Prolegomena,
Prolegomena."
versy, not to the person, especially of my friendly neighbour.
Neither would I have appeared thus publicly against him, if differences could have been accommodated, and the evil prevented, ina more private way; in order thereunto, I have punctually observed and kept the rules and measures of friendthip.
It is possible some may judge my stile against him to be too sharp; but if they please to read the conclufionofhis Gall, and my Answer, I presume they will find enough to make atonement for that fault, if it be a fault.
It is from the nature of thematterbefore me, not from defect of charity to the person or party, that I am forced to be so plain and pungent as I am.
To conclude, I suspect this very preface may be also censured for its plainness and tediousness.
I confess, when times are busyweshouldbe brief; and I am persuaded a sufficient preface maybe contracted into four words, ανην προεμείων και πάθων, without preface or passions.
However, I have a little easedmy own heart,by discharging my duty to my differing brethren, and pleased myself, if not them.
The God of peace create peace in all the borders of Sion, beat ourfwords intoplow-shares, and our spears intopruninghooks ; I mean, our polemicals into practicals ; that Jerusalemmayonce more be a city compact, and no more terrible to herself, but only to her enemies, as an army with banners..
This, brethren, is the prayer, and shall ever be the endeavour of, Yourfriendandjervant in Christ,
JOHN FLAVEL
PROLEGOMENA .
B it will be neEFORE we enter into the main controversy, it cessaryto acquaint the reader, why I begin with the middle of the book ; and it is because I there find these thrée principles or positions,on which the other parts of his discourse are superstructed; and these being destroyed, his other difcourses are but arena, fine calce.
I properly therefore begin with the foundation .
Next I shall shew how far we are agreed in the matters here controverted, and where it is in each of these that the controversy indeed lies betwixt us.
And as to X2
Prolegomena.
I. Position, viz.
That the Sinai law is the fame with Adam's covenant of works, made in paradije :
The difference betwixt us here is not (1.) Whether both thesebecalledcovenants in Scripture ? Nor (2.) Whether there was no grace at all in both, or either of them ; for we are agreed, it is grace in God to enter into covenant with man, whatever that covenant be.
Nor (3.) Whether the Sinai law be not a covenant of works to some men, by their own fault and occasion ? Nor (4.) Whether the scriptures do notmanytimes speak of it in that very fenseandnotion wherein carnaljusticiaries apprehend and take it; and by rejecting Christ, make it soto themselves ? Nor (5.) Whether the very matter of the law of nature be not revived and represented in the Sinai law?
These are not the points we contend about.
But the question is, Whether the Sinai law do in its own nature, and according to God's purpose and design in the promulgation of it, revive the law of nature, to the fame ends and uses it served to in Adam's covenant ; and so be properly, andtrulyacovenant of works ? OrwhetherGod had not gracious and evangelical endsandpurposes, viz. By such a dreadful representation of the fevereand impracticable terms of the first covenant,instead of obliging them to the personal and punctual observance of them for righteousness and life, he did not rather design to convincethemofthe impossibilityoflegal righteousness,humble proud nature, and shew them the necessity of betaking themselves to Christ, now exhibited in the new covenant,as the only refuge to fallen sinners.
The latter I defend according to the Scriptures, the formerMr. Caryseems to affertandvehemently argue for.
2dly, In this controversy about the Sinai law, I do not find Mr. Carydiftinguish (as he ought) betwixt the law considered more largely and complexly, as containing both the moral and ceremonial law, for both which it is often taken in Scripture, and more strictly for the moral law only, as it is sometimes used in Scripture.
These two he makes one and the fame covenant of works; though there be some that doubt whether the mere moral law may not be a covenant of works ; yet I nevermetwithany man before,that durst affirm the ceremonial law,which is so full of Christ, to be so; and to this law it is that circumcision appertains.; — 3dly, The moral law, strictly taken for the ten command. ments, is not by him distinguished(as it ought to be, and as the Scripture frequently doth) according to God's intention'
Prolegomena. and deign in the promulgationor it, which was to add it as an appendix to the promise,Gal. iii. 19. andnottosetitupas anoppofitecovenant, Gal. iii. 21. as the carnal Jews, mistak ingand perverting the use and end of the law, and making it to themselves a covenant of works, by making it the very ruleandreason of their justification before God, Rom. ix. 32,
33. Rom. x. 3. These things ought carefully to have been distinguished, forasmuch as the whole controversy depends on this double sense and intention of the law ; yea, the very denomination of that law depends hereon: for I affirm, it ought not to be denominated from the abused and mistaken end of it amongst carnal men, but from the true scope, design and end for which God published it after the fall: and though wefindfuch expressions as these in Scripture, " The man that doth them shall live in them;" and," Cursed is every one
"thatcontinuethrot in all things," &c. yet these respecting the law, not according to God's intention, but man's corruptionandabuse of it,the law is nottherebytobedenominated a covenantofworks.
