The Covenant Of Life Opened.

The Covenant Of Life Opened.

THE COVENANT OF LIFE OPENED.

[PART I.] CHAP. I.

What is to be spoken of the Covenant of Life, shall be reduced to these Heads.

1. The nature and differences of the Covenant of Works and that of Grace.

2. The Meditator of the Covenant of Life.

3. The application of Covenant-Promises.

4. Of covenant-Influences of Grace under the Gospel.

Of the latter, especially of the last, not much hath been spoken by any in a practical way.

CHAP. II.

Propositions touching Abrahams Covenant-state.

The Apostle, 1 Cor. 15. 47. The first man is of the earth, earthy, the second man is the Lord from Heaven, speaking of the two eminently public persons, the noble heads of great Families; makes the condition of the first Adam to be animal  and earthly, that of the second Adam to be spiritual and Heavenly. And without doubt, to be born of the house and seed of the second Adam, John 1. 12, 13. must darken the A

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glory of the first birth, so as there is no great ground to boast of  the skin and empty lustre of Nobility and good blood; Although when the creature called (I) and (self) do creep in to lodge in a poor feeble piece of clay, that clay so lustered must be some God.

The flower and choicest of Adam his Paradise-state, is an earthly  condition, as is evidenced by his eating, Gen. 2. 9, 16. sleeping, 21, his being placed in a Garden, to dress it, 8, 16, 17, his marriage, 23, 24. his Lordship over birds, beasts, fishes, Gen. 1. 28. But in the second Adam, besides all these we are gifted with a life of more worth then many acres of Vineyards. They declare therefore that there is much of the first Adam in them, little of the second; Who would conquess again the many lands, that our first father Adam sold, and join house to house, and lay field to field, till there be no place, and disinherit all others, as if they were bastard heirs, and themselves the only righteous heirs of Adam, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth, Isa: 5. 8. And the more spiritual any be, the more are they above the nothing world.

Mortality may be called supernatural to the earthy part of Adam, since it is not naturally due to a body of earth, to claim life  for ever. Though immortality be due to whole Adam consisting of soul and body, and endued with the image of God. For the soul cannot die.

But if we speak of such a life, to wit of a heavenly communion  with God as Adam was a commprehensor, or one who is supposed now to have run well, and won the Gold, and the Crown, such a life was due to Adam, not by nature but by promise.

Adam in his first state was not predestinate to a law-glory, and  to influences of God to carry him on to persevere: Nor could he bless God, that he was chosen before the foundation of the world to be Law-holy, as Eph. 1. 3. What? Was not then Adam predestinated to life eternal, through Jesus Christ? He was: But not as a public person representing all his sons, but as another single person, as Abraham, or Jacob: for Gospel predestination is not of the nature, but of this or that person: therefore were we not predestinate to life eternal in him but in Christ, Rom. 8. 29, 30.

Therefore Adam fell from the state of Law-life both totally and  

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finally, but not from the state of Gospel-election to glory. For the Lord had in the Law-dispensation a love-design, to set up a Theatre and stage of free grace. And that the way of works should  be a time-dispensation, like a summer-house to be demolished again: As if the Lord had an aim that works and nature should be a transient, but no standing Court for righteousness: Hence it is now the relics of an old standing Court, and the Law, is a day of assise, for condemning of malefactors, who will acknowledge no Tribunal of grace, but only of works: And it is a just Court to terrify robbers, to awe borderers and loose men, but to believers it is now a Court for a far other end.

CHAP. III.

What is the intent and sense of the threatening, Gen. 2. 17. In the day thou eats, thou shalt die. And Gen. 3. [19.] Dust thou art, c.

We must distinguish between the intent of the threatner, and the intent and sense of the threatening.

Law-threatenings may be well exponed, by the execution of them, upon persons, against whom they are denounced: As, 1 King. 11. 30. compared with, 1 King. 12. 15, 16. Ten Tribes are taken from Davids house according to the Word of the Lord. Because therefore the threatening of death was executed upon Christ, 1 Pet. 3. 18. Gal. 3. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. then must the threatening, Gen. 2. 17. Deut. 27. 26. have been intended against the Man Christ, and because believers die, as all do, Heb. 9. 27. the threatning must have been intended against them also, for that they  sinned in Adam, and because it is out of question that the reprobate die the first and second death, the threatening must also have been intended against them. And therefore, in the intent of the threatner, the threatening was mixed, partly Legal, partly Evangelic; According to the respective persons, that the Lord had in his eye: He had therefore in his heart both Law and Gospel. It is therefore to no purpose to ask what kind of death, and whether purely legal, which the Lord threatened to Adam: For the Question A2

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supposeth that the Covenant of Works was to stand, and that the Lord was to deny a Saviour to fallen man. But we may say what death the Lord actually inflicts, that death he intended to inflict, nor did the Lord decree to inflict a merely legal death personal first and second, upon Adam and all his race.

Object. Adam was to believe he should certainly die; For so was the threatening, Gen. 2. 17. if he should sin, or then we must say, that Adam was to believe he should not actually die, the latter cannot be said, for then he was to believe the contradicent of the  Lords true threatening, which was the lie of the Serpent, Gen. 3. Ans. He was to believe neither of the twain according to the event, for there are two sorts of threatenings, some pure and only threatenings, which reveal to us, what God may, in Law, do, but not what he hath decreed and intended, actu secundo quoad eventum, to do, and bring to pass; These threatenings contain some condition, either expressed in other Scripture, or then reserved in the mind of the Lord. 1. Because the Lord so threatened Adam, as he remained free and absolute either to inflict the punishment, or to provide an Evangelic remedy, even as Solomon, 1 King. 2. 37. saith to Shimei (in the day thou passest over the brook, Kidron, thou shalt surely die) that is, thou shalt be guilty of death,  reus mortis: Yet it cannot be denied, but Solomon reserved his own Kingly power, either to pardon Shimei, or to soften, or change the sentence. 2. The words of the Law do reveal, what the Magistrate may do, iure, and what the guilty deserves by the Law, but do not reveal the intention and absolute decree of the Law-giver, and what punishment actually, quoad eventum shall be inflicted upon the guilty, and what shall come to pass as a thing decreed of the Lord: So, Gen. 9. 6. the Murderer shall die by the Sword of the Magistrate, and Exod. 22. 18, 19, 20. the Witch, the man that lies with a beast, he that sacrifices to a strange god, shall die the death iure, merito, and by Law-deserving, but it followeth not, but such as commit these abominations, do live, as is clear in the Kings of Assyria, Chaldaea, and many of Israel, who were not put to death, but lived quoad eventum, though contrary to the Word of God. 3. The express Precepts of the Decalogue, Thou shalt have no other gods before me, c. Thou

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shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, c. do show what in Law we ought not to do, but not what actually shall come to pass: For there be not a few who do actually, quoad eventum, worship  strange gods, kill, and steal. But there are other threatenings which are both threatenings, and also Prophesies, and these reveal both the Law and the fact, and what the Law-giver may, iure and, in Law, inflict, and what shall actually come to pass upon the transgressors, if they continue in impenitency, Rom. 2. 1, 2, 3, Rom. 1. 18. 1 Cor. 6. 9, 10.

Obj. Then in all threatenings and promises we are not to believe, that though we sin, we shall actually quoad eventum die, and though we obey and believe, we are not to believe that GOD shall fulfill his promise, and that our salvation shall come to pass, only we are to believe iure, that we deserve to die, and that we shall have eternal life, iure promissionis, but not actually and according to the event. Answer, Something is to be said of the threatenings, then of the promises: As touching the sense, we are to believe. In the threatnings conditional as (yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed) and (in that day thou eats thou shalt surely die, in thy  person and all thine the first and second death) we are not to believe the event, nor is it carnal security, not to believe such an event, we are only to have a godly fear, and to tremble at the dreadfull deserving of such threatenings legal, as alway are to be exponed and believed by all within the Visible Church, with an Evangelic exception of repentance. If therefore Adam did believe that he and all his should in their own persons actually suffer the first and second death, and that irrecoverably, he had no warrant, for any such belief, and the like may be said of Nineveh. For when the Lord said, in the day that thou eats thou shalt die, the first and second death, thou and all thy children personally; His meaning was, except I provide an Evangelic remedy and a Saviour. Godly fear trembles more at the darkning of the glory of the Lord in a broken Law, then at the event of inflicted wrath, were it even Hells fire.

Obj. Adam was to believe no such exception. Ans. True. Because it was not revealed, nor was he to believe the contrary that he should irrecoverably and eternally perish, because that

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was not revealed: But the threatening of the Law doth not deny the Evangelic remedy, as it neither doth affirm it.

Obj. Then was Adam to believe, it was true which the Serpent said, ye shall not surely die, quoad eventum, but ye shall be as  Gods living and knowing good and evil.

Ans. Neither doth that follow, for in the meaning of the liar, it was not true, that they should not die, either by deserving (for Satan brangles the equity and righteousness of the Law and threatning) or actually and in the event, for both were false and neither revealed, and faith is not to go beyond what is revealed of God. And Satan disputed against both the equity of the threatening, as if it had been unjust, in law, and against the event, as a fiction and a thing that should not come to pass in the event, which indeed did not come to pass: but not according to the Serpents lying and false principles.

Obj. Was then Adam to despair and to believe nothing of a Saviour. Ans. He was not obliged to despair, but to rely, by virtue of the first Commandment of the Decalogue, upon God infinitely powerfull, mercifull, gracious, and wise to save, for that was revealed and written in his heart, and that is far from despairing: But in the interval between the fall and the Lords publishing the blessed Gospel, and news of the seed to come, he was so to trust in God for possible deliverance in general (as the Law of Nature requireth) but he was to believe nothing of unrevealed particulars, far less of the mystery of the Gospel, which was kept secret, since the world began, Rom. 16. 25.

Obj. Then may also the damned in Hell, who are not loosed  from their obligation to the Law of Nature, and the first Command, be obliged to rely on an infinite and Almighty God, for their deliverance, for they are not obliged to despair, nor is there an obligation to any sin.

Ans. There is not the like reason, for though the damned be not loosed from the Law of Nature, but are to rely upon God in his whole all-sufficiency, yet with exception of his revealed Justice and Truth: Now he has expressly revealed, that their worm never dieth, and their fire never goeth out. And to believe that, is not to despair. Obj. What are then such Heathens to believe as

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touching that threatening, who never heard of the Gospel? Ans.  They are under the Law of Nature, and to believe that sin deserves wrath, according to the infiniteness of the Majesty, against whom it is committed, and to obey the Law of Naure, and read the Book of the Creation carefully: But and if the news and rumor of a Saviour come to their ears, their sin cannot but be Evangelic, in not pursuing the realty and truth of such a sovereign remedy. Yet it is not to be thought, that though the Gospel be come to all Nations, Rom. 16. 26. that that is to be meant. 1. Of every Generation of all Nations. Or, 2. of the individual persons, either young, or come to age, of every Nation under Heaven, experience and Scripture speaketh against both.

Obj. But is not the Covenant of Grace contrary to the Law and Covenant of works? Answ. A diversity there is, but contrary wills in the holy Lord cannot be asserted. Yea the Gospel may be proved out of the Law, from the first Commandment of the Decalogue, if any Act of the Lords free will and infinite wisdom shall be added to prove the Assumption. So,

If the first Command teach that God is infinitely wise, mercisull, gracious, just, and able to save, then, if so it please him, he shall save.

But the first Command teacheth the former: And the Gospel  revealing the unsearchable riches of Christ, Eph. 3. 8. expressly saith so much. Ergo.

As to the promises, they contain not only the ius, equity and goodness of the thing promised, but also that the Lord shall actually perform, yea and intends to perform, what he hath promised upon condition that we perform the required condition. And in this the promises differ not a little from these threatenings, that are only threatenings, of what God may do in Law, but not from these threatenings which are both threatenings and also Prophetical predictions of what shall come to pass, therefore must we here difference betwixt threatenings, and such and such threatenings.

The promises are considered as they are Preached and annunciated to all within the Visible Church, and as they are made in the intention of God with the Elect and Sons of the promise: The same may the threatenings admit of a two-fold consideration. The

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promises to the Elect as intended of God, reveal that both the Lord  minds to give the blessing promised, and the condition that is grace to perform the condition, and so they are promises Evangelic both in the matter, and in the intention of the Lord: But as proponed  to the reprobate, who are always from their birth to their death under a Covenant of Works, really as touching the LORDS holy Decree, they are materially Evangelic promises, but formally and in the Lords intention legal, as every dispensation to them is legal, forasmuch as the Lord hath decreed to deny the grace, by which they may or can fulfill the condition of the promise, which is proper to the Law, as it is peculiar to the Gospel, that the Lord both gives the mercy promised, and also the grace to fulfill the condition of the promise.

