Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself

2. Violence more or less is an accident of death, as it is the same hand folded in, or the fingers stretched out; violent death is but death on horse-back, and with wings, or a stroke with the fist, as the other death is a blow with the palms of the hand; Natural death is death going on foot, and creeping with a slower pace; violent death unites all its forces at once, and takes the Citty by storm, and comes with sowrer and blacker visage; Death natural divides it self in many several bits of deaths; old age being a long spun out death, and nature seems to render the Citty more willingly, and death comes with a whiter and a milder visage; the one has a salter bite, and teeth of steel and iron; the other has softer fingers, and takes asunder the boards of the clay-tabernacle more leisurely, softly, tenderly and with less din, as not willing that death should appear death, but a sleep; the violent death is as when apples green and raw are plucked off the tree, or when flowers in the bud, and young, are plucked up by the roots; the other way of dying is, as when apples are ripened and are filled with well boyld summer-sap, and fall off the tree of their own accord in the eaters mouth: or when flowers wither on the stalk: Some dying full of days have like banquetters, a surfeit of time, others are suddenly plucked away when they are green; but which of • he ways you die, not to d • e in the Lord is terrible; ye may know ye shall die by the fields ye grow on, while ye live; a believer on Christ, breaths in Christ, speaks, walks, prays, believes, eateth, drinketh, sickens, dies in Christ; Christ is the soil he is planted in, he groweth on the banks of the paradise of God; when he falleth, he cannot fall wrong; some are trees growing on the banks of the river of fire and brimstone; when God h • ws down the tree, and death fells them, the tree can fall no otherwise then in hell; O how sweet to be in Christ, and to grow as a tree planted on the banks of the river of life, when such die they fall in Christ's lap and in his bosom; be the death violent or natural! its all one whether a strong gale and a rough stormy shore the child of God on the new Jerusalem's dry land, or if a small calm blast even with rowing of oars bring the passenger to heaven, if once he be in that goodly land.

2. To die in faith, (the righteous has hope in his death) is the essential qualification to be most regarded, that is the all and sum of well dying; make sure work of heaven, and let the way or manner, violent or natural, be as God will, its amongst the indifferents of death; Saints have dy • d either way; to die in Christ, in the hope of the resurrection is the fair and good death: to die in sin, John. 8.21. that is the ill death, and the black death.

3. To die ripened for eternity is all and some, its said of some, they died full of days.

Object. How is a man full and ripe for death?

Answ. In these respects, 1. When the man is mortified to time, and is satisfied with days, he desires no more life, he lies at the water side, near by death, waiting for wind and tide, like a passenger who would fain be over the water; so dying Jacob in the midst of his testament, Gen. 49.18. Lord I have waited for thy salvation, Lord, when shall I have fair passage? Job saith, chap. 14.14. All the time I am on the sentinell, or the time of my warfare, I will wait till my las • change come. So Paul saith, Phil. 1.2 • . having a desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, which is far better, the man desires not to stay here any longer.

2. He would go to Sea, when all his land-business is ended, the Courts are closed, and if the Sun be low and near his setting, loe the way ends with the day, see the lodging hard at hand, 2 Tim. 4.7. I have finished my course, I have kept the faith, 8. henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness : Sweet Jesus ere he died, said It is finished, all is done, he is on the skaffold▪ and nods on his executioner Death, friend, come do your office, I pray you see your task be ended.

3. The man seeth the crown, he is come to the stone wall or the hedge of Paradise, and seeth the apples of life hanging on the tree, and hears the music of heaven: Steven Acts 7.50. I saw heaven opened.

4. He goes not away pulled by the hair, but willingly, gladly, Heb. 11.8.15. They desire a better country, Job 5.26. Like a shock of corn in his season ; it would be the loss of the corn to be longer out of the barn; death shall not come while it be welcome, Job. 7.3. As the hired servant panteth for the shadow, so he for death. All these four were in Jesus Christ.

Had Christ so much pain in his death, that his death and the cross were all one, so as he had five deaths on him at once, four on his body, death on every hand, death on every foot, and a death on his soul, ten thousand millions of pounds weightier and sadder? then let us correct all our errors, and mis-judgings touching the cross.

Error 1. We love to go to Paradise through a Paradise of roses, and a land-way to heaven, and a dry fair white death; we would have Christ and the cross changed, which saith whoever would follow Christ let him take up his cross 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 daily and follow him, Luke 9.23.

2. We forget that heaven is fenced with a huge great wood of thorns, we must crowd through, though our skin be scratched even to blood and death; life eternal is like a fair pleasant, rich and glorious City in the midst of a waste wilderness, and there lies round about this City, at all the corners of it, a Wood of Briats and Thorns, Scorpions and Serpents and Lions abounding in it, and the Wood is ten thousand miles of bounds on all hands, of a journey of threescore years at some parts, there no high road-way in the Wood, no back entry about; wise Professors seek away about the cross; God has given wings to none to fly over the wood; or its like a fair Kings Palace in an Island of the Sea; its a most pleasant Isle for all kind of delights, but there is no way to it by dry land. Would ye have valley ground, Summer medows, fields and gardens of flowers and roses all your way? and how is it that the Lord will not give peace to his Church? nay, but there is not a way to heaven on this side of the cross, or on that side of the cross, but directly, straight through we must go; when the Apostles went through the Churches confirming the brethren, Act. 14.22. they preached that the cross was Gospel; and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , through the midst of affliction, or under flailing and threshing we must go, there is not a way about to shift the cross, but we must enter into the Kingdom of God, this very way and no other.

3. The blood was not dried off Christ's hands and feet, and his winding sheet, till he was in the flower of the higher Palace of his Fathers Kingdom and within the walls, and so his Church must not think hard of it, if she go not a dry death to heaven.