God's end was not to justify them, but to try them by that terrible dispensation, Exod. xx. 20. whether they would still hanker after that natural way of self-righteousness; for this end God propounded the terms of the first covenant to them onSinai, not to open the way offelf-justification to them, but to convince them, and shut them up to Christ ; just as our Saviour, Matth. xix. 17. puts the young man upon keeping the commandments, not to drive him from, but neceffitatehim tohimselfintheway of faith. t The law in both these senses is excellentlydescribed, Gal. iv. in that allegory of Hagar and Sarah, the figures of the two covenants.
Hagar in her first and proper station was but a serviceable handmaid to Sarah, as the law is aschoolmafter to Christ; but when Hagar the handmaid is taken into Sarah'sbed, and brings forth children that aspire to the inheritance, then faith the Scripture, " Cast out the bond- "woman, with her son."
So it is here; take the law in its primary use, as God designed it, as a schoolmaster or handmaid to Christ and the promise, so it is consistent with them, and excellently subservient to them; but if we marry this handmaid, andespouse it asa covenant of works, then are we bound to it for life, Rom. vii. and must have nothing to do with Christ. The believers of the OldTestamenthad trueapprehenfions of the right end and use of the law, which directed them to Christ, and so they became children of the free-woman.
The carnal Jews trusted to the works of the law for righteous-
Prolegomena. ness, and so became the children of the bond-woman ; but neithercouldbe children of both at once,no more than the fame man can naturally be born of two mothers. This is the difference betwixt us about the first position. And as to the II. Position.
That Abraham's covenant, Gen. xvii. is an Adam's covenant of works also, because circumcision was annexed to it, which obligedmen to keep the whole law.
The controversy betwixt us in this point, is not whether circumcision were an ordinance of God,annexed by him to his covenant with Abraham ? Nor (2.) Whether Abraham's ordi-
nary and extraordinary feed ought to be, and actually were fignedby it ? Nor (3.) Whether it were a sealoftherighteoufness of faith to any individual person, for he allows it to be so to Abraham ? Nor (4.) Whether it pertained to the ceremonial law, and so must cease at the death of Christ? But the difference betwixt us is, Whether (1.) It was a feal of the covenant tononebutAbraham ? And, (2.) Whether in the very nature of the act, or only from the intention of the agent, it did obligementokeep the whole law, as Adam was obliged to keep it in innocency ? (3.) Whether it were utterly,abolished at the death of Christ, as a condition of the covenant of works ? or being a sign of the fame covenant of grace we are now under, it be not fucceededbythe new gospel-sign, which is baptism ?
Mr. Cary affirms,that it was in itselfaconditionofthe covenant of works, and being annexedtoGod's covenant with Abraham,
Gen. xvii. it made that a true Adam's covenant of works also.
This I utterly deny, and fay, Abraham's covenant was a true covenant of grace. (2.) That circumcision was a feal of righteousness of faith, and therefore could not possibly belong to the covenant of works.
(3.) That as it was applied both to the ordinary and extraordinary infant-feed of Abraham, during that administration of the covenant, so it is the will of Christ thatbaptifm should take its place under the gospel, and be applied now to the infant-feed of all Abraham's spiritual children.
These are the things wherein we differ about the secondpofitiAnd lastly, as to the on.
III. Position.
That neither Moses's law, Exod. xx. nor God's covenant with Abraham,Gen. xvii. can be any other than an Adam's covenant of works, because they have each of them conditions in them on man's part ; but the gospel-covenant hath none at all, but is altogether free and absolute.
The controversy here betwixt us is not (1.) Whether the
Prolegomena.
gospel-covenant requires no duties at all of them that are under it? Nor (2.) Whether it requires any such conditions as were in Adam's covenant, namely, perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience, under the severest penalty of a curse, and admitting noplace of repentance ? Nor (3.) Whether any condition required by it on our part, have any thing in its own nature meritorious of the benefits promised ? Nor (4.) Whether we be able in our own strength, and by the power of our freewill, without the preventing as well as the assisting grace of God, to perform any such work or duty as we call a condition ?
In these things we have no controversy; but the only question betwixt us is, Whether in the new covenant some act of ours (tho' it have nomeritinit, norcanbe done in our own single strength) be not required to be performed by us, antecedently to a blessing orprivilegeconsequentby virtue ofa promise ? And whether such an act or duty, being of a suspending nature to the bleffingpromised, it have not the true and proper nature of a goSpel-condition ? This I affirm, and he positively denies.