The threatenings to believers, especially such as are legal (if you believers fall away, ye shall eternally perish) are to believers, though materially legal, peremptory, and admit no exception, yet they are formally and in the Lords intention directed to  them upon an Evangelic intention, nor do they say that the Lord intends and decrees that they shall eternally perish, for he hath predestinate them to the contrary, to wit, to grace and glory, Eph. 1. 4. Nor that he wills that they should believe either their eternal damnation, or their final and total falling away, which inevitably leads there unto. For they, knowing that they are in Christ, 2 Cor. 13. 5. Rom. 8. 16, 17. and freed from condemnation, Rom. 8. 1. are to believe the contrary of the former, to wit, life eternal, John 4. 24. 1 Thes. 5. 9. John 3. 16. and the contrary of the latter, to wit, the promise of perseverance made to them, Jer. 32. 39, 40. Isa. 59. 21. John 10. 27, 28. John 17. 20, 21. 1 Pet. 1. 3, 4, 5. Mat. 16. 16, 17, 19. Therefore these threatenings are not to be believed by the regenerate, as certainly to come to pass in their persons, but only as Law-motives to press them to work out their salvation in fear and trembling, and to cleave so much the closer to Christ, as the condition of such as are under the Law is apprehended to be dreadfull. But reprobates and unbelievers are not to believe that God decrees and intends to them the thing promised, and grace to perform the condition, but only to believe their obligation to fiducial relying upon, and Gospel faith

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in God, revealed in the Mediator; and that if they continue in a way of opposing Christ, they not only deserve by Law (which Law-deserving also believers are to apprehend) to be broken, but actually and quoad eventum shall eternally perish. Believers are to believe the Decree of God to save them, though they hear the threatenings, for its revealed. But the Reprobate are to believe only the sense and Law-deserving and event of the threatening, if they repent not, but are to believe no decree to save them.

CHAP. IV.

The Elect non-converted are not under Law-wrath. 2. Faith is no cause of satisfaction. 3. Christ cannot have satisfied for the sins of the Reprobate.

Whether the Elect unconverted be under wrath is a doubt to many. It is true, they are servants of sin, Rom. 6. 17. Blind, and under the power of Satan as Reprobates are, Acts 26. 18. By nature children of wrath, even as others, Eph. 2. 3. Answ. Their sins committed before their conversion, are according  to the Covenant of Works, such as deserve everlasting condemnation, and they are iure and in relation to that Covenant, heirs of wrath, as well as others. 2. But we must distinguish between a state of election and everlasting, though unseen, love, that they are under, as touching their persons: and a state of a sinful way that they are born in, and walk in as others do, until they be converted. As to the former state, it is true which is said, Jer. 31. 3. I have loved thee with an everlasting love. See also, Rom. 9. 12, 13. Eph. 1. 4. so that God never hates their persons. 3. The punishment of their sins and the wrath they are under is two ways considered. 1. Materially in the bulk, and so they are under Law- strokes and Law-wrath, that is Law-punishment, as others are, Eph. 2. 3. and so the other places are to be taken. 2. The wrath is to be considered formally, and so it is denied that the punishment of the non-converted elect, because of their sinful way is any part of the Law-vengeance or curse which Christ did bear for their other sins committed by them after conversion. 1. Because when Christ B

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saith, John 5. 4. The believer hath passed from death, as it is a curse, and shall never come to judgement and condemnation, he cannot mean that they have half passed from the curse, and half not. 2. Believers are delivered, in Christ, from the victory, sting, power of sin, curse of the Law, and every curse, that is in affliction, and from condemnation not in part only, but in whole: Else their triumph were but in part, contrary to 1 Cor. 15. 54, 55, 56.  Hos. 13. 14. Isa. 25. 8. Nor should they be washen from all their sins and the spots thereof in his blood, if they might wash themselves from any spot, by bearing a part of the Law-curse in themselves, contrary to Can. 4. 7. Jer. 50. 20. Jo. 1. 28. 1 Joh. 1. 8. Rom. 8. 1. 3. 3. What ever Christ was made for the redeemed ones, that he was made fully for them, in part, and in whole, for he is their perfect Saviour. But Gal. 3. 13. He is made a curse for us, and able to save to the utmost all that come to him, Heb. 7. 27. Therefore the half or part of satisfactory vengeance, cannot be upon us, and the other half on Christ, for this is to make men and Martyrs joint satisfiers of justice with Christ, by their own blood and sufferings, to prevent the scaddings of purgatory; For though we teach against Antinomians, that the godly are punished for sins according to Justice, yet that is Evangelic, not law- justice, for they bear not one dram weight of satisfactory wrath and curse jointly with Christ, Antinomians say that sin, root and branch is taken away in Justification, so that there is no sin nor punishment for sin in the justified man. 4. The believers are blessed through Jesus Christ, Gal. 3. 10, 13. Psal. 32. 1, 2. Rom. 4. 6. Psal. 2. 12. Psal. 119. 1. Their afflictions and death blessed, precious in the eyes of the Lord, not qualified with any Law-curse, Job 5. 17. Psal. 94. 12. Mat. 5. 6. Luk. 6. 22. 1 Pet. 1. 6. 1 Pet. 4. 13. Psal. 21. 3, 4, 5, 6. Psal. 34. 17, 18, 19. Rev. 14. 13. Psal. 116. 15. Psal. 72. 14. Psal. 37. 37. and they are asleep in Christ, die in the  Lord, 1 Thes. 4. 14, 16. Nor can Aninomians and Socinians say this is under the New-Testament, for dying Jacob saith, Gen. 49. 18. Lord I have waited for thy salvation, Isa. 57. 1, 2. When the righteous man is taken away, he shall enter into peace, the Lord is the God of Abraham, Isaak, and Jacob, when their bodies are rotten, Exod. 3. 6. Mat. 22. 32. (5.) This comes too

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near the opinion of these, who make faith a cause of satisfaction for sin, as they must teach, who hold that Christ paved a ransom, on the Cross, for the sins of all and every one. For that which  added, maketh satisfaction to be counted and formally reckoned as satisfaction, in order to the expiation of the mans sins, so that by no justice he can suffer for them, and which being removed, maketh the paid satisfaction and ransom, though never taken back again by the payer, no more a satisfaction for that man, nor for Devils: is too near to the nature and too being a part of the satisfaction. If one pay a sum that fully exhausts the debt of such a broken man, upon condition the broken man say Amen to the paying thereof, otherwise it shall be as not paid, he must take up the sum again, if the broken man refuse to say Amen to it, for if he take it not up again, but it be paid and fully satisfy for, and exhaust the debt, the mans debt is paid, and the Creditor in justice cannot exact one farthing from the broken man. Now nothing given to the Justice of God by way of satisfaction for the sins of unbelievers, was ever repeated or taken back again by Christ. Nay but, say  they, the ransom was not paid at all for Judas, but only, upon condition that he believe: but he never believed, and therefore it was never paid for Judas. Answ. This is that we say, that Christ gave no real ransom at all, for the sins of Judas by way of satisfaction. But they say that there is as well a ransom paid for all the sins of Judas (final unbelief excepted) to free him, in justice from eternal strokes, as for all the sins of Peter to free him, only it is not accepted of by the Creditor, because Judas,  by faith, assented not unto the bargain: But assenting or not assenting, accepting, or not accepting, that are posterior to the payment, are nothing up or down to the completeness and perfection of the satisfaction made for the exhausting of Justice, for Justice receives not two satisfactions or ransoms for Judas, one upon the Cross from Christ, another in Hell, from Judas, yea and it must follow, that real payment was made to Justice for all the sins of Judas, upon the Cross, and that he suffers for none of them, in Hell, but for only final unbelief, which is no sin against the Covenant of Works and the Justice thereof, but only and formally against the Covenant of Grace, so that as yet satisfying of B2

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Divine Justice for sins, must be halved and parted between Christ, and Judas, which the Scripture teacheth not. Also the Father either accepts the ransom of Christ, because it is intrinsically, and of itself sufficiently satisfactory: or because Judas does believe it is so; The latter cannot be said, for believing adds nothing to the intrinsical sufficiency of the satisfaction, as not believing diminishes nothing from the sufficiency thereof; Yea, and so the Fathers formal reason of accepting of the satisfaction of Christ, must be terminated upon our poor act of believing; whereas the formal ground of the acceptation thereof is the intrinsical excellency and  worth of the Sacrifice, being an offering of a sweet smelling savour to God, Eph. 5. 2. And because he offered the ransom of the blood of God-man, of the Prince of life, Act. 20. 28. 1 Cor. 2. 8. and offered himself to God, Eph. 5. 25. 26. Heb. 9. 14. Mat. 20. 28. 1 Tim. 2. 6. Rev. 1. 5. nor is there any sufficiency in his death from the worth of believing. And the reason why he accepts it for Peter, not for another, is the election of grace.

It is true the blood is a price refusable, but it is this way refusable, because the Lord might have followed a Law-way with Adam, and all his sons, and have denied to give his Son a Ransom for us, but it is not refusable, because of any insufficiency in the Ransome. Now faith is to satisfaction as the approximation of, and the laying on of dry fuel to the fire, which is only a condition of burning, but the fire is the formal cause of burning. Yea, if we speak properly, faith is not so much as a condition without the which offended Justice is not satisfied, nor is it a condition, by any Scripture of the world, without the which God laid not our iniquities on Christ, for whether we believe or not, God laid our iniquities upon him, and made him sin for us, Isa 53. 6. 2 Cor. 5. 21. Therefore, by necessity of Justice, he must accept that Ransom intrinsically so sufficient, which did restore more glory to God, then the sins of all, for whom Christ died, took from him. Nor is it imaginable to say that any act of obedience or believing, can perfect the satisfaction of Christ, and make it sufficient, yea, or causatively make it ours For God, by no necessity of Justice, but of his own free pleasure, requireth saith as a condition of our actual reconciliation; for beside, that he might have

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required any other act of obedience, as love, he might have accepted the Ransom without requiring any act of obedience, on our part, as the Lord bestowed a calm Sea and deliverance from shipwrack, upon the Idolatrous Sea-men, upon the very act of casting Jonah in the Sea, without the intervention of any saving faith on  their part; As a gracious Prince may send a pardon to free a condemned Malefactor from death, and may command that it be valid in Law for him, without the mans knowledge, and far more without his acceptance thereof, upon his knees, especially since by a special paction between the Father and the Son, he restored abundantly more Glory to God by suffering for all, for whom he died, then they took from God by their sins, and that restitution was made to Justice without the intervening of any act of the creatures obedience. But the truth is, it is much to be doubted whether they, who hold such a satisfaction to be given of God, for the sins of all, Elect and Reprobate, but so as it shall not be valid in Law, nor effectual to quiet Justice, but they must all suffer eternal vengeance, and perform personal satisfaction, in Hell, to Justice, except there intervene an act of obedience of the creature, to make it effectual, do really and sincerely acknowlege, against Socinians, a real satisfaction and compensation made to offended Justice by Christ: For how is it real, and not rather scenical and formal, which may and should be null and in vain, if the creature make it not real, by believing. And especially, if God out of his grace which is absolutely free, work in us the condition of believing. Can God give his Son as a Ransom for us, upon condition that we believe, if he himself absolutely work the condition in us? They will not admit this.

CHAP. V.

God intended a Law-dispensation but for a time. 2. Adam, how he was ordained for a Law-life. 3. How predestinated to Glory in Christ, how not. 4. That the Heathens have no more Universal Grace then Devils. 5. No ground for such grace.

It is apparent that God intended not a Law-dispensation in Paradise to stand for ever. For 1. nothing is spoken of Adam,

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after the fall, but of his procreating of children, of the Patriarchs, of Adams dying and of his actings before the fall, the place of Paradise being scarce well known, which says the Lord had a farther design to lay aside the transient Law-dispensation and to set up Christ. 2. The Lord, of purpose, gave a positive Law, forbidding eating of such a Tree, added a threatening thereunto particularly, suffered the Serpent to tempt, and foresaw what frail nature would do, that he might deal with man, in a dispensation of free grace.

Object. Did not God ordain that Adam should have life and righteousness,  if he should continue in obedience. Answ. That was a decree conditional of things, (the man that does these things shall live) and shows the equity and holiness of the Law, but it was not a decree of persons, by which God predestinated Adam to a Law-glory, as the end, and to Law-obedience as the effectual means leading to that end.

Q.Was not Adam chosen? Ans. Adam, according to the Lords design, finaliter objective was created in the state of predestination to glory and grace in Christ, as touching [his] person, but according to his inherent condition, he was created in a legal dispensation, which was a gracious inlet to Christ; And according to his Law-state as he represented all mankind, he was Created as a lubric and frail Copy of weak nature.

Many who are such as are not chosen are Created and live under a Covenant of Works, having only some concomitant favours of the Gospel, as the Preaching thereof. 2. Common grace, inward warnings. 3. Protections of providence and forbearance, in regard  they are mixed with the Elect. The heathen cannot be said to have any inward calling to Grace and Glory, because there be some remnants of the Image of God left in them, which no more can be called universal Grace, then the same sparkles that are left in Devils can be called Gospel Grace, for they believe, There is one God and confess the Son of God, Jam. 2. 19. Luk. 4. 34. Mark. 1. 24. Only if this be called Grace, that the nature of man is so capable of Gospel mercy, and the nature of the fallen Angels morally not so. 2. The offer is made to them of Christ; not so to Devils, we shall not contend. Reason may seem to say that all

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should have a share of Gospel-Grace, but it may be replied to reason, why should it seem to be a part of the goodness and bounty of God to will and desire all and every one to be saved, and not to institute such a dispensation, as all and every one should actually be saved? 2. How should that stand, (he hath mercy on whom he  will) if free-will of the creature absolutely dispose of Salvation and damnation? 3. How is it that the Calling, Adoption, and the offer of mercy is restricted to few, and was confined to the Jews only of old? But we are more ready to call the Lord to a reckoning, for his dispensation of Grace to others, then to use our own, as becomes us. 2. We cannot judge aright of God and of his goodness, except he be God our very way. 3. It is a matter of no small difficulty to make right use of the Lords freedom of Grace, and for clay humbly to adore Sovereignty, and not to stumble at the highness of his ways, who, in these points, hath ways and thoughts above ours, as the heavens are above the earth, Isa. 55.