Error 2. We tacitly condemn the wisdom of God in our murmuring under the cross; cannot Christ lead his people to heaven a better way, then through the swords, spears and teeth of malignants, and must new Armies of Irish murderers land on us again? these would be considered: 1. Paul encouraging the Thessalonians, saith, 2 Thess. 3.3. no man should be moved by these afflictions ; why, for yourselves know we are appointed thereunto from eternity, the wise Lord did brew a cup of bloody sufferings for his Church, and did mould and shape every Saints cross in length and breadth for him; our afflictions are not of yesterdayes date and standing; before the Lord set up the world, as it now is, he had all the wheels, pins, wedges, works and every material by him, in his eternal mind; all your tears, your blood, all the ounces and pounds of gall and worm-wood ye now drink, they were an eternal design and plot of God's wise decree before the world was, they were the lot God did appoint for your back, they are no sourer, no heavier this day, then they were in the Lord's purpose before time; your grave, O Saints, is no deeper then of old the Lord digged it, your wound no nearer the bone then mercy made it; your death is no blacker, no more thorny and devouring then Christ's soft hands framed it; ere God gave you flesh and skin and heat in your blood, Christ's doom and the Churches doom of the black cross was written in Heaven: So Christ smiles and drinks with this word, John. 18.11. shall I not drink the cup that my Father hath given me? 2. Rom. 8. Predestination is the first act of free grace, and ver. 29. in that act a communion with Christ in his cross is passed, this we consider not: will ye not think good to set your shoulders and bones under the same burden that was on Christ's back? we fear the cross less at our heels and behind our back, then when its in our bosom; the Lord Jesus speaks of his suffering often afore-hand▪ and its wisdom to make it less, by antidated patience & submission, before we s • ffer; it were good, would we give our thoughts and lend some words to death, as Christ here doth ere it come: Opinion which is the pencil that draws the face, arms and legs of death and sufferings, might honey our gall; if a Martyr judge a Prison a Palace, and his Iron chains golden bracelets, sure his bonds are as good as liberty; if a Saint count death Christ's master-usher to make way to him for heaven, then death cannot be a Mill to grind the man's life to powder; faith can oil and sugar our worm-wood; and if Christ come with the cross, it has no strength; the believer has two skins on his face against the s • ittings of storm and hail-stones; Christ can make a Saint sing in hell, as impatient unbelief could cause a man sigh and weep in heaven. 3. We forget that the Church is the Vine-yard of the Lord of hosts, and that the owner of the Farm must hire Satan and wicked men to be his Vine-dressers and his Reapers; but the crop is the Lord's, not theirs, they are plowers; but they neither know the soil, nor the husband-man, Psal. 129.2.

Error 3. When we see we must suffer, we tacitly are offended that Christ will not give us the first vote in our own jury, and that he would not seek our own advise in this kind of cross, not this; except to one man, David, God never referred the choice of a cross, but then grace made the choice; sure Scotland would have chosen famine or the Pestilence, rather then the sword of a barbarous▪ unnatural enemy; but it must not be referred to the wisdom of the sick, what should be his physic; we often say any cross but this; especially if there be any letter of reproach on the cross, a shameful death, or distraction of mind; but the Lord seeth nothing out of heaven, or hell so good for you as that; that, and no other. 2. We would have the pound weights of affliction weighted in our balance: oh this is too heavy, hence David's, and Job's over-complaining, Oh my calamity is heavier then the sand of the Sea, Job 6.3, and am I a Sea or a Whale, that thou setest a watch over me? chap. 7.12. Should God deal with a man as with a fish, or a beast? 3. We desire to be creators of such and such circumstances of our own grief: So we storm often at the circumstances, as at the very poison of the cross, as if God had through forgetfulness, and a slip of wisdom, left that circumstance out of his decree, as the Painter that draws the whole body exactly, but forgetteth to draw one of the five fingers, and in the mean while, that circumstance which we wrestle most against in our thoughts, was specially intended of God: how often doth this fire our thoughts and burn them up with fretting? Had I done this, I might have eschewed this heaviest and saddest calamity: Had I gone to Sea when the wind and Sailers called me, but the fourth part of an hour sooner, I had not been in dry land, where I am now butchered to death; so had I but spoken a word, I might have saved all this loss and labor; had not this man come in with an ill counsel and one unhappy word, many hundredth thousands had not been killed in battle; and Martha, John. 11.21. is upon this distemper, for she saith to Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died: She would say, it was an ill hap, Christ was unluckily in another place when my brother died ; but the wise decree of God had carved these circumstances so; that Christ's absence was especially decreed in that affli • tion, ver. 15. Jesus said plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes, that I was not there, (to the intent that ye may believe,) &c. Look up in the affliction to the saddest and blackest circum •• ance in the cross, infinite wisdom was not sleeping, but from eternity with understanding and counsel; the Lo • d decreed and fr • med that saddest circumstance, even that Shimei a subject should curse David his Prince; and that he should harge him with blood again • t Saul of which he was m • st free, and at that time, and no other time, when he was flying, for his life from his Son Absalom ; but all these sad circumstances, were molded and framed on the wheels of the decree of him who deviseth all, shapes our woes, according to the counsel of his will. We would have our Lord to remove the gall, the worm-wood, and the fire-edge out of our cross, and we lust for some more honey and sugar of consolation to be mixed with it; it were good if we could by grace, desire three ills to be removed from our cross: 1. That of its nature, it be not sinful; such as hardness of heart; we may in our election and choice, pray that it be not both a sinful plague of God on the soul and a judgment to us: 1. We may pray that the affliction may be circumstanced, and honeyed with the consolations of Christ, and with faith and patience, and a spiritual use of the affliction: 3. We may pray, it may not be a burden above our back, and such as we are not able to bear; and this we may as lawfully choose and pray, as say, Lord lead us not into temptation.

Use 3. Was there shame and reproach on Christ's cross? fie on all the glory of the world; let us not think 1. too much of this piece, airy, windy, vain opinion of men's esteem and the applause; its but a short living, hungry Hosanna, when your name is carried through a spot or bit of this clay-stage, for a day or two, they'll wonder at you but nine nights. Christ's fame spread abroad through all the country, and now he is shamed and a reproached man; now the whole people cry out away with him, away with him, crucify him ; the ground of man's glory is his goodliness or graciousness, his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , all his endowments and brave parts, and all this glory, Isaiah. 40.6. is as the flower of the field, his glory has a month, and lives the poor twelfth part of a year, and Herod is gone to the worms, and his silks rotten and gone, and Shebna is tossed like a ball in a large place, and must hear this, Isaiah. 22.18. Thou shall die (in a strange land) and there the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy Lord's house : its an earthly thing, Phil. 3.19. Whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things, Hos. 4.7. I will change their glory into shame ; and when Epharim glories in children, God sews wings to that glory, and it flies away, Hos. 9.11. As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away as a bird. The ten Tribes boasted of their strength and multitude; but the Lord saith, Isaiah. 17.4. The glory of Jacob shall be made thin: 2. God in a special manner sets himself in person against this glory; Esa. 23.9. The Lord of Hosts has purposed to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth, Isaiah. 10.12. I will punish the glory of the high looks of the King of Assyria; Habac. 2.16. The Lord lays a right curse on Chaldees glory; the cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned into thee, and shameful sp • ing shall be on thy glory : 3. Its the sweet fruit of Christ's death and abasement that we learn to lay down our credit under the Lord's feet, Phil. 2. Let the same mind be in you, that was in Christ Jesus: O that must be a high and an aspiring mind, for he was the high and lofty one; n • , he teaches all his to be abased, ver. 6. who being in the form of God, thought it no robbery to be equal with God, ver. 7. but he emptied himself ; he was full of majesty and glory, but he made himself of no reputation, & an empty thing, and took upon him the form of servant, and was made in the likeness of men— and humbled himself : ah let never man go with high sails, nor count much of worlds glory, after Jesus Christ: ah our reputation & name is as tender to us as paiper, as our skin; a scratch in it, or a rub is a provocation cannot be expiated; as if we minded, in the airy cloud of men's fame, to fly up to heaven, and frothy fame were as good to lay hold on Christ as fervent faith; breach of our privileges of State is more now then blasphemy against God.