These threepositionsbeing confuted, and the contrary well confirmed, viz. that the law at Sinaiwas not set up by God asanAdam's covenant, to open the old way of righteousness and lifebyworks ; but was added to the promise, as subservient to Christ in its design and use, andconsequentlycan never be a pure Adam's covenantofworks. And,secondly,
That Abraham's covenant,Gen. xvii. is the very fame covenant of grace we are now under ; and, (2dly,) That circumcision in the nature of the act did not oblige all men to keep the whole law for righteousness. And(3dly,)
✓That the new covenant is not absolutely and wholly unconditional, though notwithstanding a most free and gracious covenant; the pillars on which Mr. Cary sets his new structure; fink under it, and the building falls into ruins.
I have not here taken Mr. Cary's two Syllogisms, proving Abraham's covenant to be a covenant of works, because I find myself therein prevented by that ingenious and learned man,
Mr. Whifton, in his late answer to Mr. Grant ham.
Neither have I particularly spoken to his twenty-three arguments to prove the Sinai law to be a pure Adam's covenant, becausefruftrafit per plura, quodfieri poteft per pauciora : I have overthrown them all together at one blow,byevincing every argument to have four terms in it, and so proves nothing.
But I have spoken to all those scriptures which concern our fourpofitions, and fully vindicated them from the injurious senses
A Reply to Mr. Cary'sfolemn Call. towhichMr. Cary(following Mr. Tombes) hadwrestedthem.
These things premised, I shall only further add, that ifMr.
Cary shall attemptareply to my answer, and free his own thefesfrom the gross absurdities with which I have loaded them, he must plainly and substantially prove against me,
(1.) That the Sinai law, according to its true scope and end, was promulgatedbyGod for man's justification and happiness inthewayof personal obedience; and that the Jews, that did accordingly endeavour after righteousness by the works of the law, did not mistake its true end and meaning ; or if they did, andtherebymade it what God never intended it to be, a covenant of works to themselves, that the Sinai law ought rather to be denominated from their mistake and abuse of it, than from its primary and proper use, and God's design in itspromulgation.
(2.) He must prove against me,with likeevidenceof truth, thatcircumcifiondiscovered no more of man's native corruption, nor any more of his remedy by Christ ; nor sealed to any perfonwhatsoever the righteousness of faith, thanAdam's covenantinparadisedid ; and that it did in its own nature oblige alluponwhom it passed, to the same terms of obedience that Adam's covenant obliged him. And, (3.) That there is not to be found in the new covenant any fuchactordutyofours, as hath been described and limited a bove; which is ofa suspending nature to the benefits therein granted. And, (4.) That the respective expositions he gives of the several texts to be explained and vindicated, are more congruous to the scope, andgrammarthanmine are, and more agreeable to thecurrentfenfe of orthodox expofitors ; and then he shall be sure to receive an answerable return from me, else it is but la bour loftto write again.
REPLY TO Mr. PHILIP CARÝ's Solemn Call, &c.
THE book Ihaveundertakentoanimadvert briefly upon, bears the title of afolemn call, but I am not fo much
A Reply to Mr. Cary's solemn Call.
concerned with thefolemnity, as I am with the authority of this call.
Not how it is, but whose it is.
I fit bethe callofGod, it must be obeyed, though it be to part not only with the privileges,but lives of our dearest children ; but thenwehadneed to be very well assured it is the call of God, else we are guilty at once of the highest folly, and basest treachery, to part with fo richaninheritance, conveyed by God's covenant with Abraham,to usbelievingGentiles, and our feed, at Mr. Cary's call.
You direct your Solemn Call to all that would be owned as Christ's faithful witnesses .
Here you are too obscure and general: do you mean; all that would be owned by you; or by Christ ? If you mean, tha that we must not expect to be owned by you till we renounce infants baptism, you tell us no news, for you have long since turned your back upon our ministry and assemblies: yet, methinks it is strange, that we who were lately owned as Christ's faithful witnesses under our late sufferings, mustnowbe disowned by you,when we have liberty to amplify and confirm ourteftimonyinthepeaceful improvement of our common liberty.
But if your meaning be, (as I strongly suspect it is) that we must not expect to be owned by Christ, except we give up infants baptifin; then, I fay, it is the most uncharitable, as well asunwarrantable,and dangerous censure that ever dropt from the pen ofa sober Christian.