CHAP. VI.

It was condescension in the Lord to enter in Covenant with man. 2. Temptations in fearing we are not chosen, discovered. 3. Beings and not beings are debtors to God. 4. Self denial required in sinless nature, as in sinful. 5. Man considered three ways.

Whether was God under an obligation, to make a Covenant with man?

Hardly can any maintain the dominion and Sovereignty of God, and also assert an obligation, on the Lords part, of working upon  the creature: The Lord is debtor to neither person nor things. He as Lord commands, but it is condescension that he commands Covenant-ways, with promise of a reward to the obeyer. The Leviathan in strength is far above Job, he cannot command him. Job 14. 4. Will he make Berith a Covenant with thee, wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? That is, the Leviathan will not engage as a servant to obey Job as his Master. A Covenant speaks

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something of giving, and taking, work, and reward, and mutual engagements, betwixt parties, though there be something in the Covenant between God and man, that is, not in the Covenants of men. The rational creatures owe suitable, that is, rational obedience to the Creator, but God is under no obligation to give life, especially so excellent a life as a communion with God, in glory, yet he does it. What a God must he be, who will come down and put himself in a lovely and gaining capacity to be a Covenanting debtor to our feeble obedience, whereas he owes nothing, and to make heaven and glory so sure to us, that the heavens should sooner break and melt, like snow before the Sun, then his promise can fail.

Object. True, but faith is fixed upon the new Covenant-promise,  if I believe. Answ. Yea, but faith here is to believe, that the condition itself is promised, as well as the reward.

Obj. The condition of a new heart and of faith is promised, but not to all, not to me, but to some few chosen only. Ans. There be here a number of errors. 1. Unbelief foments proud merit, that we are to believe as much of God promised, as there is conceived, to be worth in self, and in me to fulfill the condition; But true faith, contrary to self-unworthiness, relies upon the Truth of God, the excellency of Christ, and the absoluteness of the promise. 2. Satan like a Sophist draws the dispute to the weakest conclusion from the strongest, to wit, from the promise of God, that is surer then heaven to the state, against which there is a greater number of Topic Arguments, then there can be against the promise of God. As 1. What am I? 2. Am I chosen or not? So Satan  to Christ, if thou be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread, in point of believing its better that faith expatiate in viewing God, Christ, the Ransom of the blood of God-Man, the depth of free grace, then upon self, and the state: in point of repenting and humble down-casting, we would read self, and our own estate. 3. Its Satan and the unbelieving heart that would have our faiths greatness rising from selfs holiness, and goodness. Whereas the greatest faith that Christ finds, Matth. 8. 10. looks away from self, v. 8. I am not worthy—and dwells much upon the Omnipotency of Christ in commanding diseases,

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as a Centurion his Soldiers. 4. When unbelief quarrels the Lord as untrue and weak, who faints and wearies, and one that is not the Creator of the ends of the earth, it alleges only and pretends self-guiltiness to justify unbelief: Yet Isa. 40. 28. though God be reproached as weak, we seem to resolve all in this; our own unworthiness, but we cannot get our faith stately enough; and the truth is here, we quarrel with God and his decrees, under pretence of this, what if he have not chosen me? and I have no right to Covenant-mercies, except I take a Law-way to earn them, by fulfilling the condition. 5. When we believe a conditional promise (if I believe, I am saved) faith relies not fiducially  upon the (if I believe) or upon the condition: Its a weak pillar to a sinner to stay his unquiet heart upon, to wit, his own believing, but faith rests upon the connection (if thou believe thou shalt be saved) and it stays upon the connection, as made sure by the Lord, who of grace gives the condition of believing, and of grace the reward conditioned, so that faith binds all the weight upon God only, even in conditional Gospel-promises. 1. Man is to be considered as a creature. 2. As such a creature, to wit, endued with reason and the Image of God, in either considerations, especially in the former all that are created, are obliged to do and suffer the will of God, though they never sinned. Its not enough to say, that Sun, Moon, Trees, Herbs, Vines, Earth, Beasts, Birds, and Fishes, cannot suffer the ill of punishment, which is relative to the break of the Law, for the whole Creation is subject to vanity for our sins, Rom. 8. 20, 21. The Servant is smitten and sickened, for the Masters sake, and God may take from them what he gave them, their lives without sense of pain and dolour, for all beings, yea defects and privations are debtors to the glory declarative of God, Prov. 16. 4. Rom. 11. 36. yea, and no beings are under this debt. God can serve himself of nothing, yea, that there are not created, Locusts, Caterpillars, more numerous,  then that all the fruits of the earth can be food to them, Preach the Glory of the Lords goodness to man, and what are never to be, no less then all things, that have futurition, or shall come to pass either absolutely or conditionally, are under the positive decree of God, else we should not owe thanks to the Lord for many C

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evils that never fall out, that the Lord turns away violent death, violence of men, and wild beasts, and many possible mischiefs, contrary to Deut. 28. 11, 12. Lev. 26. 6. Psal. 34. 20. Psal. 91. 5, 6, 7, 8.  And all these beings or no beings owe themselves to God to hold forth the glory of goodness, wisdom, mercy, justice, c. suppose there had never been sin: Far more now, who wants matter of meditation, or can write a book of all the pains, a kings, convulsions, pests, diseases that the Lord decreed to hold off? so that every bone, joint, lith, hair, member, should write a Psalm Book of praises, Psal. 35. 10. All my bones shall say, Lord, Who is like unto thee? Nor can any man write his debts of this kind. But we are little affected with the negatives of mercies, except we read them upon others, and little then also; Self-pain Preacheth little to us, far more, the borrowed experience of fallen Angels, of Sodom, of the old world, c. leaves small impression upon stony spirits. 2. Complain not, that you have not that share of grace, another hath, if ye (you think) had it, you would be as usefull to glorify God, as they, but ye know not yourself; swell not against him, that thou hast no grace, O vessel of wrath, thou owes that bit clay, and all thy wants to glorify his Justice. 3. My sickness, my pain, my bands owe themselves to God, and are debtors to his glory, I, and every one of men should say,  O that my pain might praise him, and my hell, and flamings of everlasting fire, might be an everlasting Psalm of the Glory of his Justice; That my sorrow could sing the Glory of so High a Lord; But we love rather that he wanted his praise, so we wanted our pain. 3. God hath made a sort of natural Covenant with night and day, Jer. 31. 35. For all are his servants, Psal. 119. 91.  that they should be faithfull to their own natural ends to act for him, Jer. 5. 22. Jer. 31. 37. Psal. 104. 1, 2, 3, 4. and they are more faithfull to their ends then men. Isa. 1. 3. Jer. 8. 7. The ox and the ass being more knowing to their owner, and the swallow and the crane being more discerning of their times, then men are. 2. They so keep their line, that there is more self-denial in their actings, then in mans way: as if fire were not fire, and nature in it denied, the fire devours not the three Children, Dan. 3. 27, 28. The Sun stands still, the Moon moves not, Josh. 10. 12, 13. The hungry

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Lions eat not Daniel, Chap. 6. 22. When the Lord gives a countercommand to them, and that is a clause in the Covenant, that the Lord entered with them, that they act or not act, as he shall be pleased to speak to them, John 2. 10. Isa. 50. 2. Mat. 8. 16. It is a most humbling Theme, that an ass is more in denying nature, and the crane and the fire, then man, yea then a renewed man in some cases. 4. But if man be considered, as such a man, endued with the Image of God, and withall the Covenant be considered as such a Covenant, as is expressed in the Ten-Commandments, in which one of seven is a Sabbath to the Lord, it will be found that many positives Moral are in the Covenant of Works, that are not in natural Covenants.

5. So man must come under a three-fold consideration.

1. As a creature.

2. As a reasonable creature.

3. As such a creature reasonable endued with the image of God.

In the first consideration, man comes under the Covenant natural,  common to all creatures; So is Peters body carried above in the water as iron swims.

2. As a reasonable creature, he owes himself to God, to obey so far as the Law written in the heart carries him, to love God, trust in him, fear him. But this can hardly bear the name of a Covenant, except it be so called, in a large sense, nor is there any promise of life, as a reward of the work of obedience here.

3. But man being considered as indued with the Image of God,  so the Holy God made with him a Covenant of life, with Commandments, though positive and Moral, yet not deduced from the Law of Nature, in the strictest sense, as to observe such a Sabbath, the seventh from the Creation, the not eating of the forbidden tree, and with a promise of such a life. And therefore though Divines, as our solid and eminent Rollock, call it a Covenant natural, as it is contradistinguished from the supernatural Covenant of Grace, and there is good reason so to call it; Yet when it is considered in the positives thereof, it is from the free C2

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will of God, and though it be connatural to man, created according to the Image of God, yet the Covenant came so from the Lords wisdom and free-will, as he might have casten it in a new and far other frame: And it cannot be denied, though it be most suitable to mans entire nature to love God, yet to love him so and so, by obeying the command of not eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and some other Commands, is not so connatural, but God might have commanded the contrary, without any thing done contrary to mans nature. Yet from this it follows, no more that these are two Covenants, then that there be two Covenants of Grace, Because faith in God, and the Moral Law in an Evangelic way are therein commanded, and also some duties touching the seals by a positive Law are therein contained.

CHAP. VII.

Its not written in the heart of man by nature, that GOD should promise life eternal to man, upon condition of obedience. 2. And that the debt of Justice cannot tie GOD. 3. GOD punisheth not sin, by necessity of nature. 4. Nor defends he his own declarative Glory by that necessity. 5. Nothing can be given to GOD Alsufficient. 6. No meriting of the creature. 7. We should have humble thoughts of free-Grace. 8. How low thoughts of ourselves. 9. Promises make no strict justice between GOD and us.

Sure, it is not repugnant to the yet innocent and entire nature  of man, to know, that God may reward all such as seek and serve him; but that he must reward obedience either in the general, or so and so, is neither written in mans heart, nor hath it any truth: For it were nothing against justice, or bounty, or any attribute of God, not to reward his creature, which is obliged to serve him, and though there be a sort of quietness of conscience, which is the natural result of obedience in Adam, and of all men, yet it cannot infer, that there is an intrinsical connection, ex natura

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rei, between our obedience and a reward to be given of God. Therefore, nor will it be a good inference, because there is disquietness in the conscience, after sin, that it is natural to a sinner to apprehend a revenging power pursuing sin committed, that therefore it is natural and essential to the Lord, to pursue sin with punishment in general. For a natural conscience may, and does know, that God doth freely create the world, and that he might not have created it, that he doth good freely to his creatures, and that he is not a debtor to his creatures; Will it follow by any Logic, that God creates the world by any natural obligation? And  because by force of a natural conscience, all know that God is good and bountifull to his creatures, in giving, and doing good to them, we cannot therefore infer that actual beneficence is so essential to the infinite Majesty, as he should not be God, if he did not extend that goodness to them. Common sense will say no more followeth, but goodness and bounty intrinsical are essential to God, and these attributes are essential to him, and were from eternity in him, and are his good and bountifull nature; Though not either man, Angel, or any thing else had been created, to which he doth actually extend his goodness; Ergo, this actual extension of goodness is not essential to God, so neither is the actual punishing of sin essential to God, but free, though Adam apprehended God would punish his eating of the forbidden tree; Yet if he apprehended that he should not be God, if he did not punish it, his apprehension was erroneous. And this only follows that there is an intrinsical and internal Justice in God, natural and essential in God, but so that the out-goings of his Justice, the egressions are most free, and that is said by some without all reason, because the apprehensions we have naturally of God that he punisheth sin, Universales apprehensiones, nequaquam sunt eorum quae Deo vel adesse vel abesse possunt pro liberrima voluntate. Universal apprehensions, therefore they are not apprehensions of such things as may be, or not be in God, according to his free pleasure, if the apprehensions of Gods doing good to Angels, to men, to all his creatures freely, be in all by nature, and cannot be rooted out, and be universal, then these apprehensions cannot be of such things as are in God, according to his most free will, and may be in the Almighty, or not be in him.

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But the conclusion hath neither reason nor sense; for there are universal apprehensions in all men, and they cannot be rooted out, that God does good to Angels, men, and creatures freely: Ergo, by this Logic the doing of good freely to Angels, men, and creatures is not a thing that is in God according to his free-will, and may be in the Almighty or not in him. Then the so doing must be in God essentially. 2. Then must God not be God, if he do not good freely to them. 3. Then must God not be God, except he create men, Angels, and creatures. 4. But since he is God everlasting, he must from everlasting have created men, Angels, and the creatures, and from everlasting he must punish sin; Life may be considered. 1. As life. 2. As such an excellent life, to wit, a communion with God.

In the former consideration, life is either considered as the end,  or secondly as a free reward. In the former respect. To live an intellectual life in obeying God, was to Adam so created a connatural end, as to burn, is to fire, and to give light, to the Sun. And God may put the respect of a reward upon any obediential end. But that Adam should have such an eminent life, for the reward of his obedience as a communion with God, which is far above his obedience, is the free donation of God: nor is there any necessary connection between Adams perfect obedience, and so high and eminent a life, nor can this Covenant, as touching such a promise, be written in his heart. God then never loved to make any Covenant, yea even that of Works, without some acts and out-goings of grace, and the hire was grace, how is he not to be served, who loves to hire and allure us to be happy?

