantern. Fifthly, Being the rule of godly life, we must square all our duties thereby; even as a workman applieth his rule to every part of his work, and declines not to the right hand or to the left: and holy wisdom requireth no less, but that, that should be the square of all, which must be the judge of all things done in the flesh be it good or evil. And hence is it that the LORD writeth his Law by his spirit in the spirits of the elect, and imprinteth it in the fleshly tables of their hearts, that all their motions, actions, and affections should be conformable unto it. But how do these lawless men, affirming the Law to be wholly abolished, deny it to be written in their own hearts? and consequently that they want the spirit, promised to be sent into the hearts of the elect for this purpose: And that either themselves are none of the elect, or that the spirit is wanting in his office, which were an high blasphemy. Sixthly, That as the Law is a reveiler of duty, so it is a reveiler of sin too: and discovers the sinful defects of our best obedience. And because by the Law is the knowledge of sin, therefore by the obedience and works of the Law can no flesh be justified. That same Law that discovereth and condemneth a traitor, cannot acquit him: and it were madness for him to expect life, from that Law which hath sentenced him with death. Shall frantic Papists ever find life and righteousness by the works of that Law which condemns that very fact? And are not they next to fr●nzy, that after all this so open disclaiming it; would fasten upon us, that because we teach the Law, we therefore teach justification by the Law. Nay, we are so far from consenting to any such poisoned assertion. That when the Gospel promiseth salvation and eternal life, to repentance and good works, we deny them promised to these, as performances of the Law, but only as they are fruits of lively faith, by which the promises of eternal life are apprehended. Seventhly, that the Law being a constant reveiler of sin, we must by the Law be still drawn nearer unto Christ: not only by the Law to see our sin, and in our sin our need of Christ: but we must see the Law fulfilled for us in Christ: else can we never look comfortably towards the Law. And because it revelleth sin: not only before we come to Christ, to bring us first unto him, but it reverses sin when we are come to Christ: we must by it be brought to Christ still. And it is false that they say, that the Law is indeed a schoolmaster to bring us once unto Christ, but then we have done with it, and it with us; for it must ever bring us to Christ▪ so long as by sin we estrange ourselves from him, or him from us. That place in Galat. 3. 24, 25. nothing contrarieth our doctrine: quoad●ustificationem ●ustificationem, damnationem, coactionem, significatinem; sed quoad doctrinam, obedientiam. Par. in locum. After faith came we were no longer under a schoolmaster: that is, such a schoolmaster as it was. The place is notably opened by learned Pareus, to whom for brevity sake I remit the Reader. Eighthly, We must conceive the Law in the substance of it, the image of God written in the heart of Adam in innocency, and by the finger of the same spirit written in the hearts of all the elect: and consequently must fear & tremble to sin against this Law, which floweth from the righteous nature of God, and the impugning of which is the violating of his own image, and nature, so far as we can reach it. A man may break the Prince's Law, and not violate his Person▪ but not Gods: for God and his image in his Law, are so straight united, as one cannot wrong the one, and not the other. Ninthly, We must frame ourselves to love this righteous Law, for this image of God engraven upon it: yea and the more that wicked men hate and resist it, the more that sons of Belial rise up against it; we must love it the more, obey it so much the more, maintain and defend the power and honour of it, with so much the more zeal and earn estnesse, so did holy David, Ps. 119. 126. Wicked men have destroyed the Law, therefore I love it above fine gold; where the Prophet concludeth them enemies to God, that are enemies to the Law. And 2. that then is the time to plead for God and his Law, when wicked men most oppose and oppress it. Now then is the time when the godly must awaken themselves not only to observe, but also to preserve it. FINIS.