It is certainly your great evil to lay salvation itselfonsuch a point as the proper subject of baptism, and to make it articulusftantis vel cadentis religion is, the very basis on which the whole Christian religion, and its professors salvation must stand. I hope the rest of your brethren are more charitable than yourself; but however it be, I do openly profess, that I ever have, and still do own you, and many more of your persuasion, for my brethren in Christ, and am persuaded Christ will own you too, notwithstanding your many errors and mistakes about the lesser and lower matters of religion. Nor need your cerifure much to affect us, as long as we are fatisfiedyou have neither a faculty nor commiflion thus folemily to pronounce it upon us.
But what is the condition upon which this dreadful sentence depends ? why, it is our attendance or non-attendance to the primitive purity of the gospel-doctrine.
Sir, I hope we do attend it,and, in some respects,better than some great pretenders to primitive purity, who have cast off not only the initiating sign of God's covenant, (this did not Abraham)but also that most comfortable and ancient ordinance
VOL. VIII.
A Reply to Mr. Cary'sfolemn Call. offinging psalms ; and what other primitive ordinance of God may be cashiered next, who can tell ?
We have a witness in our bosom, that the defence of Christ's pure worship and institution hath cost us something ; and as for me, were I convinced by all that you have here said, or any of your friends, that in baptizing the infants of believers, we did really depart from the primitive purity, I would renounce it, and turnAnabaptist the fame day.
But really, fir, this discourse of yours hath very much convinced me of the weakness and fickliness of your cause, which is forced to seek a new foundation, and is here laid by you upon such a foundation as must inevitably ruin it, if your party, as well as yourself, have but resolution enough to venture it thereupon.
And it appears tome very probable,thattheyintend to fight us upon the new ground you have here chosen and marked out for them,by the high encomiums they give your book in their epistles to it, wherein they tell us, your notions are offo rare a nature, that you are not beholden to any other for them ; and it is a wonder if you should, for I think it never entered into any sober Christian's head before you, that Abraham's covenant,
Gen. xvii.was the very fame with Adam's covenant made in paradise; or that Moses, Abraham, and all the elect of God in those days were absolutely under the very rigour and tyranny of the covenant of works, and at the fame time under the covenant of grace, and all the blessings and privileges thereof; with many other such rare notions, of which it is pity but you should have the sole propriety.
I am particularly concerned to detect your dangerous mistakes, both in love to your own soul, and care of my people's amongst whom you have dispersed them ; though I foresee by
M. E's epiftle to your book, what measure I am like to have for my plain and faithful dealing with you ; for if that gentleman, uponamere surmise and presumption thatone or other would
L oppose your book, dare adventure to call your unknown answerer,before he ever put pen to paper, a man-pleaser, a quarreller at reformation, and rank him with the Papists, which opposed the faithful for their non-conformity to their inventions ; what must I expect from such rash cenfurers, for my sober, plain, and rational confutation of your errors ?
As to the controversy betwixt us, you truly say in your title page, and many parts of your book, and your brethren comprobate it in their epistles, that the main arguments made use of by the Pedo-baptists, for the support of their practice,
A Reply to Mr. Cary'sJolemn Call.
aretakenfromthe covenant of God with Abraham, Gen. xvii.
You call this the very hinge of the controversy ; and therefore if you can but prove this to be the very fame covenant of works with that made with Adam in paradise, we shall then fee what improvements you will quickly make of it.
Ay, fir, you are sensible of the advantage, no less than a complete victory you shall obtain by it ; and therefore being a more hardy and adventurous man than others, put desperately upon it, (which never any before you durstattempt) to prove
Abraham's covenant, which stands so much in the way of your cause, to be a mere covenant of works, and therefore now abolished.
My proper province is to discover here, that part of the foundation (I mean Abraham's covenant) whence our divines, with great strength and evidence, deduce the right of believers infants to baptism now. Next, to evince the absurdity of your affertions and arguments you bring to destroy it : And, lastly, to reflect briefly upon the answers you give in the beginning of your book, to those several texts of scripture pleaded by the learned and judicious divinesyou oppose, for the justification of infants baptism.
(1.) Those that plead God's covenant with Abraham, Gen. xvii. as a scripture-foundation for baptizing believers infants under the gospel, proceed generally upon these four grounds or principles.
(1.) That God's covenant with Abraham, Gen. xvii. was the fame covenant for substance we Gentile believers are now under ; and they substantially prove it from Luke i. from the 54th to the 74th verse;which place evidently shewsthe fameness of the covenant of grace they were, and we are now under ; and from Matth. xxi. 41 , 43. the same vineyard and kingdom the Jews then had, is now let out to us Gentiles ; and from Rom. xi. that the Gentile Christians are grafted into the same olive-tree, from which the Jews were broken off for their unbelief; and that the blessing of Abraham cometh now upon theGentiles, Gal. iii. 8 , 14, 16. And in a word, that the partition-wall betwixt them and us is now pulled down ; and that we, through faith, are let into the self-fame covenant, and all the privileges they then enjoyed, Eph. ii. 13 .