Use. 4. Now if Christ was made a curse for us, that we might be delivered from the curse, we are comforted in Christ's being made a curse for us in regard of,

• 1. Extream love.
• 2. Perfection of blessedness.

For this act of love; we are assured he that will be made the curse of God for us, will be anything; four great steps of love were here, everyone of them greater then another:

• 1. To be a man.
• 2. To be a dying man.
• 3. To be as a sinning man.
• 4. To be a cursed man.

Consider these four as they grow out of the root of love; A Spirit sinless, and holy is a happy thing; the Son of God being God, is a Spirit, and so in another condition then man, he was above bones and clay, and the motion of hot air going in and out at the nostrils; its a sort of cumber to carry about a piece of dust of more then a hundredth and fifty bits of clay organs, five senses, two hands, two legs, head, tongue, lips, throat, shoulders, breast, back, so many fingers, toes, lithes, joints. veins, muscles, then belly, stomach, heart, liver, bowels, and a number of cumbersome vessels, let them be a hundredth and fifty fragments of warm, red and bloody clay, they require more then a hundredth and fifty servants of clay, of meat, raiment, medicine, to serve them, and the more needy a creature is, the more miserable; a Spirit is above all these, and needs not senses, nor servants to serve the senses and life; O but Christ was happy from eternity, and consider what a low lowp of love was this, the Word made flesh? God manifested in the flesh, is the greatest mystery of love in the world: here God an infinite Spirit made man, has need of two eyes of clay, two ears, two legs, two hands, he must come under the necessities of all these hundredth and fifty organs; can ye tell what secrets of love are here? God looks out at two clay windows, the two eyes of a Man; God walks with the two clay legs of a man, He dwelt amongst us (saith John. 1.14) he pitched his clay-tent with us, full of grace and glory ; grace and glory dwelling in clay is one of the deep wonders of the World.

But 2. We would accept to be men; but if it were referred to our choice, we must die in pain and be tumbled in a cold hole of clay in the earth and see the Sun no more it may be, we would take it to our advisement, ere we chose life: Christ knew on such terms, if he should be made a creature of clay, and if the high and lofty God should be clothed with such rags, a coat of clay, so far below his beauty, he must die; yet he would be a man a dying man; and we know what sad and sour accidents were in his death.

But 3. Ye will kill an honest hearted and ingenuous innocent man, ere ye move him to take with a fault, when he has done no fault: Job was called an hypocrite by his friends, but he would never take with it, he would maintain his own righteousness, till he died ; the Martyrs, ere they would take sin on them by acting it, and deny Jesus Christ, they would rather choose the gallous, torture, the teeth of Lions, burning quick or anything: but Christ Jesus takes it patiently to stand as the thief, the bloody man, the false man, and as all the wicked men of the world; he could not act sin; but he said, Father, make me the sinner ; I never stole, but let my face be blacked with theft, I never shed innocent blood, but let the stain, and blot off the murderer be upon me; I never lied, but let me be as a liar and stand so before justice; and God made him sin ; 2 Cor. 5.21. when a man willingly goeth to prison for a broken man, its a real acknowledgement that he takes on him the broken man's debts: Its as good as if he had said, crave me for him ; a moral blot to be put on an honest, holy, harmless man, is a high measure of self-denial and love; Christ said, here am I, crave me Lord.

But this is nothing, Christ was a ma • : 2. A dying man: 3. Made as a sinner, and as a wicked and unhonest man; but God blessed him, he was made a blessing of God, and that is comfort enough; No, it was not so, God made him a curse, an execrable thing, all the broad curses written in the book of the Law, came on him; see Christ made clay, dying clay, as sinning clay, cursed clay; what would ye have more; Christ is as if his Father abhorred him, and would not once give him on cast of his eye.

2. All perfection of blessedness comes to us by this that Christ was made a curse for us, Gal. 3.14. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles, through Jesus Christ: that we might receive the promise ef the Spirit, through faith: This is the true freedom from the Law, to be freed from the curse thereof, in believing Christ was made a curse for you, according to that Rom. 6.14. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the Law, but under grace, which doctrine is clear, Rom. 7. where expressly we are said to be freed from the dominion of the Law, as the wife is freed from the Law of subjection to her husband, if the husband be dead, which is a comparison, and holdeth not in all, but only in so far as the two husbands, the Law and Christ, stand in opposition the one to the other; now the opposition is that the Law has dominion to justify the legal observers of it, and guide the wife to life eternal; but the conditions are hard, and now because of the flesh unpossible ; Christ again, the better husband, leadeth his Bride to heaven in sweeter terms, by believing in him that justifieth the ungodly, who has satisfied for our breach of the Law.

2. The Law hath dominion over the wife that is in subjection to it, to condemn her, if she break to this spiritual husband, in thought, word, or deed; but the two husbands both agree in this, that both command holy walking; as the Apostle excellently showeth, 1 Cor. 9.20. to them that are under the Law, I am as under the Law, that I might gain them that are urder Law, ver. 21. to them that are without Law, as without Law (being not without Law to God, but under the Law to Christ) that I might gain them that are without Law: Hence we teach that the believer married to the second and better husband Christ, is not freed from the rule and directing power of the Law to lead us in the ways of sanctification and holiness, but we are freed from the dominion of the Law that it cannot justify us, nor condemn us, because in Christ we are justified by his imputed righteousness laid hold on by faith, and saved freely in him by his blood, hence give me leave to vindicate our doctrine in this, from the wicked aspersions cast on it, by Antinomians especially by Mr Town.

Answ. 1. Not to mind Mr Town that else-where he meaneth by the Law, that we are not under, not the Moral Law only, but the Ceremonial also; if we be freed from all authority of the Law, then hath the sixth command no authority from God to teach that murthering of our brother 〈◊〉 sin, that Idolatry is contrary to the second command 〈◊〉 acts of holiness and worship performed by 〈…〉 will-service and will-worship; for if 〈…〉 and direct us, what is holy walking 〈…〉 by the Antinomian way, doth not teach any such thing in the letter; then its all unwritten will-walking, that a believer doth; this is license, not holiness we are called unto.

2. Then is it not the Laws office to reveal sin to us? Paul saith contrary, Rom. 3.20. for by the Law is the knowledge of sin, Rom. 7.7. I had not known lust, except the Law had said, thou shalt not covet ; free a believer from all the offices of the Law ; Then the believer when he lies and whores, and murders, is not obliged, to know or open his eyes, and see from the light of the Law that these be sins; for Mr Town looseth him from all the offices of the Law: Paul mis-judged himself, when in his believing condition, he saith; Rom. 7.14.15. for we know that the Law is spiritual • , but I am carnal sold under sin.

3. From the Laws teaching of believers, to infer that the Law lordeth it over a beliver, is a great fallacy

4. If the enemy sin be spoiled of all power, even of indwelling and lusting against the Spirit, then the believer cannot fail against a Law; then he may say, he has no sin, which John saith is a lie.