Arminius saith, the reward of keeping the Covenant of Works,  cannot be spiritual, nor can the punishment be spiritual, because you teach (saith he) that the obedience is natural. Answ. It followeth not, for the reward is spiritual, yea and supernatural from the free promise of God: It was, that God should recompence our natural obedience, coming from connatural principles, with so eminent a Crown as communion with God-Creator, in a life of glory. And this came from no innate proportion between a natural work and supernatural reward; Otherwise we must say, first, that there is such an intrinsical connection ex natura rei between

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Adams work and so high wages, as that glorious communion was, as the Lord could not but in justice, so have rewarded his obedience, except he would be unjust, but there is nothing in the creature, that can conclude, limit, or determine his will and wisdom, who is infinite. 2. It had been nothing against justice, if the Lord had followed Adams obedience, with no reward at all; For man as a creature, owes himself to God, and as sweetly and  pithily Anselm saith, as a redeemed one I owe myself and more then myself to thee, because thou gavest thyself who art so far more then myself, for me, and thou promisest thyself to me. Now God, who is more and greater then Adam, promised himself, to be enjoyed by Adam, if he should continue in obedience. For what can the highest goodness (saith he) give to one that loves it, but itself?

3. If God, of justice, give Adam life, Adam might compel  God to pay, what he oweth him, else he should be unjust: But the creature can lay no necessity on the Creator, either to work without himself, nor can he cause him to will. 4. The proper work of merit (saith great Bradwardine) and of him that works must go before the wages, in time, or in order of nature. And if the worker receive its operation, and working for wages from God first, and by his virtue and help continue in operation and working, he cannot condignely merit at the hand of God, but is rather more in Gods debt, after his working, then before his working, because he bountifully receives more good from God, then before, especially, because he gives nothing proper of his own to God, but gives to God his own good; But no man first acts for God, for God is the first actor and mover in every action, and motion. As that saith, Who gave first to the Lord, and it shall be recompensed him?

5. If this was yesterday just, that life eternal is due to Adam for his work before God made it just and due, then from Eternity and before any decree of God it was just and due; Certainly, God,

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upon the same reason, was debtour, to make such a Covenant, that was just, before he made it just. And this is no Covenant of God, for God, not making the justice of the Covenant, and the just connection between work and wadge, he cannot be the Author of the Covenant: But neither is Adam the Author of the justice, nor of the just Covenant: Upon the same ground, it was then an everlasting justice without and before God from Eternity. Non datur iustum prius primo iusto.

6. If God did more for Adam, then he can recompense God for  it, as the Father hath done to the Son, then he could not merit at the hand of God: But God did more to Adam in giving to him being, faculties, mind, will, affections, power, habits, his blessed-Image, then Adam can never be in a condition, in which he can recompense God, or give him more annual and usury, in his acting of obedience, then the stock was he received in proportion. As the Son can never give the Father, in recompense, so much or the captive ransomed from death, can never give to his ransom- payer, who bought him, so much, as the one and the other shall no more be under an obligation, and debt of love and service to father and ransomer, then to a stranger that they never knew: Nor could Adam thus be freed of God, so as he should be owing nothing to him. If any say, God may freely forgive all this obligation and debt: To which Bradwardine Answers well: 1. The forgiving of the debt, when the debtor hath nothing to pay is a greater debt taken on. 2. God (saith he) may forgive so in regard of actual obligation, that he is not obliged ad aliquid faciendum sub poena peccati, to do any thing under the pain or punishment of sin, as the hireling is obliged to work, when he hath made a Covenant to work, and so we are not obliged to do, as much as we can for God. But in regard of habitual obligation, God cannot forgive the debt, that the reasonable creature owes to God, for so he might dispense with this, that the reasonable creature owe no obedience to God, suppose he should command it, which is impossible.

They seem therefore, with eyes of flesh, to look upon God, who say that God by necessity of justice must punish sin, yea that the most High cannot be God, except he punish sin, and that he should

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not be God, if all his Laws imposed upon men, were only promissory and void of all threatenings.

What? could not God have said, eat not of the tree of knowledge,  for if ye eat not, your obedience shall be rewarded with life eternal, and no more? might he not have laid aside all threatening? What Scripture or reason teacheth to say, that God, if he create a reasonable creature, and under a moral dependency, which it hath and must have of God, then must God, by necessity of nature, punish the sinner, yea so as, if he punish not, he should not be God, nor just, but must fall from his natural dominion, except he make penal laws, and so he should not be God, except he say to Adam (if thou eat thou shalt die) or (shalt be punished for eating) but this is not proven by one word, except this, the reasonable creature is not, nor cannot be subject to God Creator, except God punish the sinner; But that is denied: Adam should have had a Moral dependance upon God, and God should have been God, and essentially just, if sin had never come into the World, and if God had kept Adam under a Moral Law, as he did the Elect Angels, who never felt or knew the fruit of a Moral Law broken and transgressed. And God, if he imposed any penal Law upon the Elect Angels as penal (which shall be an hard work to prove) yet had a natural  dominion over the Elect Angels, and suppose no Law, but only a rewarding and remunerative Law, had been over their heads, should God be no God, in that case? and if any deny, that God hath a perfect dominion over the Elect Angels, he is not worthy to be refuted. 2. Show me, in all the Old or New Testament, any penal Law of active obedience as penal, imposed upon the man Christ, or where is it written, If the Man Christ sin, he shall eternally die? I tremble at such expressions: Is the Lord therefore not the Lord, and hath the Lord fallen from his natural dominion over his Son, the Man Christ? Or (3) will any man deny, but the Lord might justly have laid upon all men and upon the Elect Angels a Law only remunerative, not penal at all, a Law only with the promise of a reward, and void of all threatening of death, first or second, or any other punishment, and yet he should have been the Lord, and had a natural dominion over Angels, the Man Christ, and all mankind? D

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(3) Suppose the Lord had never imposed the Law-penal forbidding the sin against the Holy Ghost, upon the Elect believers,  nor any other penal Law, but by virtue of the most sufficient ransom of the Blood of God paid for man, he had made them now after the fall, as the confirmed Angels, and holy as the Man Christ, and brought them so to glory, should he not have been God in that case, and should he have lost his natural dominion over men in that case? 4. The dominion of God over men is not only in one particular, of penal Laws, it is in remunerative Laws also, in giving predeterminating influences to obey and persevere in obedience, in not leading into temptation, in hyring and alluring us to serve God, in terrifying men with examples of the Lords Judgements on others, he spared not the Angels, c. 2 Pet. 2. 4. Jud. 6. and therefore, to say, that God falls from his natural dominion over man, and leaves off to be God, except he impose penal Laws upon men, is first an errour in Logic, a negatione speciei ad negationem generis, nulla est consequentia: If God have not a dominion over man, in one particular of penal Laws, he falls from his whole dominion natural, in other things: It is an undue inference. 2. It cannot be but too daring to tie the blessed Godhead, and his essential dominion over man, to only making of spenal Laws: it smells of Scriptureless boldness with the most High, and limits the Holy One, that he cannot be God, except he be God in our way: And saith, he hath no way to preserve his glory, but by creating a Hell: And therefore let that stand as an unproven position, since it hath no probation; The reason that is given is as weak as the weak conclusion; Though water may bear up water, yet it cannot support the earth. For 1. it saith, if man be created a reasonable creature under a Law, he may sin, intercidi potuit obedientia, and he may be created under a Law, with perfect moral dependence upon God Creator, as the Elect Angels and the Man Christ, and yet never sin, and yet God falls not from his dominion, and leaves not off to be God.) (2.) This looks somewhat the Arminian way, that man cannot be under the subjection of, properly so called, Moral obedience, except his will be indifferent as Adams was, to stand or fall, to run to Heaven or Hell, which indeed saith, that the most perfect obedience of Christ,

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who was obedient to the death, Phil. 2. 8. and delighted to do the will of God, Psal. 40. 8. John 4. 34. is no proper obedience, that is, perfect obedience is not proper obedience. And that obedience of Elect Angels the samplar of our obedience, Mat. 6. 10. Isa. 6. 2, 3. Psal. 103. 20. is not proper obedience. 3. Whereas it is said, if man sin, his moral dependency cannot stand, except God punish him, but so not only God shall not be God, nor have dominion over man, except he impose a penal Law upon man, but he shall not be God except he actually punish man, or his surety Christ. But the same pen saith that the out-goings of justice are  free, that is to say, it is free to God to punish sin; and yet he falls from his natural dominion over man, and leaves off to be God, if he punish not sin. But we do deny that God falls from his natural dominion over man, though he never impose a penal Law upon him, and never punish, and desire that this may be proven, nor is it imaginable, how God by necessity of nature, must punish sin: And yet, in the way, measure, and degree of punishment, and in the time when, he can use moderation. Which is as good as to say, the fire must, by necessity of nature, burn, the Sun cast light;  But the fire hath free will to burn when it pleaseth, and at this time, and not at this time; and the Sun must shine, by necessity of nature, but it is free to shine at ten hours of the day, and not at twelve, and it may shine as bright as the Sun, or as dim as the Moon. Or God the Father loves himself, but it is free to him to love himself today, not tomorrow, and to love himself so much, not so much. And so he may say, God is so mercifull and just today, as he may be no merciful, no just, tomorrow; and God is infinitely mercifull and just, and yet he is Jesse mercifull and more mercifull essentially according to his good pleasure, which are speaking contradictions. Yea this is that which misjudging Suarez saith, that the creature may do a real injury to God, and take away from God ius Dei ad gloriam, his right to glory, but the truth is, the creature by sin darkeneth or overcloudeth his declarative  glory, but can take away no essential glory, nor any real right or real good from God, so Elihu, Job. 39. 6. If thou sinnest, what dost thou against him? If thy transgressions be multiplied, what dost thou to him? To take his declarative glory from God, D2

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is no loss to him, no more then it is loss to the Sun, that ye hinder it to shine upon the wall, when yet ye take no light from the Sun, for it shines upon an interposed body. Job 35. 8. Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art, and thy righteousness may profit the Son of man. It is needful (say some) that God preserve his own glory safe, but if sin be without infliction of punishment, it is impossible that he can defend his own glory. Ergo, of necessity he must punish sin. The proposition is out of controversy, for all confess that God must preserve his own glory, but by necessity of nature he must do so, quoniam seipsum non potest non amare. Because he cannot but love himself, and he hath said, my glory will I not give to another.

To this is answered, the glory internal, eternal, and essential  to God, the Lord must defend and love as he loves himself, by necessity of nature; and if any say that the egressions and out-goings of God to defend and love his own essential Glory, and his own holy Nature, so as he may use moderation in the degrees and time of these, he may love himself and his own essential glory, more or less, and touching the time, he may delay to love himself, and he may love himself and his own essential glory tomorrow, not today, As the Author says, the out-goings of revenging justice are  moderated in punishing; he speaks wonders and things unworthy of God. The place, Isa. 42. speaks not of this glory, for no idol, no creature, can more take away from the Almighty this essential glory of God, nor his blessed Nature can cease to be, but there is a glory declarative of pardoning mercy, as well, as of revenging justice; It must be a carnal conception and a new dream, that God by necessity of nature, loves himself as clothed with revenging justice, or as just, and his own glory of revenging justice, but that God loves himself as mercifull and ready to forgive, or his own glory of pardoning mercy freely, and by no necessity of nature: Which the Author must say, for the place, Isa. 45. should otherwise bear this sense, my glory of revenging justice only, I will not give to idol gods and creatures. But the place of Isa. ch. 42. 8. should not conclude, but they might ascribe the glory of salvation and mercifull deliverances victories over Judah, the Temple, the Sanctuary to their idol gods, the contrary whereof is intended

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by the Prophet; But if the Lord, by necessity of nature, love his  declarative glory, as he loves himself, then he must love glory of one attribute, as well as of another, and so as his Nature, not freedom or sovereignty puts him to it, to defend the glory of justice, when man sins; Yea so as he cannot be God and essentially just, except he vindicate his glory of justice; Yea so he must love the glory of saving and pardoning mercy, as himself, for the one glory is no less essential to God (if it be essential at all) then the other. And by this means, God, by necessity of nature, to preserve safe the glory of saving mercy, must send his Son, and by the like necessity, by which he loves himself, he must redeem man; Now the Lord does not love himself, of free grace, for he every way, for the infinite excellency of his Nature is love-worthy, and there is  no intervening of freedom, or free grace, or sovereignty in the Lords loving of himself and his own essential glory. There is a declarative glory, which is not essential to God, of which the Scripture, Prov. 16. 4. The Lord made all things for himself, that is, for his glory, to be declared. Eph. 1. 6. He hath chosen us to the praise of the glory of his grace, v. 11. In Christ we have obtained an inheritance. 12. That we should be to the praise of his glory,  Rom. [11.] 36. All things are to him, to his glory, Isa. 43. 21. This people have I formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise. All these are to be understood not of the essential glory of God, but of the declarative glory of God, that shines ad extra. And this glory is not essential to God as so declared, for he was infinitely glorious from eternity, and should eternally be essentially glorious, though neither world, nor man, nor Angel, had been created. And the meaning of that, Isai. 42. 8. is mistaken, the length of the Heaven, toto Coelo. It is not this, as I love myself, so by necessity of nature I will, and desire that my glory due to me, as God, be not given to idol gods, and creatures. 1. What by necessity of nature God wills, that certainly, and by necessity of nature is and existeth, as he loveth himself, and his Son by necessity of nature, and begets, his Son by necessity of nature, so also by necessity of nature God is loved, and the Son of God is loved, and the Son is by necessity of nature, begotten of the Father. But it is most untrue, that by necessity of nature, the Glory