(2.) They assert and prove, That in Abraham's covenant the infant-feed were taken in with their parents, and that in token thereof, they were to have the sign of the covenant applied to them, Gen. xvii. 9.
Y 2
A. Reply to Mr. Cary's solemn Call.
(3.) They affirm and prove, That the promise of God toA bra ham and his feed, with the privileges thereof to his chil dren, do, for the substance of them, descend to believers now, and their feed, Acts ii. 38, 39. and thought he external sign, viz circumcision, be changed, yetbaptifm takes its placeunderthe gospel, Col. ii. 11, 12.
(4.) They constantly affirm, that none of those grants or privileges madetotheinfant-feed of Abraham's family, were ever repealed or revoked by Christ or his apostles ; and therefore believers children are now in the rightful possession of them ; and that therefore there needed no new command or promise: In Abraham's covenant we find our duty to sign our children with the sign of the covenant; and in Abraham's promifewe find God's gracious grant to our children, as well as his, especially since the apostle directs us, in this very respect, to the covenant of God with Abraham, Acts ii. 38,
39.
These, fir, are the principles on which we lay(as you say) great stress, and which to this day you have never been able to shakedown ; here therefore you attempt anew method to do it, by proving this covenant is now abolished ; and this is your method, in which you promise yourself great succeess:
Three things you pretendtoprove; (1.) That the Sinai covenant, Exod. xx.
(2.) That Abraham's covenant, Gen. xvii. are no gospelcovenants; and that because,
(3.) The gospel-covenant is absolute and unconditional.
How you come to hook in the'Mosaic covenant into this controversy, is not very evident, unless you think it were eafyforyou to prove that to be a covenant of works ; and then
Abraham's covenant,Gen. xvii. being an Old Testament co-
venant, were the more easily proved to be of the fame nature.
I am obliged to examine your three positions above noted, and if I evidence to the world the falsity of them, the cause you manage is so far loft, and the right of be livers infants to baptism stands firm upon its old and sure foundation. I begin therefore with your I. Position.
That the covenant made with Israel, on mount Sinai, is the very same covenant of works made with Adam in innocency, p. 122. and divers other places of your book, the very fame.
Now, ifI prove that this affertionof yours doth naturally and regularly draw many false and absurd consequents upon
A Reply to Mr. Cary'sfolemn Call.
you, which you are, and must be forced to own, then this your position cannot be true ; for from truepremisses, nothing but truthcannaturally and regularly follow ; but I shall make it plain to you, that this your position regularly draws many false conclusions, and gross absurdities, upon you ; some of which you own expresly, and others you as good as own, being able toreturnnothing rational or fatisfactoryinyour own defence against them .
(1.) From this assertion, that the Sinai covenant was apure covenant of works, the very fame with Adam's covenant, it regularly and necessarily follows, that either Moses and all Ifraelweredamned, there being no salvation possible to be attained by that first covenant ; or else, that there was a covenant of grace at the same time running parallel with that covenant of works ; and so the elect people of God were atone and the fame time under the first, as a covenant of death and condemnation; and under the second, as a covenant of grace and justification.
This dilemma pinches you.
To assert, that Moses, and all the elect of God, underthatdispensation, were damned, you dare not ; and if you had, you must have expunged the eleventh chapter to the Hebrews, and a great part of the New
Testament, together with all your hopes of fitting down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.
The latter, therefore,(feeingyou cannot avoid) you are forced upon, and inplainwords yield it, p. 174, 175.
That Moses, and the whole body of the children of Israel,without exception of any, were under, yea, absolutely under the severest pe- ⚫nalties of a dreadful curse; thatthecovenanttheywere under, could be nootherthan a covenant of works, a ministration of death and condemnation; when yet it is also evident from the same holy scripturesoftruth, that at the same time both Moses and all the elect among that people, were under a pure covenant of gospel-grace; and that these two covenants were just the opposite the one to the other; but to ⚫this you have nothing'to say,but with the apostle in another case, Othe depth !'
Here, fir, you father apureandperfect contradiction upon the holy scriptures, that it speaks things just oppofiteand contradictoryonetothe other, and of necessity one part or member of a contradiction must be false: this all the rational world. knows; but so it is, say you, and fly to the infinite wisdom to reconcile them; for you say, You know notwhattosaytoit.
Just sothepapists serve us in the controversy about tranfubflan-