5. If Christ communicate abundant effectual grace of sanctification, then is sanctification perfect; but the Scripture saith the contrary, in many things we offend all ; and we are not perfect in this life, nor are we more then Conquerors in every act of sanct • fication, nor is that Paul's meaning, Rom. 8. that we are never foiled, and that lusts in some particular acts have not the better of us too often, but that finally in the strength of Christ, the Saints are so far forth more then Conquerors, that nothing can work the Apostasy and separation of the Saints from the love God in Christ.

Answ. 1. Not any of these are owned by Protestant Divines; they are Mr. Towns forged calumnies; to the first, I cannot see that sanctification is anything at all by Antinomian grounds but mere justification, and that he is an Antinomian saint that believeth Christ satisfied, and performed the Law for him, but no letter of Law or Gospel layeth any obligation on him to walk in holiness. But the Gospel only revealeth engraffting of the branch, in Christ the Vine-tree and stock of life, and the bringing forth fruits, by the faith of Christ to be the only true sanctification; but if the apples be not of the right seed, & conform to the derecting rule of all righteousness the Law of God, they are but wild grapes, we never made the Law the effectual instrument of sanctification ; a help it is, being preached with the Gospel; but neither is the Gospel of it self the effectual instrument of sanctification, except the spirit of grace accompany it, nor the law of it self.

2. The second is a calumny also; But we would desire to know how Antinomians can free themselves of it, for the righteousness of faith doth not so unite believers to Christ as to their Governor, so as Christ governeth them by the Spirit and the Word, for the letter of the whole Word both Law and Gospel (say they) holdeth forth nothing but a covenant of works, to search the Scripture either Law or Gospel, is not a sure way of searching and finding of Christ ; and Mr Town passeth in silence all guidance of the Saints, by commandments of either Law or Gospel, and tells us of a leading by a free Spirit only. So that by Antinomians, we are no more under the Gospel as a directing and commanding rule, then we are under the Law; what hindereth then but Antinomian justification bids us live as we list; we think the Gospel commandeth every duty, and forbiddeth every sin as the Law doth, under damnation; what is sin to the one, is to the other. But the Gospel forbiddeth nothing to a justified believer under the pain of damnation, more then to Jesus Christ. 2. A dead l • r • er forbiddeth no sin, commandeth no duty; but the Gospel of it self without the Spirit, is a dead letter, as well as the Law; the major is the Antinomian doctrine, the assumption is undeniable.

3. Pharisaical conformity to the Law we disclaim, but if any could be strictly and perfectly conform to the Law of works, as Christ was, we should think such a man perfectly sanctified; but, through the weakness of the flesh, that is unpossible; I know not what Mr Town means by a conformity to the Law though but in the Letter ; if he means that the literal meaning and sense of the Law requireth no spiritual, inward • , and completely perfect obedience; he is no good Doctor of the Law; and if it be not such an obedience, it is not zealous and strict obedience ; but its ordinary to Antinomians now to term these whom the Prelatical party of late called Puritans and strict Precisians, because they strove to walk closely with God, Pharisees, and outside Professors, who think to be justified and saved by their own righteousness, so far are they at odds with sanctification; if by conformity to the Law in the Letter. Mr Town means external obedience without faith in Jesus Christ, or union with him; he knows Protestant Divines acknowledge no • ound sanctification, but that which is the natural issue and fruit of justification, and flows from faith which purifieth the heart ; and such strict conformity to the Law as floweth from saving faith, we hold to be true sanctification, though all enemies to holy walking cry out against it, such as mockers of all religion, the Prelatical and Antinomian party who mock strict walking, and long prayer, and humble confession of sins, and smiting of conscience for sin.

Answ. 1. There is a twofold keeping in of sinners, one merely legal, such as that of wicked men, Psal. 32.9. Who are like the horse or mule and have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bite and bridle, least they come near unto you; The Law hath not power over wicked men ever with terrors of hell and the curse of God, because often they be given up to a hard heart, and what cared Pharaoh, who was under the Law, for this keeper? and to a reprobate mind, and to any that commit sin with greediness, having the conscience burnt with a hot Iron, and being passed feeling, Rom. 1.28.29. E • hes. 4.17, 18, 19. 1 Tim. 4.2. The Law is no keeper; they care no more for Mr Towns goal, that a Lyon doth for the crying of a shepherd, he will not abase himself for it : all the restraint that Law lays on a natural man, is when the conscience is wakened or some great plague is on Pharaoh, then he dare not keep the people captive; but Antinomians have a good opinion of slaves of Satan, who judge them to be civil and externally honest Devils, and make limbs of hell of a good sweet calm nature, who stand naturally in awe of God's Law, but Rom. 3.9, 10, 11. among the whole Tribe and race of mankind, Jews and Gentiles see what they care for the Antinomian Goaler, the law, they believe not one word of the Law saith, ver. 11. there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh God, ver. 12. They are all gone out of the way (where is the keeper, now and his sword, and spear?) they are altogether become unprofitable, there is none that doth good, no not one, ver. 13. their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they have used deceit, the poison of Asps is under their lips, &c. The law layeth not naturally a bridle on the outer man; but observe that the conscience be restrained and awed by the Law, and under any natural remorse for sin committed or to be committed, is a sinful bondage that Christ must deliver us us from. 1. Then stupefaction and deadness of conscience not to care for the law of God, more then a prisoner who has broken goal, and now is in hedges and high-ways robbing and murthering, cares for his old keeper, is to Antinomians mortification, and a crucifying of old Adam. 2. So Job's not daring to lift his arm against the fatherless, chap. 31. must be the power of old Adam in him; David's bones broken for his adultery and murder, must be the power of old lusts in him. 3. Then the less tenderness of conscience and fear for sin as sin, the more mortification of lust. 4. Grace as grace stupifieth and deadeth conscience, so Antinomians must teach.

2. Men naturally do more good for the praise of men, and are more afraid to do ill, for the Axe and the Gibbet of the Magistrate, then for any fear of Hell or Judgment of the Law of God. Town cannot speak of this keeper, there is a second restraint that the Law mixed with the love of Christ layeth on the godly and believer; and he has need of this keeper; so Joseph saith. Gen. 42 18. this do and live for I fear God : There was a keeper over Job, that he durst not lift up his hand against the Fatherless, cap. 31. why, ver. 27. For destruction from God was a terror to me, and by reason of his highness I could not endure: and this keeper in the conscience, smites David's heart, when he renteth but the lap of Saul's garment, and keeps him that he dare not kill him; this was not legal bondage; for Christ commandeth (Math. 10.28, 29. Luk. 12 5.) us to fear him that can cast both soul and body in Hell, rather ere we deny him before men who can but kill the body, & 1 Pet. 2.17. Col. 3.22. Act. 9.31. Act. 13.16. it is commanded to us: I grant the object of this fear is not so much Hell, as the offending of God, but it is commanded in the Law of God; but Mr Town will have the believer so free, so perfect, as the Law needeth not to teach and direct him in one step, he doth all without a keeper or one letter of a command, by the free impulsion of a Spirit separated from Scripture; that is right down, a believer is neither under Law nor Gospel; but a Spirit separated from the Gospel and all letter of it, and from the Law, guides him.