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of God is not transferred to Idol gods and creatures; The Scriptures cry the contrary. When ever Idolatry is committed, Isa. 40. and 41. Isa. 46. Rom. 1. Acts. 17. his glory declarative is given, most sinfully to another against his approving will. 2. Whatever sin God forbids, he forbids the existence of it, by his approving will, not by necessity of nature, for if God essentially and by nature willed that sin and Idolatry should never be, he would efficaciously hinder it; But what God wills by his commanding will, we see he does not efficaciously hinder the existence thereof: For then sin and Idolatry should not be all, nor have any existence, which is contrary to Scripture and experience; And surely, if God love his declarative Glory essentially as himself, he must essentially no less love to keep this glory, when Angels and men do obey him, and to hinder the taking away of this Glory by sin, then to revenge the taking away of this glory by punishment, for every sin against a positive Law, to eat of the tree of knowledge, or for the Jews to eat swines flesh, before Christ abolished such Laws, as well as sins against the Law of nature, are contrary to the Glory  of God, and so contrary to that essential love that God hath to his Glory, and to the Glory of the Lord, the Law-giver himself, Ergo, by necessity of nature, because he cannot but love himself, he should preserve his legislative Glory, (it is as properly and essentially the Glory of God, which he requires of us, in doing his will, as the Glory of suffering punishment for sin committed, is his Glory) therefore, by necessity of nature, because God cannot but love himself, he should essentially hinder sin: And if God absolve the guilty, where is the Glory of his justice? True, it should be lost, so when God suffers the Angels to fall, and Adam to sin, where is the Glory of his legislative Majesty? it is lost so far. God is obliged to defend the Glory of his Justice: say and prove that he is obliged by necessity of nature to defend the Glory of his Justice, more then by the same necessity he must defend his legislative Glory. 3. God must defend all his Glory with the same necessity, except the Scripture make some exception of some Glory which he must preserve, as dearer to him then some other Glory, which is unwarrantable to say, and if God must, by necessity of nature, and as God, because naturally he loves himself and

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his own Glory, defend his own Glory, then, by necessity of nature he must defend the Glory of all his Attributes, of Holiness, Graciousness, Greatness, Omnipotency, Eternity, Infinite knowledge, c. that the Glory of not one of these be taken from him by sin: And because the Lord maketh, and worketh all, that he doth without himself, in the creature, for his own Glory, Prov. 16. 4. Rev. 4. 11. Rom. 11. 36. in all that he doth, he must by necessity of nature love his own Glory, quoniam seipsum non potest non amare, because he loves himself. Ergo, by this ground the Lord doth nothing freely without himself, and so the Lord makes not the rain to fall, the tree to bud, the sea to ebb, the wind to blow, the fowls to flee, the fishes to swim, for the declaration of the Glory of his goodness, or his power, or his mercy, his holiness, with any freedom, but all these he must do for Glory to himself by necessity of nature, which Glory he loves as himself, for his Glory in all he doth without, he loveth by necessity of nature, as he loves himself saith the Author. And therefore as he cannot preserve the glory of his Justice, but by punishing sin, and that by necessity of nature, so he cannot preserve the Glory of the rest of all his Attributes (which Glory also he loves as himself) but by doing all without himself in like manner by necessity of nature, which utterly destroys the liberty and freedom of God in all his works of Providence and Creation, and so God shall be a natural  agent in all his works without himself, not a free agent in Creating and Redeeming. 4. The Scripture says, he works all things according to the council of his will, for his Glory, and therefore he intends not his own declarative Glory as he loves himself: For by necessity of nature he loves himself, and cannot but love himself. But he might, if so it had pleased him, never have intended to show forth his own Glory, and does not show it forth by necessity of nature as he loves himself. Yea he might never have created the world, never have acted without himself: For he was sufficient within himself and stood in need of no declarative Glory: Gen. 17. 1. Acts 17. 25. 5. Yea if by necessity of Justice, God cannot but punish sin, especially this justice shall carry him to follow the Law of Works without any Gospel moderation, which is that the same person that sins, and the same soul, Ezek. 18 and

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no other, should die for sin: for all these. Thou shalt destroy all  the workers of iniquity. Thou art of purer eyes then that thou can behold iniquity, and the like, are expressions of a pure legal proceeding in the Lord, against such as are out of Christ, under the Law, not under the Gospel, to wit, the workers of iniquity whom the Lord in justice shall punish in their person, not in their surety. And if there be such a connection objective ex natura rei, between sin and punishment, it must be between punishment and the very person and none other, but the same that sinned: For among men this is justice. Noxa sequitur caput, so that by necessity of nature, God shall not be God, vor essentially just, if he punish not eternally Adam and all mankind in their own persons; and so by necessity of justice, he cannot punish Christ; And it cannot be denied but there is a dispensation of free Grace, and that it is no act of Justice but of Grace, that God make Christ sin, i. e. a sacrifice for sin for us, 2 Cor. 5. 21. And that the Lord laid upon him the iniquities of us all, Isa. 53. 6. and made him our surety. Nor let any man object, how could God make Christ a propitiation for sin to declare his righteousness? Or how could such justice, by that action be debarred? since justice did not exact such an action: If without violation of justice it might have been omitted, if God should have been infinitely just from eternity, if he had done no such thing? Shall a Prince get himself glory in the name of justice,  by doing that which, by his absolute Sovereignty, he may leave undone without hurt of justice. It is answered, this is to measure God by mortal men: Shall an earthly father freely for no real good to himself beget hundreds of children, when he needs not, and yet he foresees the largest number of them shall perish eternally, and the eldest must die and be made a curse, to save the rest. The Lord punished Christ for us to declare the glory of his Justice in punishing sin in his own Son, who was the sinner by imputation, for out of the depth of infinite wisdom, the Lord freely imposes a law upon his creatures: He might have imposed no such law under such a punishment. By no necessity of nature did the Lord threaten death, for the eating the of that tree, prove, that God should not have been God, except he had threatened death for the eating of that fruit, and except he had punished

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that eating with death, either to be inflicted upon the eater or his surety. Quid haeres? Prove that by the word of God, it is sin to eat, when God forbids; but the Lords soul hates sin. True, but does the Lords soul hate sin naturally, as he loves himself and by necessity of his essential justice as contradistinguished from his immutability, and his truth and faithfulness, according to which attributes, he decreed and said, that the soul that sins shall die, and (he that eats shall die) and he cannot change, nor alter, what he hath decreed, and cannot but be true in his threatenings. But the Question is, whether (laying aside the respect of Gods unchangeableness and truth) there be such a connection internal, between eating and dying, or between eating forbidden of God, and punishment, as God cannot be equally and essentially just, nor can he be God, except he punish forbidden eating; for sure eating of that fruit, is not of its nature, sin, but it is sin, from the only forbidding will of God; for the Lord had been no less essentially just, had he commanded Adam to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. Ergo it is punished from the forbidding will of God, for say that to be punishable or to be punished be essential to sin, if eating of such fruit be sin from the forbidding will of God, the essence thereof must be from the same forbidding will, then must it follow that God hates not all sin, by necessity of nature; And that he hates such eating only conditionally, if he forbid it; but the from his mere free will did forbid it. So the Question shall not be, whether God in justice, punished Christ, and made him a propitiation to declare his justice, but what the relative justice ad extra is, by which God punisheth sin, and whether God should leave off to be God (hallowed be his high Name) if he should not make first penal Laws to threaten all sin with punishment. 2. Whether he should not be God, if he should not punish all sin, even the eating of the  forbidden tree. 3. What can be said that is more weak and watry, to enervate the glory of free grace, then to confound the Glory of Gods Justice in giving Christ to die for sinners, and this glory as manifest and declared: For sure the manifestation of that glory is a work of free grace, and most free, if God do any thing freely, he must freely, and by no necessity of Justice, Mercy, Omnipotency, Patience, Grace, c. manifest the glory of all E

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these to men and Angels, and these attributes and the internal  splendor, beauty, or (to speak so) the fundamental glory of all the attributes of God is essential to God, and his very Nature. And they deny the Lord, who teach that any attributes or such glory are in God freely or contingently (if I durst to speak) for then might we say, these may go and come, ebb and flow, in the Lord, and he should be God, though Mercy, Omnipotency, Gloriousness, Graciousness, were now and then wanting in him, as he punishes not always, and yet he is eternal just, he saves not always, and yet he is eternally mighty to save, and abundant in compassions but as to the manifestation of Power, Mercy, Justice, that is freely in God: He sent his Son, and gave his Son to death for us, out of love, John 3. 16. But it is against common sense, to infer, Ergo, God sent his Son, by necessity of love, and mercy,  and free Grace. So that he should not have been infinitely loving, mercifull, gracious, if he had never sent him. And it is as poor Logic to say, because of grace and free-love he sent his Son, and so might not have sent him, as to say he loved where there was no need, it is in vain to show the glory of Justice (saith the Author) when God can take away sin, out of free pleasure, and why should he expose his Son to shame, death, and a curse, whereas he might have taken away sin freely, because it is his pleasure? This is the very thing that Socinians say, there is no need of blood, and satisfaction by blood, if God out of his absolute Sovereignty can  take sin away without blood, and so there was no need of real satisfaction; This is against the Holy Ghost, and we may hear it. All the Scriptures cries that out of free grace the Lord sent his Son, and delivered him to death; By the grace of God He tasted death for every man, Heb. 2. 9. Shall we infer there was then no necessity that he should die? It is safest to say, the only wise God decreed that sin should be. 2. That the glory of his Justice should appear in taking away sin, not in our way, but in the way of God, to wit, in a way of justice, of mercy, of free grace, in incomparable love, of mighty power; and in all these so acts the Lord as he should not leave off to be the Lord, but acts most freely, though he had not taken that course. But far be it from the godly not to adore him in this, as the admirable way beyond the thoughts of men and Angels.

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It were safest to draw holy practises by way of use from this.

In all pactions between the Lord and man, even in a Law-Covenant there is some outbreakings of Grace. Its true, there was no Gospel-Grace, that is a fruit of Christs merit in this Covenant. But yet if grace be taken for undeserved goodness: There are these respects of grace. 1. That God might have given to Adam something inferior to the glorious Image of God, that consists in true righteousness, knowledge of God, and holiness, Gen. 1. 26. Eph. 4. 24. Col. 3. 10. It was a rich enough stock, this holy Image to be so badly guided. And who looks spiritually to their receipts? Its either too much of grace and holiness that another hath, and too little that I have, so arises virtual sighing and grudging at the dispensation. Or 2. a swelling that it is so much, as if it were not receiving. I am holier then thou, Isa. 65. 5. a miskenning of him that makes me to differ, 1 Cor. 4. 7. A blecking of others, Luk. 18. 11. A secret quarrelling at God as too strict and hard in his reckoning, Mat. 25. 24. And what pride is this, because I am a mere patient under gifted holiness, to usurp it as mine own? As if a horse should kick and fling, because he wears a borrowed saddle of silk for a day.

2. Being and dominion over the creatures is of undeserved goodness.  Who looks to a borrowed body and a borrowed soul, yea and to self, and to that which is called I, as to a thing that is freely gifted? So that though thou be in an high opinion of self, self is self, and what it is, from God. And when thou rides, whence is it that I am the rider, and the wearied horse the carrier, but from God? 3. The Covenant of Works itself, that God out of Sovereignty does not command, is undeserved condescending; that God bargains for hire, do this and live, whereas he may bide a Sovereign Law-giver and charge command us, is overcoming goodness. Law is honeyed with love, and hire; it is mercy that for  our penny of obedience, so rich a wage as communion with God is given. 4. The influences to acts of obedience, come under a twofold consideration. 1. As congruous and suitable concurrences of God to Adams act of obedience.: And so they were free gifts to Adam not promised, as we shall hear in the New Covenant. 2. As such influences by which the standing Elect Angels (who E2

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were under this Covenant as well as Adam) were differenced from  the Angels that fell, and were confirmed that they should not fall, in this latter respect. Absolute Sovereignty shines in Adams fall, so if a Sparrow cannot stir its wing without God, Mat. 10. 29. nor a hair fall from our head, ver. 30. far less could Adam fall, and all his, without a singular providence; And far less could Adam go on and act without influences from God. And if strong Adam and upright, created in holiness, could not then stand his  alone; Shall our clay legs now under the fall bear us up? What Godly trembling is required in us? 5. The gift of Prophecy, Gen. 2. 23. seems to be freely given, besides the Image of God, and Adams knowledge, Gen. 2. 19. of every living creature, according to their nature may be proven, but it appears to be natural, and he is a lamentable example to us of abusing the Image of God, and good gifts; But no habit without the continued actings of God can keep us in a course of obedience. There is no ground to make habits of grace our confidence. 3. There can be no giving and taking between the creature and the Creator. Elihu pleads well for him, Job 35. 7. If thou be righteous what gives thou to him?  Or what receiveth he of thy hand, v. [8.] Thy wickedness may hurt a man, as thou art, and thy righteousness may profit the Son of man, Job 22. 2. Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable to himself? Is it pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous? Or is it a gain to him that thou makest thy ways perfect? So Eliphaz. And David, Psal. 16. 2. My goodness extendeth not to thee. Acts 17. 25. Neither is the Lord worshipped with mens hands, nor with their spirits: as if he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things. What then is the glory of the creatures obedience to him? It is some shining of the excellency of God upon men and Angels, from the works of God, and our obedience to him. But suppose there were no creature to pay the rent of this glory to him, is the Lord a loser therefore? Hath he need of our songs of glory? Or that creatures should be Heralds of his praise? Or needs he the workmanship or structure of Heaven, Sun and Moon to be a Printed  Book to spell and sound his glory? If he need not the Book (as he needeth nothing created. Who sayeth I am the Lord All-sufficient)

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he needs not one letter, nor any sense of the Contents of the Chapters of that Book. There is a secret carnal notion of God in us, when we act and suffer for God, that brings a false peace,  and some calms of mind, we have pleased him once, and beside that peace, a scum and a froth smokes up unsensible in the heart, we are profitable to God, it would be the worse with him, if he wanted our prayers and service: but had the Lord any missing of Heaven and of Angels and Men, in these infinite and innumerable ages of duration, that went before any created being? When he was upon these infinite and self-delighting thoughts, solacing himself in that infinite substantial fairness and love his Son Christ, Prov. 8. 29, 30. (2.) You can give nothing to God Creator of  all, but it must be either an uncreated Godhead, but he who perfectly possesseth himself, will not thank you for that, or your gift must be a created thing: But how wide is his universal dominion? can you give to one that, of which he was absolute Lord before? all the Roses are his, all the Vineyards, all the Mountains, he is the owner of the South and the North, of the East and the West, and infinite millions of possible Worlds, beyond what Angels and all Angels can number, for eternity of ages, are in the bosom of his vast Omnipotency. He can create them if he will.