Answ. Dr Taylor did not omit to expound what it is to be under grace, if you had not omitted to read his words, he is clear to any impartial Reader; but let your exposion stand; sin shall have no dominion over you, for ye are not under the Law, as teaching, directing regulating believers in the way of righteousness, but under grace, that is, under the Gospel which giveth power to subdue sin, without any ruling, teaching or directing power of the Law: but what is the power of subduing sin to Antinomions, I pray you? not sanctification, as in words they say, but justification, that is a power to believe Christ by doing and suffering has fulfilled and obeyed the Law for you, but ye are under no command to walk according to the rule of righteousness in the Law; so that to be under the Law is just contrary to personal and real sanctification and walking in love and in Evangelic duties, even as to be under the Law, and to be under grace, are opposed by the Apostle; then as we are obliged, not to be under the Law, but under grace, so are we obliged to no personal sanctification or holy walking, but to objective and imputative sanctification only, that is, only to believe in Christ as made our righteousness and sanctification; now as we are not obliged to be inherently righteous, so are we not obliged to be inherently and personally sanctified and holy, for that is to be under the Law, as the rule of righteousness; now we are freed from the Law as our rule of righteousness and from the Law with all its offices and authority, saith Mr Town ; and to remain under the Law as a rule of rightenesse and to walk holily as being obliged from the conscience of any command either of Law or Gospel, is legal bondage from which Christ has set us free; as to be circumcised is a part of the Law-yoke so they teach; then to be inherently holy is unlawful to Antinomians.

Answ. 1. I wish Mr Town do mistake, for he that teacheth that believers are freed from the Law, as a rule teaching, directing, and from the Law with all its offices and authority ; he denieth the Law to believers to be an eternal and inviolable rule of righteousness, or then he must speak contradictions, to wit, that the believer is not under the Law as a rule of righteousness, for so (saith Town) he should not be under grace, which is contrary to the Apostle, Rom. 6.14. and yet he is under the Law as an eternal and inviolable rule of righteousness; for I ask to whom is the Law an eternal and inviolable rule of justice? to the believer, or no? If to the believer, then he must be under it; but Antinomians say, that is Pharisaical and Popish ; that is to put Christ's free-man (saith Twone) under his old keeper the Law, as if he were a malefactor ; if the Law be no eternal and inviolable rule of righteousness, why doth Mr Town say so?

2. That rule to the which the grace of the Gospel doth conform us, that rule we must be under; but Mr Town saith The grace of the Gospel truly conformeth us to the eternal and inviolable rule of righteousness, Ergo, &c.

3. An inviolable rule of justice cannot be violated and contravened by these to whom it is a rule without sin, else its not an unviolable rule; then if believers cannot violate the Law, and murder, and commit adultery, but they must sin, by violating the rule, then as believers are obliged not to murder, not to commit adultery, so must they be under the inviolable rule of righteousness, contrary to which Antinomians teach. All that Mr Town can say against us in this argument is a calumny, that we make the Law, not the Gospel to give power to subdue sin; but the truth is neither Law nor Gospel giveth grace, but the God of grace hath promised in the Gospel grace and a new heart and a new spirit to the Elect, and grace goeth not along with the Gospel, as a favor of equal extension with the preached Gospel, but millions hear the Gospel who remain void of grace, and have no right to any promise or grace; the Law leaveth not off to be the rule of tighreousnesse, though it cannot effectually make its disciples holy and conform to the rule, no more then the Gospel should not be the Law and rule of faith, because without the influence of the Spirit of grace it can make no Disciples conform to Jesus Christ and his image; for many Elect for a long time, hear the Gospel and have no grace to obey, while the time of conversion come, and many are more blinded and hardened that the Gospel is preached to them, and it were better they had never heard nor known the way of truth.

Answ. This is a close perverting of the word of truth. 1. The Antinomian faith may here be smelled, that by faith is bred assured confidence, without all wavering, fear or doubting, &c. Then whoever once doubt or waver, are yet under the Law of works; a doctrine of despair to broken reeds, who are not und • r the • awe, but married to a new husband Christ, and yet cry, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief: Why fear ye, O ye of little faith, is there not doubting here and a broken faith which Christ softly bindeth up?

2. The Covenant of Grace and Gospel commandeth faith, and also good works as witnesses of our faith; but Town will have good works in any notion of an evangelick command to stand at defiance with a covenant of mere grace: when Grace is the fountain and cause of our walking in Christ, 2 Cor. 1.10. by the grace of God, we had our conversation in tht world, in simplicity and godly sincerity, 1 Cor. 15.10. I labored more abundantly then they all, yet not I, but the grace of God, that is in me. Its true, Holy walking by the grace of God, and Christ's righteousness in justification, is a wicked mixture, which we detest.

3. The opposition. Rom. 7. is between any unconverted man under the Law, be he hypocrite, or a civil devil, or be he any other man on the one part, and a believer married to Christ, and dead to the Law on the other; for that which is common not to gross hypo • rites only, but to all natural men out of Christ, is ascribed to the man that is under the Law, by the Apostle, as 1. He is under the Laws dominion and condemnation, verse. 1. 2. The Law has power over him, as the living husband over the wife, verse. 2.3. The poor man cannot look to Jesus to another lover and husband, the Law as a hard husband leads him, and cries, obey perfectly, or be eternally damned. (3) He is a man in the flesh, in whose members concupiscence and lust rageth, as a young vigorus mother bringeth forth children, lusts of the flesh to death, as married to hell and the second death, verse. 5. (4) He serves God according to the oldness of the letter, that is carnally, hypocritically, like an outside of a rotten Pharisee, and not according to the newness of the Spirit, that is in a Spiritual manner.

Yet Mr. Town extolls him, as one that in good earnest and down-rightness of heart yieldeth and giveth over himself to the Law of God, (as the wife to the husband) to be instructed and ordered in all things inwardly and outwardly after the mind of God ; but no unconverted man can be said so to do, except Antinomians be gross Pelagians; But I think Antinomians, with Mr. Crisp think the person under the Law in all this chapter to be the believer personating or acting the person of a scrupulous believer under a temptation of doubting: but clear it is, Paul speaks of a man under the Law, in the flesh, and in opposition to him, of one under grace, of one married to the Law, and of one married to Christ; in the first part of the chapter, of one in the flesh, and so unrenewed, verse. 5. For when we was in the flesh, &c. and of one that is dead to the Law, married to Christ, and serves the Lord spiritually; and its clear that the Apostle counteth it a part of deliverance from the Law, and a fruit of our marriage to God, that (verse. 4) we • bring forth fruits to God, and walk holily. 2. That the motions of sins bring forth wicked works, as children to the second death, verse. 5. (3) that we serve the Lord (verse. 6.) in newness of Spirit, and walk in Christ.

Now Mr. Town as setting himself to contradict Paul, saith pag. 6. This is an addition and mixture of works and faith, and cannot stand with a covenant of mere grace.

Answ. 1. We cannot every way be said to be redeemed from the Law, in that same sense that Christ was under it: For Christ was under the Law of Ceremonies to free the Jews from observing that Law; I hope we Gentiles are not that way freed from the Law of Ceremonies; for that Law did never oblige the Gentiles except the Gentiles had adjoined themselves in some profession, to the then visible Church.

2. If Christ was under the Law as the rule, to free us from the Law as the rule, then why did Christ command us to imitate him in doing his fathers will, and submitting to that same Ru • e, that he submitted to, as is clear, Matth. 11.29. learn of me that am meek, John. 15.10. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my fathers commandments, and abide in his love, John. 14.15. If ye love me, keep my commandments, John. 13.15. For I have given you example, that ye should do as I have done unto you, Ephes. 5.1.2. Rev. 3.21. Heb. 12.1. 1 Pet. 2.21.22. John. 15.23. but Antinomians say that these that be in Christ are not under the Law, or commands of the word, (even of the letter of the Gospel) as the rule of life, and that Christians are not bound to conform themselves in their life to the directions of the word, contrary to Psal. 119.9. Isaiah. 8.20. and contrary to all the gospel-exhortations given in the New Testament by Christ and his Apostles; and they say that the example of Christ's life, (even in subjecting himself to the law as a rule of righteousness) is not a pattern according to which we are to act and live : In a word, they will have the Spirit separated from the word, and from the example of Christ, and all the cloud of witnesses to be no rule to us; to which I oppose that one precious word of the beloved disciple, 1 John. 2.26. He that saith he abideth in him, ought so to walk even as he hath walked. But observe, 1. All means that do not efficaciously bow the will to obedience to God, and convert the soul, are rejected by them, as not obliging the conscience, such as are the Law, the letter of the Gospel, all the promises, exhor •• tions and precepts of the Gospel, the example of the Lord, who commandeth us, 1 Pet. 1. to be holy as he is holy, the example of Christ, of all the Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs and Saints, because all these are some other thing then grace, and may prove ineffectual: hence

1. The Gospel as contradistinguished from the Law, is not the Gospel written or preached, but the grace that resideth nowhere but in God and in Jesus Christ, is the Gospel; so say they The faith that justifieth us is in Jesus Christ, and never had any actual being out of Christ. 2. There i • no habitual grace inherent in believers, all such must be a created thing, Grace is an uncreated favor only in God : for all that which is called habitual grace in us is in effectual to act graciously, and cannot produce supernatural acts, except the holy Ghost act and move it: Hence they say that the new creature or the man, (or the new heart, or new Spirit, the circumcised, the opened heart, the Law in the inward parts, the one heart, the renewed mind, the inner man, the Law of the mind, Christ dwelling in the heart by faith) mentioned in the Gospel, is not meant of Grace, but of Christ, and therefore we must not pray for gifts and graces, but only for Christ: and so a man may have all graces and poverty of Spirit, and yet want Christ.

2. We are patients in justification, Sanctification, believing in Christ, and we are blocks all the way to heaven; mind, will, affection, memory, love, desir • , joy, fear and all in us act nothing in supernatural acts; there is not such a thing as grace, in any of the Saints, but Grace is nothing but Christ without us drawing us as blocks, as dead stones, in the way to heaven, having no activity, but to sin, even after we believe in Christ: and Christ works in the regenerate as in deadmen.

3. Omissions of duties commanded in the Gospel are no sins, for none are, to be exhorted to believe, but such whom we know to be the elect of God, or to have his Spirit in them effectually, and a man may not be exhorted to any duty, because he hath no power to do it ; then Law, Gospel, exhortations, commands, promises, threatening • , are to no purpose: these that want grace to obey, are not liable to obey, nor guilty, nor under wrath, because they believe not in the Son of God, and these that are under grace are under obligation to no commands at all, and farewell all Scripture from henceforth; Yea, Mr. Town is frequent in this, we are not under the Law, as our rule ; Why? because, (saith he) it cannot effectually work obedience in us ; but so all the word of God, the Gospel without the Spirit must be no rule of obedience at all, because the Scripture, the Gospel and all the promises without the Spirit are just alike and ineffectual to work us to obedience.

But not one word of old or New Testament frees us f • om the Law as our rule of righteousness, and all the scriptures that speak of our freedom from the Law, do directly speak of our freedom from the curse and condemnation of it, because we cannot be justified thereby, as Gal. 3.10. For as many as are of the work of the Law, are under the curse; for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the Law to do them : this must be to do them in a legal way, 1. He must do them all in thought, inclinations, motions of the heart, and all the strength of the soul, in all his actions, in all his words, and in a spiritual manner as the law charges, otherwise he is cursed; then all mankind, both such as are in Christ, or out of Christ are cursed; now if the simple doing of the things of the law, as its a rule of our life, did involve us in a curse, then to honor Father and mother which Paul certainly commandeth as a Gospel-duty, Ephes. 6.1.2. and the loving of our brother to which John. 1. Epist. c. 2. c. 3. c. 4. c. 5. exhorteth us unto, should involve us in a curse; which is absurd.

2. He must continue to the end in doing all the Law ; if ever he fail, he is under a curse: Now thus it is clea • Paul saith we are freed in Christ, from a necessity of justification by the works of the law: For Paul addeth in the next words, verse. 11. But that no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God, is evident, for the just shall live by faith ; if the living by faith did exclude work • , and keeping of the law in an • respect at all, as the keeping of the law is a witness of the life of faith: then to do the things of the law, as its an eternal rule of righteousness, should also involve us in the curse, and argue that we seek to be justified by the law, and so that we are fallen from Christ, even as to be circumcised doth involve a man to be a debtor to the whole law, and argueth a falling from Christ and the grace of the Gospel; for Antinomians contend that we are the same way freed from the moral law, as it is a rule of Righteousness, that we are freed from the Ceremonial law; But we are freed, under the pain of a curse, and of falling from Chri • t, and the gr • ce of the Gospel, from the literal observing of circumcision, Act. 15. & Gal. • .1, 2, • , 4. as the Ceremonial Law is a rule of righteousness; and if any should pretend the impulsion and leading of the Spirit, not any letter of the Law, and thereupon be circumcised, and should renounce the law of • eremonies as a rule of righteous walking as Antinomians profess they obey father and mother and love their brother, and abstain from Idolatry, not because the Law is their rule, or the letter of the Law swayeth their conscience, but because the Spirit of Christ leadeth them; if (I say) any upon this Spirit would be circumcised, and eat the passover, and sacrifice Lambs and blood to God now, this Spirit is no Gospel S • irit, but the spirit of Satan leading such from Christ: If then we are not to obey the Moral Law, as a rule of life and righteousness; but are f •• ed from it the same way, that we are freed from the Ceremonial Law; then to love God and our brethren in any notion should be sin, as to be c • rcumcised in any notion is to fall from Christ, Act. 15. Gal. 5.