And what ye give to another, it was out of his dominion, but all things are in his dominion, for who spoiled him of what he had? David blessed the Lord, when the people gave for the Temple, excusing himself and the people, that they took on them to give to the great Lord-giver: 1 Chro. 29. 11. Thine, O Lord, is the  greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty, for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine, thine is the Kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. vers. 12. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest, and in thy hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. 14. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able, so willingly, to offer after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. Hence, none can give to God. 1. Because he is JEHOVAH the Eternal God, then he gives all and nothing can be given to him. 2. Because of the [greatness]

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and infiniteness of God. Giving is an adding to him, to whom we give. But nothing can be added to him, for thine is the greatness, the power, and the majesty. 3. Nothing can be given to him who is universal and full Lord and possessour of heaven and earth, and all things therein, for all that is in the heaven, c. are thine. 4. Nothing can be given to him, who is so Lord, that he is exalted as Head, Prince and King, above all created Kings, and their dominions over their own. 5. But all the goods of the Subjects are the Princes, or the Commonwealths. The Jurists distinguish as the Schoolmen Theod. Smising, Tom. 1. de Deo, tractat.  3. disp. 4. q. 5. fig. 65. a two-fold ius, ius altum ius bassum: The Prince and Commonwealth, have a sort of eminent right to the goods of the Subjects, to dispose of them for the public good, as they may demolish a castle belonging to a private man in the frontiers of the enemies land, because it hurts the country, and may be better made use of by enemies against them for the country; And they may compel him to sell it, but this hinders not, but every Subject hath a dominion and right to his own goods, to use them at his pleasure, which the Prince cannot do. Ahab the King hath no right nor dominion over the vineyard of Naboth to compel him to sell it or give it against his will to his Prince; For the earthly Prince, nay the man himself, the just Proprietor before men cannot bear that, so as it may be said of God, vers. 12. both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all: For God created the being of gold and of every thing, that we can give to God, which no earthly Prince can do.

6. Nothing can be given to him, in whose hand is power and might, and to make great and to give strength: For 1. Riches and things we give are of him. 2. Power, might and strength to give, either Physical, to bear a burden to his house: Or, 2. Moral, a willing mind and heart to give is in his hand: Or, 3. A mixed power, the being of the act of giving is his. v. [14.] Of thine own we give thee. Can we give to any that which is his own already? Can ye give to a Crowned King over such a Kingdom his own Crown? Can ye give to the righteous owner of his own lands, his own Garden, and his own vineyard, in gift? but every being created is the Lords.

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8. Saith David, v. 15. We are strangers before thee, and sojourners as all our fathers were: And that saith, the Lord is the only Heritor, and we but Tennents at will, and strangers both fathers and sons, though for five hundreth or a thousand years fathers and sons have lineally and in heritage before men possessed such lands: yet before thee (saith he) we and our fathers have but Tennent-right, and are strangers from thee. And what can a mere stranger to life and being give to the just Heritor and Lord of life and being?

9. And our days (saith David) on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding life, and being is a shadow of being, and God is the only first excellent being: and suppose we should give life and being to and for him, it is but a borrowed shadow that we give him; And we are not lords of our own being, we have not absolute right over ourselves to give ourselves to him. If Doeg  will not give himself to God, and act for God, Psal. 51. 2. God shall take thee away and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Job 27. 21. the east wind of God carrieth him away, and as a storm hurleth him out of his place. Ye shall bestow life and being worse then upon God. God shall make morter of thee, O fool! who makes a god of borrowed I, great I and poor Nothing-self: Nay if there be a Pronoun in thee, O let it be this: Oh if my separation from Christ and the blotting of my name out of the Book of Life, and my heaven might be a footstool to heighten the glory, and high glory of the Lord in the salvation of many. 2. This Pronoun self and mine is a proud usurper against  God. Was he not an Atheist or a churl, and his name folly, who said, 1 Sam. 25. 11. and breathed out so many my's? Shall I take my bread and my waters, and my flesh which I killed for my shearers, and give it to men whom I know not whence they be? And he was as mad a fool who thus speaks, Isa. 10. 13. By the strength of my hand have I done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent: and I removed the bounds of the people— 14. And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people, and as one gathereth eggs that are left, so have I gathered all the earth, and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. This is the fool-axe boasting against him that heweth with it. And another fool said: Make an agreement with me by a present, and

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come out to me, Isa. 36. 16. And this mad nothing is above God, chap. 37. 10. Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee. The Tyrant of Egypt, the great Dragon that lieth in the midst of the river said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself, Ezek. 29. 3. God made the Sea and all the Rivers. There be three Pronouns in the mouth of another proud Monarch, Dan. 4. 30. And the King spake and said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the Kingdom, by the might of my power and the honour of my Majesty? So soon as there falls from the great Lord of being a chip or shadow of created-being, especially where being is rational  and under a Law, there follows and results (the Lord withdrawing) a proud supposed I, and a vain conceit of self, and a dream of Godhead comes in with borrowed being; And therefore created sinless self is to be denied. Adam denied not himself, and thought in his sick imagination he should be like God knowing good and evil, Gen. 3. Christ the more excellent Adam pleased not that noble self, Rom. 15. 3. Καὶ γὰρ ὁ Χριστὸς οὐχ ἑαυτῷ ἠρεσε. He denied himself as man, as a gracious mere man, to be God or more then a man. And this self-denial is in elect Angels, who blush and are finlesly ashamed of self, and cover their faces with wings before shining Infinitness of Glory, and proclaim him thrice Holy, holy, holy, Isa. 6. 2, 3. And who knows not we own grace as our own? my prayers, my faith, my holiness, my tears, as if grace had a relish from self, not from God: but Paul, 1 Cor. 15. 10. Not I, but the grace of God (not my grace in me) that was with me, οὐκ ἐγὼ δὲ ἀλλ᾽ ἡ χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ συν ἐμοὶ.

4. But is there no paction between GOD and the creature?  Surely we must say that the covenant between GOD and Adam is of another nature, yea and promises also, then these that are between man and man; for there is proper giving and taking betwixt the creature. 2. The proper covenants between man and man require that both parties be free and independent one of another, there may intervene a ius, a right and a debt upon the promissor to him to whom the promise is made. Omne promissum ex ore fideli cadit in debitum. Jurists say there is no proper binding Covenants between the father and the son, the lord and the servant; for the son and the servant are not lords of themselves nor sui iuris.

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The father by no paction can remove the foundation of the debt of nature that the son oweth to the father: for impossible it is, but if such a man be son to such a man, but he owe to his father as to an instrument, quod sit vivat, being and living, and the son cannot satisfy by paying the father for that sum, and the father cannot cancel the band, nor give him an acquittance. For less can any recompense the Lord for life and being. The fallen Angels and damned in hell and all wicked men are in the Lords Compt-book everlasting debtors to him for being. But God who is more then a Father (to whom men are but painted fathers) may thus far loose the bond, as he may command the son to sacrifice the father, as well as once he commanded the Father Abraham to offer up his Son to God. But God cannot resign his right that he hath over the creature to a creature, because he cannot leave off to be Creator, and so cannot lay aside or make over Creator right, ius Creatoris, to any. 2. Say that a creature had a ius or right over the Creator,  it is either an uncreated right or a created right, so to pursue God by Law, as to cause him do him justice; it cannot be an uncreated right; for that were near to blasphemy: For no created head can bear the Royal Crown of the King of Ages. If it be a created right, this created right must be under the dominion of him who is universal Lord of all: then may the Lord make use of it at his pleasure; then may not the man make use of it at his pleasure: for an absolute dominion of one and the same thing cannot be in the hands of two absolute Lords, who may have contradictory desires concerning the same thing: such as the holy Lord and sinful men often are. Let us correct the bold pleadings and the daring charges that our vain hearts put upon the Lord: Why dost thou strive against him (saith Elihu, Job 33. 13.) for he gives not account of any of his matters? Men dare say, when they are under the vengeance of ordinary sufferings, The ways of the Lord are not equal, Ezek. 33. 10. If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how shall we then live? But upon whom  should sins and transgressions, and the punishment thereof be, if not upon the carcases of the Authors? Will ye raise letters to summon him? Where is the Judge? Where is the Tribunal? But he promised so and so; but this is not the Question of strict justice: F

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that saith something against the veracity and faithfulness of God, but nothing against the justice. But neither doth a promise as a promise raise a plea of unjustice against the holy and glorious Lord, suppose he should not fulfill his promise. For 1. A paction by promise creates no equality of justice between thing and thing between wage and work: otherwise he that is called to the Vineyard, and  labours from the third hour, hath a just plea: for he should have more wages then a penny, which he gets who labours but one hour: But the Lord makes not the equality or proportion between much labouring for many hours, and the quantity and degree of the wage his rule. But the Lord pleads the free Covenant for his standing rule. Matth. 20. 13. Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst thou not agree with me for a penny? And verse 15 Is it not lawfull for me to do what I will with mine own? Hence read our sickly querulous nature. 1. Naturally we agree from much working, and would conclude God, much running, long sweating, and pains in keeping the Covenant of Works should bind God, except he be unjust, to give me as many ounces and pound weights of Glory everlasting, as I have fasted moments, and told over prayers upon beads, and uttered sighs: Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not? We work and keep the Covenant of Works, but God pays us not our wage. Though it be a doubt to me, if the Covenant of Works had stooden, and Adam and all his had fulfilled it perfectly; if the Lord should weigh in an even balance, by ounce weights, our poor labour, and great reward of Glory, for had he entered such a Market, the loss had been ours; we could not have  obtained life eternal that way, for our stock of time-working should have dried up. The virtue of justice stands in the equality of that which is given and received. Now there is a two-fold equality, one rei ad rem between thing and thing, an Arithmetic justice, so many ounces of natural actings, and the same number of ounces of grace and glory: This commutative justice is not in God, as the soundest and learned'st School-men teach. There is another justice of proportion duarum rerum ad duas alias res, of two things proportionally answering to two things, distributive justice is this, and it keeps a Geometrical proportion. Augustine with the Scripture saith, God is become our debtor

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not by receiving any thing from us, but by promising what he  pleaseth.

2. It follows from the Parable, that Gods bargaining with us depends not upon the equality between thing and thing, the work and the wage; But upon his own free pleasure of disposing of his own: And it is the frothiness of our nature to judge the penny of Glory, that we get by labouring to be our own, whereas after the promise, and after we have fulfilled the condition, it is not ours, but Gods, and he calls it his own, and it is to be disposed on by the Lords free-grace. Friend, may not I do with mine own, what I please? Matth. 20. 15. 2. No promise as a promise can give us a  proper right, by way of strict Justice, to plead with God. 1. A promise of grace is a free promise, and no man can say, because God promises the new heart to most undeserving men, that are of a stony heart, and do profane his holy name, amongst the Gentiles, that therefore it is just by condignity of the thing, that a new  heart should be given to them, that are foolish, disobedient, and serving diverse lusts. The farthest that hard faced Jesuits go in this, is to tell us of the poor penny of the merit of congruity, for the right weight of the sum and thousands of saving grace which Papists have refused as ashamed thereof.

3. If a promise as a promise should make an equality between one thing and another, and so lay a band of strict commutative justice upon God, then should every promise do the like, quod convenit καθ' αὐτὸ convenit κατὰ παντός, but that cannot be said: For then if God should promise glory of ten thousand millions of degrees above the glory that Angels and men now enjoy, for speaking one good word, that should be a free Promise, but that promise should not make an equality between so huge and rich a reward of glory, and so hungry and poor a work as the speaking of a good word, so as God should fail in Justice, if he should deny a reward so great, for so small a work: For the denying thereof should be against the veracity and faithfulness of God, if he should not fulfill his promise, but he should not fail against strict Justice either in not rewarding the work with a condigne reward, or in not giving to the man that spake the good word his own. For there is no just equality between work and wage here. Nor can ever so feckless F2

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a work, or all the works of men and angels, make the glory of life everlasting our own. For glory remains ever the proper gift of God, and under his dominion.