Mr Town has a strange evasion for this, Page 138.

The Spirit is free, why will ye control and rule it by the Law, whereas the nature of the Spirit is freely to conform the heart and life to the outward rule of the Law without the help of the Law, as a crooked thing is made straight according to the line and square, and not by th • m; and thus while a believer serveth in newness of the Spirit, the Spirit freely and cheerfully moving him and inclining him to keep the Law which is merely passive, herein they do wickedly who hence take liberty to sin.

Answ. 1. To do the will of God merely as commanded from the power of an outward commandment or precept in the word is but legal, and brings forth but mixed obedience or finer hypoc • isie (saith Saltmarsh ) and Mr Town saith that it is to control the free Spirit, and to rule it by a Law; and Familists of new England (as the old Libertines) say all verbal Covenants or covenants expressed in words are covenants of works and such as strike men off from Christ ; and the whole letter of the Scripture holdeth forth a covenant of works ; and its dangerous to close with Christ in a promise of the Gospel ; because the promise is an external created letter, and the Spirit is all; this is to make a battle and contrariety between the Word of God and the Gospel as written or preached, and the Spirit, whereas 1. that which the Scripture saith, the Spirit of God saith; the command and Gospel promise is the sense and mind of the holy Spirit ; for that the Scripture is q • ickned by the Spirit, 2 Tim. 3.16. and the Word is the seed of God, and of the new birth, 1 Pet. 1.23. and mighty in operation, and powerful and sharper then a two-edged sword, Hebr. 8.12. nor is it possible that any can believe the report of the Gospel, because it is the Gospel-report, but the arm of the Lord and the power of God in the Gospel must be revealed to them; Isaiah. 53.1. John. 12.37.38.39. For John saith, the not receiving the report of the Gospel is judicial blindness and unbelief; when Joseph dare not oppress his brethren, and Job dare not lift his arm against the Fatherless, because the sixth command saith, thou shalt not murder ; this is but finer hypocrisy in Joseph and Job, and a controlling of the free Spirit ; better believe David, Psal. 119.6. Then shall I not be ashamed when I have a respect to all thy Commandments ; no doubt the Lord concurred freely with Adam in the act of obeying God in abstaining from the fruit of the forbidden tree, if therefore Adam should obey God out of conscience to God's command ( eat not) he should either control the free Lord in his working, which none in conscience can say, or then Adam must have been loosed from obedience to that command, if ye eat, ye shall die, as we are now loosed from the Law and the second death, though we break the Law, according to the Antinomian way; yea, its inconceivable how these that are under grace, do obey the Gospel enjoining faith, because the Lord • esus commandeth them, but they must sin in so doing because they control the free Spirit of God, in not obeying for the free impulsion of the Spirit, ▪but for the literal command ▪of God; for sure to control the free Spirit is sin, and to obey for the letter of the command, to Antinomians, is to control the free Spirit; but its blasphemy to say that there is a contraiety between the letter of the Lord's command either in Law or Gospel, and the free impulsion of the Spirit working • in us by grace to will, do, and obey the command: • or to obey the voice of the Lord in his Prophets and Apostles, and to obey the Lord himself are all one, in the word; but this is the error of old Anabaptists and Enthysiasts, to reject the word, and all teaching by men and the word, and to lean to the only immediate inspirations and free motions of the Holy Ghost; and to do or obey, for any other teaching is the way of legal and law-men led by the letter, not by the Spirit. If any obey or do God's will out of by respects, or for fear of punishment or hope of reward, they do not God's will, nor obey they from the power of an outward command, nor do they control the free Spirit, because the very letter and outward commandment enjoineth inward, spiri • uall sincere obedience far from hypocrisy, and forbiddeth in the sense of the letter of it, all servile respects and service of God for hire. Antinomians believe that the Law as the law doth ommand men to obey for fear of hell, as a servant for beating obeyeth his Master, or that it commandeth perfect obedience for hire of life eternal. I do • bt not to say this is not far from blasphemy; for the Law is spiritual and holy, and good, and most just, its a clean and undefiled Law, Psal. 119. & Rom. 7. is the express and image of th • good, acceptable, and perfect will of God, Rom. 12.2. then the Law as the Law can command no finer hypocrisy, no servile, no mercenary obedience for hire, for the Law cannot command sin; its true Luther saith, that the Law compelleth men to obey God, but he speaketh of the accidental operation & fruit of the Law, because of our sinful disposition, and of the condemning Law as it works on our corruption, the holy Law commandeth no man to obey God wickedly.

2. The letter of the Gospel carrieth to us and holdeth forth free grace, openeth the bowels and heart of Christ, calleth on the weary and loaden, to come to Christ, speaketh heaven, glory, and the promise in the womb of it; though it be but the foolishness of preaching of men, yet its the power o • God to salvation, and there is such a Majesty, so much of heaven, in the womb and bowels of the word, that as I never read or heard the like of it, so I shall hate that Religion that joins with popery, to call it Ink-divinity, and a letter, and a legal servile thing; so did the Libertines, in Calvin's time.

3. All tendeth to this, that we despise prophesying, neglect the word, commands, promises, covenant of grace and all these inferior means, and so praying, experience, conference, hearing, reading, Sacraments, because without the Spirit these are lifeless and dead; for (saith Town) the means are passive, shall be also many restraints laid on the free Spirit of God. But so we should not sails nor traffi • k, we should not plew, nor ear, we should not watch the City, nor build houses, because all these are fruitless without the influence of a blessing from heaven; if their meaning be that we are not to trust or rest on the means, the word, promises, covenant of grace, but to seek Christ hims • lfe in all these, its good, but then to seek Christ in his own way, is not to control his spirit, as Mr Town phancieth.

Now what Town doth mean in saying that the Spirit freely conformeth the heart and life to the outward rule of the law, without the help of the Law, is heard to conjecture; for • f the meaning be that the Spirit needeth the he • p of the Law to make us know our sins, to humble us and chase us to him who is the end of the Law: then surely the Spirit by the help of the Law worketh these in us, as God maketh corns to grow by husbandry, rain, good soil and by nature his handmaid, no man can say God works here without the help of the Law; if the meaning be that the law of it self cannot convert a man to God, Antinomians father most falsely such a dream on us, nay, the Gospel of it self cannot effectuate this without the Spirit: But if the Spirit conform us to the outward rule of the law; then must the law be yet a rule of our obedience: how are we then freed from the law as a rule of our obedience, if the Spirit led us back to this rule?

And Rom. 3. Rom. 7. Gal. 3. & 2 Cor. 3. where the Apostle speaketh of our freedom from the law, he ever speaketh of our freedom from the law as it condemneth, as it worketh wrath, as it involveth us in a curse, as it can justify us, or give life ; never as it doth regulate, direct, teach, and lead us in the way of righteousness.