4. A promise is, by order of time or nature, latter and posterior to the good thing promised, as words of truth are latter to things,  and things have the same valour and worth, before and after the promise, yea if one promise to give for a plot of ground, a sum of money of value, five hundred times above the worth of that plot of ground, that promise cannot make the unequal and unjust price to be a just and equal price. Even so the promise of God to give eternal life to the obedience of Adam can make no equality of strict Justice between the reward and the wage; For the reward promised for the wages is equal and just before the promise, and ex natura rei; and so must lay bands on the Lord, so as he cannot do contrary unto it, which is against all reason.

And who gave first to the Lord, and it shall be recompenced to him, and he that gave first to him, man or Angel, must give his own  (or then it is no giving) which he received not from God, either created being, or gift, or work, (for any uncreated gift none can give to him) as is said. 2. What is given is amongst the all things that are of him, as the efficient, and to him, as the last end, and through him, as the conserver of all, and so can be no gift to him, Rom. 11. 36.

And what God of free goodness, decrees to do, that he may decree not to do; and things falling under his decree, are not necessary, he cannot decree that man should be a reasonable creature, for it involves a contradiction to be a man, and not to be a reasonable creature. But no shadow of contradiction there is for the Lord to forbid to eat: and to forbid to eat under a punishment: And the not created World (it being from eternity nothing and a  non ens) could not have any ius or right to plead that God would stand to what he decreed, and give being and create a world, for if the Lord should not give being to it, and create what he had decreed from eternity to create, he should fail against his own unchangeable Nature, but should do no unjustice to an uncreated World, except we say God should be unjust, if he had not created the World: For being of Justice is due to the World, and God refuses

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to pay the debt of being to the uncreated World, which is  non-sense. And upon the same ground, if he should annihilate the World or take away life from living things, he should be unjust; It is safer therefore to say that God oweth the creature nothing, but we are his debtors, for service and praises, while we have any being.

4. Use. If God of his free will, so placed Adam to reward his obedience: We think hard to serve God for wages, and to be placed  in a condition of obedience. Evah, and we with her, sucking the same milk, thirst after such lawless Independency to be from ( Gen. 3 5, 6.) under God; Whereas Adam and Angel-courtiers that have wings to obey, and the Noble and High Heir who learned obedience through the things he suffered were in this condition, and Christ a King in the shape of a Servant was obedient to death, to the death of the Cross, Phil. 2. Hence, too weary of submitting to God, speaks much unnatural pride, yea will not be under God. 2. There is little of Christ in such, for it was life to Christ and meat and drink, Psal. 40. 8. Heb. 10. 8. John 4. 34. Act. 10. 38. to obey, and it is the Angels life, Isa. 6. 2, 3. Psal. 103. 20. Revel. 4. 8. and they are near him, who both at once serve and Reign, Revel. 22. 3, 5. much delight to obey, speak much of God  in the heart. Tire not out your Master; examine more, untowardness to pray, to confer, to give, c. if it be not a cause of deadness, and be not a way of back sliding.

5. Use. If creatures keep their Covenant-natural with God, shall not the oxe, the crane, Isa. 1. 3. Jer. 8. 7. the ass, 2 Pet. 2. 16. who never had a design of rebellion, depone against us in Judgement? Ah! what an unnatural policy, the first evil wit of him that sinned from the beginning, John 8. 44. and whom we follow at the heels, it is to please our own wit, in Covenant breaking. Such  as are sick of love for their own wily time-serving custom; if all natural men in their death-bed damn not this folly, ask them and they shall speak.

6. Use. If God Covenant with us for hire, when his absoluteness may bear him to command, how sinfully soft are our spirits, and weak is reason, that is broken with a straw, when an apple conquers Evahs eye and heart? Talents of Silver, and a wedge of

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Gold Achan, and Gehazi; A drink of water, if not at hand, in time of thirst, make the people murmur against God; the more sanctified, defecat and spiritual reason be, the farther it is above that which crusheth Balaam and Judas; The first Heavens motion, the primum mobile, which draws all the rest, must be the most excellent, and the moving power must be most spiritual; its neither heaviness which is in stones or clay, nor lightness in the air and fire, but a more heavenly force, which throws about that body, so the motions of sanctified reason which is swayed and driven by no Argument, but from eternity, communion with God, a Kingdom above time, must be most spiritual. The Dog is moved with a bone, the Oxe with hay.

7. If no law and poor obedience of ours can buy a communion  with God, let us examine the peace that flows from obedience; Its purer and more solid peace, that flows from Justification, and more immediately removes the war between God and us, Rom. 5. 1. and comes by a purer and nearer emanation from God, and from the ransom of Redemption that is in Christ, then that which flows from created acts of inherent holiness. (2) Our first Adams element is Justification by works, in which we love to live and die. The Law is an home born idol in us: Our apprehensions of our own actings are lively and vigorous; the 3000. Acts 2. 37. Saul, Acts 9. 6. and the Jailor, Acts 16. 30. Ask what we shall do? ποεῖν. But it is not the law-word of working, Rom. 4. 2, 4, 5, 6. Rom. 3. 20, 28. Its much to be dead to the Law, and to Law-righteousness: Galat. 2. 19, 20. I live not, but Christ lives in me. Christ (2.) is a stranger to us, and comes from without, gifted righteousness comes from Heaven. Grace only makes us willing debtors to grace. The pride of self, will neither beg nor borrow from, nor be debtor to a crucified Saviour, when it despiseth him until the roof of the house fall. 3. Seldom do these two concur,  deadness to works of grace, and lively activity in the doing of them. Paul attained to both (but every man is not Paul) 1 Cor. 15. 9, 10. I laboured more abundantly then they all. But fearing and trembling at that (I) ἐγω, he strikes sail to Christ, yet not I, but the grace of God in me. This pride Paul notes in the Jews, they stooped not, nor bowed (as inferiours to their Master, King, or

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Lord, or Father and Husband, so the word) to the righteousness  of God. When (I) (self) or nature meets with working, yea with grace often, there follows some loftiness, except it be humbled and mortified, (I) which can weep and say, Lord what am I?

CHAP. VIII.

What place Death hath in the Covenant. 2. What such as Caine and Judas are to do in their desperate state. 3. And why the LORD is nowhere called the GOD of Adam.

Q. What room hath death in the Covenant?

A. Death hath room in the broken Covenant of Works, as the Pursevant and Sergeant of revenging Justice. Hence Deaths reign, [I must die whether I will or not] Unwillingness to die and bondage through fear of death is the Law-sting in death, from  which Christ hath delivered us, Heb. 2. 15. Original sin and death came and entered the world by the Covenant of Works. The Covenant of Grace made not death, but found it in the world, Christ made of an old enemy death a new servant: its now the Kings Ferry boat to carry the children over the water. Its a suitable condition to a spiritual state to die being sent for, not legally summoned, and to die, because I desire to be dissolved, Phil. 1. 23. not because I must. And better it is to summon ourselves then to be summoned. Though we love Heaven too much as a place of pleasure, rather then a place of holiness, yet most men would wish a better causey to it then to sleep through the cold grave, or a dark hole in the earth.

Q.What room hath life in the Covenant? Ans. The Administration of the Law Covenant is first habitual holiness of Works, and then a Crown. The Administration of grace is first faith and a title to Christ our life and hope of glory, and then habitual holiness, begun here and perfected hereafter. The Gospel-life is both a reward and a duty of praising and loving eternally in place of all the ten Commands, yea of Law and Gospel. The Law-life

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(for ought that is revealed) is a reward to be purchased by our legal obedience.

Quest. If Adam in the interval betwixt his fall and the publishing of the blessed Seed, was not to despair, but to rely upon God as mighty to save; What should such as Judas or Cain do?

Ans. The conscience of Cain and of despairers, being no authentic Bible nor Judge, which can carry the controversy between  them and God, so long as they are in the way, or are viators, the Gospel treaty betwixt them and Christ yet standing and not broken off upon the part of Christ, they are to cherish and hold up the Treaty, and (as it were) to force speech out of Christ, and to pursue the news of an offered salvation. 2. There is no Spirit of God that suggests to them despair, and bids them write themselves in the black roll of Reprobates, for though they believe hell, as the Devils haply believe there is a God, yet they blow the coals of that hellish furnace, and kindle a fire before night. 3. They being under the Law of Nature, are to rely on infinite mercy able to save. Their witty darkness of unbelief saith they believe, but they hate mercy in the general toward others, as to themselves. 2. For a doubting Child of God, because the light of evidence (which to them, in that case is dim) comes nearer to the natural  light of reason, then to spiritual light, therefore faith must be set on work to act as faith, and faith acts most strongly when reason is weakest. Natural causes work more strongly under opposition, the fire burns most vehemently in winter frost, and the internal heat of the body is most mighty for concoction, when the coldness  of the air is most piercing without, faith sees God most piercingly at midnight in Job, when rottenness and deadness speaks the contrary, Job 19. I know surely (so the word, Exod. 8. 1. Psal. 31. 8. that my Redeemer lives. Isa. 50. 10. He that walks in darkness, and hath no light (of evidence) let him trust on the Name of the Lord, and let him stay himself upon his God, Rom. 4. 19, 20. (2.) There is a piece of unseen wilfulness in unbelief, and two refusals  in it, as we see in Thomas, John 20. 25. as there is a mass of sanctified will required in sincere faith, Rom. 10. 9, 10. Mark 9. 24. and so resistance must be made to that blind impulsion of will in unbelief, by which we please ourselves in doubling or doubting.

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(3.) Should the commanding of killing the Son, Gen. 22. 2. seem to contradict the whole Gospel of the promised Seed, Gen. 15. 4. yet  knowing both to come from God, Abraham did well to leave the supposed contradiction to be solved by God, and believe both as we are to believe food, in no food, and in famine.

Quest. Where was there a word that God was Adams God?

Ans. Not directly. For 1. that Covenant was like Letters of the King raised to such a day, and the date being expired, the Letters cease to be in force. 2. Adam was to win and purchase (as it were) God to be his God, by consummate obedience. God never said that he would be Adams God by giving him influences to obey, and to  obey to the end, all influences granted to Adam, to will and to do, were granted to him. 1. By God Creator, not by the grace of a Redeemer, as in the Covenant of Grace, to walk, Ezek. 36. 27. to love, Deut. 30. 6. to persevere, Jer. 32. 39, 40. 2. These influences were free gifts, but not promised. 3. They seem to be ordinis naturalis, natural, though they did bow and previously incline the will, but not so in the New Testament, for the whole Covenant is called by the promise of the giving of a new heart, Heb. 8. 10. Isa. 54. 9, 13. Jer. 31. 31, 32, 33. Ezek. 11. 19, 20. Hos. 2. 18, 19.  And therefore better it is that God be Lord of my heart, and it be his, then that I be Lord of it, and my heart be mine own heart, the less of our heart be upon our heart, the more upon God, the better. Ah! we cannot skill to guide a heart. 3. The threatening of death to Adam, if he should sin, Gen. 2. 17. may infer a Covenant of life, and that God should be Adams God, if he should obey.

CHAP. IX.

What life is promised in the Covenant of Works. 2. Whether all we, especially the Reprobate, by the fall, lost all right to the creatures. 3. How the Lord is our God.

Q. What is meaned by life promised in the Covenant of Works? Ans. 1. Not a life in Christ and the fruit of  the merit of blood, as our life is in the New Covenant, John 10. 11. G

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John 3. 16. For Adam was not Mediator of reconciliation here, he was a sort of public Law-head in whom he was to stand or fall, if any please to call him so a Mediator κατά τὶ but it is a Law-life, happily a communion in glory. 2. But the life he lived, and the creatures for his service seems not to belong to this life, for the creatures were given to Adam, he not working for them. Yet I should not suppose, if any say that earthly blessings were given to Adam, as a reward of an actual obedience, as they are given to such as keep the Law, Deut. 28. But sure our gain in Christ of such a life, bought by so noble a Ransom as the Blood of God-man, is not little. Its rawness and greenness of wit, to value it so low as we do. Children see not what a hiring and taking Apple Heaven is.

Quest. whether or no did Adam, and all the Reprobates in his loins,  by sin, lose right to the creatures.

Ans. There is a three-fold right.

1. Natural.

2. Providential.

3. Spiritual.

A natural right may be conceived two ways. 1. Absolutely, so  craature, and man not created, can have no ius or claim to being or life, the Creators free gift is our best Charter to life and being, 2. This right may conceived, conditionally, as if God create the Sun, a power to give light is congruous, and debita naturae Solis, suitable to the nature of the Sun, nor can the creature plead for this, as  debt: but if the Lord give being, to enjoy this being cannot be sin, because there is no Law and Command to nothing to receive or not to receive being and life from the Creator: And where there is no Law, there is no transgression. And therefore to have being and life, cannot be in itself a sin.

2. Providential right is but a continuating of life and being until the same power that gave it, shall remove it, by way of punishment; For God as Creator, of his Sovereignty, gives being and life, and the comfortable use of the creatures; but as a Judge ordinarily for sin he removes it, though he, I deny not, out of his Sovereignty, may, and possibly doth, annihilate the meat that the

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Angels in assumed bodies, and which the Man Christ, after the Resurrection, did eat.

3. The spiritual right is that new supernatural Title, which the Elect believers have, in order to supernatural end, and all these being made theirs, to promove their salvation, 1 Cor. 3. 21.  All things are yours, Revel. 21. 7. He that overcometh shall inherit all things, by Covenant-right, for he adds, And I will be his God, and he shall be my Son, Psal. 37. 10. A drink of cold water, by this Charter, is better then a Kings Crown, and hath refreshed some more then all the choice wine the earth yields. The love of the Giver is better then wine, Cant. 1. 2. and here the Charter is, by many thousands, more precious then the Land. For nature common to all is over-gilded with free-Grace. And the natural life and being, and the material heavens we shall enjoy, are blessed in another manner to the glorified, then these they now enjoy, 1 Cor. 15. 40, 41, 42, 43, c. 2 Pet. 3. 13. Revel. 21. 1. Isa. 65. 17. and they shall be above the Heavens that are, when the mystical body shall be perfected, yea, and the dust into which the bodies of the Saints are resolved, keeps a spiritual Covenant relation to God in Christ: As Exod. 3. 6. Matth. 22. 32. John 6. 39. Rom. 8. 21, 22, 23. for no joint or part of the body, but it must share of Covenant- glory. We look little to any thing but to have and enjoy the dead lump and body of Gold, dead lands without Christ. See Hos. 2. 18. 22. Ezek. 34. 25, 27. Ezek. 36. 29. Lev. 26. 6. Psal. 37 9, 11, 29. 1 Tim. 4. 8. Heb. 13. 5, 6. Matth. 6. 25, 26. Psal. 34. 10. O fair inheritance. 4. As to the second (which is the main controversy) to enjoy life and being, is the substance of the act, no sin. Men contravene a Law to be so and so born, to wit, in sin, for its forbidden by a Law: But to be born and live, is no sin, but by order of nature, before Original sin. Nor is it forbidden more  to man to be born and live, then its forbidden to beasts, nor to eat, sleep, wake, then to them: So neither is it commanded by a Law to die, but it is command and commended to die well, to fall asleep in Christ, 1 Thes. 4. 14, 16. to be faithfull to the death, Acts 7. 60. Revel. 2. 10. Revel. 14. 13. (2.) The Elect who are born heirs of wrath, as others, Eph. 2. 3. And all the Reprobate should kill themselves, or be killed, from the birth, if to live and eat were sin, G2

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in itself. But only the Lord of life and death, and his Minister, the Magistrate hath power to take away life and being, no man can be his own burrio. But if it were sin in itself to live, they ought to expire and restore an usurped life, which they possess, mala fide, to the owner the Lord, as a thief is obliged to restore stolen goods. (3.) The dominion of Reprobates over the creatures, is a part of the good Image of God, Gen. 1. 26, 27. and they breath, live, ride, sail, and are no more then the Elect to lay these aside, then they are to lay aside the natural knowledge of God, by which they are to glorify God as God, Rom. 1. 19, 20, 21. Rom. 2. 14, 15. Act. 14. 16, 17. Now the Reprobates have not utterly lost the Image of God, as to know there is a God, to honour their parents, to hurt no man.

4. This opinion looks the rather like a fancy, that it is a temptation in weak ones, under a sad desertion, Satan riding upon their  Melancholy (a complexion not sanctified, usefull to Satan, and if sanctified, a seat of mortification and humble walking) for they judge it sin to eat, and drink, and sleep, they having no right thereunto, but so they have no right to live, and are obliged to kill themselves, and upon the same ground, it was sin to Adam to speak, to answer God, to breath, to hear the news of the blessed seed, which all are acts of life, and so acts of sin, and upon the same ground, that they cannot perform these without sin, they should not pray, for in praying, they cannot but take the Name of God in vain. For we are not to abstain from a duty, because of the sinfulness, which adheres to the duty, by reason of our corruption, for in Christ the sinfulness is pardoned, and the duty accepted.

5. It necessarily must follow, if it be sin to eat, because the nonconverted have no right spiritual in Christ, to bread, the converted  may spoil by their grounds, all the non-converted, of their goods, houses, gold, gardens, vineyards, lands, and upon the same ground, for the crime of non-regeneration, they must also deprive them of their lives, and kill them; For they have a like right, that is, no right (these men being Judges) to either life or goods. And so, Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself, must be meant of the converted neighbour: but with fire and sword all other neighbours may be killed and spoiled, and so there should

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be no stealing, no oppressing, no crushing of the Widow, the stranger, the fatherless, the weaker; not grind the faces of the poor, though their Redeemer be strong, contrary to the Scripture, Prov. 23. 11. Jer. 50. 33 34. Psal. 94. 5, 6, 7, 8. Psal. 14. 4. Exod. 22. 26, 27 Isa. 3. 12, 13, 14, 15. Mic. 2. 3. and so it were lawful to take Crowns, Kingdoms, Inheritances, Lands, Dignity, and Honour, from all the unregenerate Princes, Powers, and Rulers on earth, to cut off with the sword all the heathen Nations who as yet know not Christ, and it were lawfull for the regenerate sons and brethren to kill and spoil Father, Mother, Brethren, Sisters, Kings, Potentates, Country-men, Strangers, Orphans, exiled Captives, Prisoners, sick, weak, imprisoned, all infants that are by nature the heirs of wrath, upon this ground, the converted ones judge all non-converts to be void of all due right to life, or goods, and so in these men, the societies, Churches of Christ must cease.

Object. They who enjoy that of which they deserve to be deprived, have no due right to that of which they deserve to be deprived; but are usurpers, and so sin. But all the non-regenerated are such, or, they who use that to which they have no right, do sin in the act of using it.

Answ. 1. They who enjoy that of which they deserve to be deprived, they sin, and have no due right to use it; Is not universally true. They who enjoy that which they may and ought by their own private  power, restore, such as ill conquished goods. They sin in using that, true, Prov. 3. 27. Exod. 22. 26, 27. Luke 19. 8. Its a sin to withhold the raiment though laid in pawn, which should cover the poor mans skin in the night, and they have no right to enjoy that.

But they who enjoy that, what ever it be, of which by sin, they deserve to be deprived, they have no due right to that, it is denied. For if it be life, being, eating, sleeping, and such things, as only can be taken away, by a judicial power, and by God the Lord of life and death, and cannot be taken away by themselves, (for it is lawfull for no man to punish himself and take away his own life) nor by any other, except for capital crimes, they have due providential right to keep and enjoy all such things until the same power that gave them remove them, nor do they sin in using

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them. And it is most dangerous to say, that Devils and the damned  in Hell who dishonour the Majesty of God by their living and being, and so by sin, deserve to be annihilated and deprived of their being, do sin, in that they live and are not annihilated, and that all the Elect before their conversion, sin in that they enjoy being and life. A Judge sentenceth a man to die for killing his Father within 24. hours, but by invincible providence he is rescued out  of the hand of the Magistrate, and lives divers years after, the sentenced man sins not before God nor against the Law of the Land, in that he lives, nor can he be called an usurper and unjust, malae fidei, possessour of his life: For the sentence was not that he should take away his life with his own hand, but that it should be taken away by the judicial hand and executioner of the Magistrate. Nor is this Providential right, a right of mere permission, but of positive donation and free-gift, for then we might by the same reason, say that Reprobate men have a right of mere permission to keep and enjoy the knowledge of these, that God is: Superiours, Parents  are to be honoured: the whole is more then the part; Yea they have the same natural and providential right by nature that other sinners have to the one as to the other. 2. These who enjoy that, of which they deserve to be deprived, they sin in the act of using, as touching the substance of the act of living, being, eating, drinking: That is most false. These who enjoy that, of which they deserve to be deprived, they, in modo, in the way, manner, and end of living, eating, c. do sin: It is true: and such have not spiritual and supernatural right in Christ (which they ought to have, if they be in the Visible Church and hearers of the Gospel) to life, being and the creatures, and they sin in not believing, Rom. 14. not eating for the glory of God, 1 Cor. 10. 31. Natural men care not if they have and enjoy things so they have them: They have being, so have earth, stones, c. they live, so do Trees and Herbs, they have health, so have beasts and birds, they swallow up many years, so do Ravens, and Harts and other beasts, a long  lump, many thousand yards and miles of life are sought, diu sunt, non diu vivunt. But who lives for God, who sleeps, who wakes, who eats for God and his Glory? and they who make themselves their last end, Idolatrously put self in the room of God, who only

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is the last end of all, Rom. 11. 36. Revel. 4. 11. Prov. 16. 4. and as good make self the first Author of Heaven and Earth and Creator as the last end: Ye who eat and drink, who pays your reckoning? Christ? Or are you usurpers? Have you any Charter? Or do ye rob the Lord?

Quest. What way is God ours?

Answ. By Covenant, Ezek. 34. 24. Genes. 17. 7. Jerem. 32. 38. Zech. 13. 9. But he is not ours as if we had some gifted right and dominion over him, as we have over the creatures. 2. Nor is he ours as we are his, the clay hath no sovereignty over the Potter. Nor  3. is God simply as God ours, but God as it were coming down in Christ to us Covenant-ways as God incarnate, to make out his goodness, grace, mercy to and for us. 4. Its true God incarnate, Christ, is principally Gods, 1 Cor. 3. 21. not ours. He is all for God, he is Immanuel, our Immanuel in order to save us, and so is more ours then the God of Angels.

2. God is the fluier of the Saints desire, more to them then all  Heaven in the length and breadth thereof, and all the inhabitants thereof, Psal. 73. 25. Isa. 63. 16. more then all the Angels and Saints, 1 Thes. 4. 16. (2.) There is no hell to Christ but a far off God, Psal. 22. 1. Matth. 27. 45. no Heaven but the glory he had with the Father, John 17. 5. (3.) There is nothing more like a spiritual disposition then when the Spouse, Cant. 3. hath soul-love to Christ: I sought him whom my soul loved. (2.) She hath an ardent desire after him, I sought him but I found him not. 3. There could not be such diligent search after she found him, if there had not been strong faith. 4. And her conference with the Watchmen, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? saith, She enjoyed Ordinances  and means, yet there may be (which is to be observed) a furniture of Grace and a want of Christ, I went a little further, I found him whom my soul loveth, Cant. 5. There is 1. a waking heart. 2. A discerning of the Beloved, and a telling over again of his words, Open to me, my sister, c. 3. A stirring of Christs hand upon the key-hole of the heart. 4. A moving of the bowels for him. 5. A seeking of him and a praying, but no finding nor answer. 6. A love-sickness for him, and yet a missing of himself, I sought him but I found him not: So compare Cant. 1. 1, 4. with

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Cant. 2, 3, 4. with v. 6, 8. and other places, it will be clear a Godhead can only quiet the spirit, and that its a question whether we know the field where the Pearl is, and the Rubies, Sapphires, precious stones that are hid here, which do in worth exceed the capacity of Angels and Saints.

Therefore should his glory be the last end and stirrer of us in all  our actings, and grace the only efficient in all, and so much of God (if he be ours by Covenant) as our ways, intentions may smell of him. But there is much of the creature, of self, of gain, of empty glory, in our spiritual actings. God weighs not down the creature nor Heaven and Union with Christ: as Exod. 32. 32. Rom. 9. 3. (2.) Its a spiritual soul that misseth God, rather then the train of  all the graces of faith, love, hope, desire of and joying in him. And know he is away, though Heaven were in the heart, and can discern where the Ordinances are empty. 3. It engages all we are, hands, knees, body, Exod. 20. 5. Psal. 44. 20. 1 Cor. 6. 19. self to be for God, and to live wholly in him, not in ourselves. 4. We are not to believe in believing, nor to be sick of love with the love of Christ, nor to make a god of faith or love. Its a spiritual condition.

CHAP. X.

Q. What are the false grounds of the Lords making the Covenant of Grace?

Ans. There are two bastard grounds devised by Arminians. 1. Because the Covenant of Works cannot oblige both to active and passive obedience, but to one of them only (say they) and the Covenant of Works was so rigid, that God could not follow it out, and cast infants in hell for a sin which is theirs, only by imputation, and was pardoned to the first man that committed it. Therefore he was necessitated to make a Covenant of Grace with all mankind, none excepted. But the Covenant of Works is broken, and can now be a way of Justification and Salvation to none, but yet it obliges all. And sin cannot make us lawless, for the spiritual Law is of an eternal obligation. 2. They that never heard of Christ, perish by the Law, and not by the Covenant of Grace of

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which they never heard, and the Gospel is written in the heart of  none. 3. The first Covenant was holy and spiritual, and God should unjustly threaten death upon infants, if they be not guilty of eternal condemnation, as Arminius, disp. pub. 7. th. 16. 3. and the Scripture saith, infants are guilty of this sin, Eph. 2. 3. Rom. 5. Psal. 51. 5. Job 14. 4. As also Christ must not have died for the sins of Infants, if there be no sin in them, they need not the ransom of Christs Blood. The other bastard ground is, the  natural antecedent desire and love of God to have all saved, moved him (say they) to make this Covenant of Grace with all. But this makes away free- grace, and changes God as the blind  which saith God hath a secret place in which he afflicts himself, because he burnt the Temple, and delivered the Jews to captivity. As also, the Lord remembering the captivity of the Jews, and their desolation, he pours out two tears every day in the Sea or Ocean; and for grief, smites his breasts with both his hands. And the Alcoran saith, that God and the Angels wish well to Mahomet, but cannot free him from death. So made the Heathen their Jupiter to deplore the destinies which he could not amend. And what is this, but to say, God hath passionate desires to have all, Elect and Reprobate, Men and Angels, to obey and be eternally saved, but he cannot help the matter; and therefore must upon the same account, be sorrowfull and mourn that he cannot get all saved, which destroys the power of grace, and restrains the out-goings of free love.

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