Answ. That new creature is sanctification not justificatification, 2 Cor. 5.17. If any man be in Christ, that is, if he be justified, h • is a new creature, that is, he is sanctified; else by the Antinomian gloss the meaning must be ( if any man be justified in Christ, he is justified in Christ) Paul speaketh not so non sense.

2. It is true, we owe active obedience to the law as a debt, but that is the d • bt of absolute • y perfect ob • dience; how shall it follow that Christ has loosed us from all debt of active obedience, because he has loosed us from a necessity of perfect active obedience under the pain of damnation; but the Law as in the hand of Jesus the Mediator, or the law 〈◊〉 spiritualized and lustered with Gospel law and free grace, and drawn down to a Covenant of free grace, req • ireth not exact perfect obedience under pain of losing salvation; yea, it requireth obedience as the poor man is able to give it, by the grace of God that the man enter in the possession of life eternal; but that he may have ransom-right by merit and conquest to heaven, or to free justification in Christ, the law cannot crave either legal or Evangelic obedience: This then is no more a good consequence, then to say Christ has by his death freed us from death and suffering as they are caused by the Law, and satisfactory to justice, therefore Christ hath freed us from death and sufferings in any respect.

Yea, Paul showeth what Law it is that we are freed from Rom. 8.2. it is the Law condemning and killing called the law of sin and death, and he saith expressly Christ died for this end, ver. 4. that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Hen • e I argue, these that ought to fulfill the righteousness of the Law, by walking after the Spirit, and mortifying the deeds of the flesh, are not freed from the Law as a rule of right • ousnesse, but are obliged by virtue of command, to this rule; for Paul proveth that there is a commanding power enjoining rightous walking, above us, even when we are led by the Spirit. 1. Because we are obliged to mind the things of the Spirit, not of the flesh, ver. 5. 2. To be spiritually minded is life ▪ as to be carnally minded is death eternal, ver. 6. 3. We are to be subject to the Law ; then we must be spiritually, not carnally minded; for the carnal mind cannot come under such subjection, ver. 7. 4. We are to please God in our walking; then we cannot walk in the flesh, ver. 8. 5. Because we are dead to sin, v. 9.10. We are not debtors, nor owe we to the flesh any service, v. 10. But sure by a commandment, we owe service to Christ; again the Apostle, Gal. 5. treating of that common place of Christian liberty, especially moveth the Antinomian doubt, and saith ver. 13. Christian liberty is not licentiousness, nor an occasion to the flesh; and commandeth, that we serve on another in love, ver. 13. Now here was a fit place, if Paul had been an Antinomian to say, but ye are freed from the Law as a rule of righteousness, and if I command you to love one another, I bring you back to bondage again, I clap you up in goal again and deliver you to your old keeper; no saith he, But 1. this is Liberty to serve one anot • er in love ; and its an Evangel • ck fulfilling of the law; for all the Law (saith he ver. 14.) is fulfilled in this one word, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and ver. 16. There is an express command walk in the Spirit: and ver. 18. It might be said then we may live as we list, we are free from all Lord's; its true (saith the Apostle, ver. 18. ye are not under the Law to condemn you, but yet ye are not lawless, ye must be led by the Spirit, and ver. 19. fly the woe • ks of the flesh, ver. 19. such as adultery, fornication, &c. now the law expressly forbiddeth the works of the flesh. And Rom. 7. the very Antinomian doctrine is obviated for ver. 6. But now we are delivered from the Law; O then might some say, then we are free men; he answers not so; we are delivered from the Law that we should serve God in a Spiritual manner: But again, ver. 7. Paul proponeth the special objection of the Carnal Libertine, if we be freed from the Law, what shall we say then? is the Law sin? this doubt ariseth both from ver 5. & ver. 6. ver. 5. he said the motions of sin that were by the Law, did work in our members sinful motions ; he infers then it may appear to some that the Law is a factor and ag • nt for sin; is the Law sin? b • way of sollici • ation, ver. 6. We are not under the Law: then it would appear that the rem • ved Law is not a dispens • tion to sin, and so the law is sin; if we be freed from it, we may sin; Paul saith the Law is not so removed and dead, but t • ere is a good and holy • se of the law; it remaineth as a rule of righteousness touching what we should fly, and what we should follow, thus the law is neither a factor for sin nor a dispensation to sin; because it discovereth and forbiddeth sin; for (saith he) I had not known lust to be sin, but by the Law : and this the Antinomi • n now moveth; we are freed from the law being once justified; what ever we do, it is not against a law nor a rule, for we are under no law as a rule; and what we do, though to our sense and feeling it be adultery and a debt ag • inst the seventh command, yet truly in the sight of God, it is no more sin, then anything Christ doth, is sin, we are as clean of it, ere we commit, it as Christ or the glorified Spirits in heaven, and therefore the law gives us a dispensation to do these things being justified, which the unjustified cannot do, but they must in doing it, sin, because the unjustified man is under the law as a rule of justice, which we are not under; and so we have a dispensation and an an • idated one to sin, before hand, but because we are under no rule of righteousness it is to us no sin. Take two servants, the master commandeth one of them, eat all fruit of the garden ; but I forbid you, the fellow servant, under a pain, eat not of this tree in the east end of the garden; to the other he giveth no such charge or command; the former servant eating of the tree in the east transgresseth not his masters command, because he is under no law forbidding, the other cating of that same tree is a transgressor, because he is under a forbidding command; so here, if the justified be not under the ten Commandments as a rule of life, though they swerve from all the ten, yet they sin not; for Saltmarsh saith, where there is no law, there is no sin.

Mr Town saith, Although the Spirit bring forth in the Saints the fruits of holiness according to the law, Gal. 5.22. Ephes. 5.9. Yet without Christ we can do nothing, unless as the imp or branch we suck, and derive life and sap from him which is the Spirit of faith; what if it be affirmed even in true sanctification the law of works is a mere passive thing, as the Kings high way, which a Christian freely walketh in, you have not a face to deny it, Psal. 119.31.

Answ. If the Spirit of Grace bring forth in the Saints fruits of holiness according to the law, then is the law to the Saints a rule of their walking, which the Antinomians deny: Its true, It may be the law to the holy Spirit in his person acting immediately in the Saints, is passive, for the law cannot work on the holy Spirit; but that the • aints are mere patients, and blocks in all their holy walking, is gross Lib • rtinis • e, and maketh God the Author of sin, as before is said, and this way also the Saints are freed from the Gospel, and the command of faith and all the promises no less then from the law; because neither law nor Gospel can be a rule to the person of the holy Ghost, in his immediate actions; the Spirit is free in his operations, and subjecteth both law and Gospel to his gracious breathings, but is subject to none.

2. Mr. Town and Antinomians would lay upon Protestant Divines, that they teach the Saints may walk in holiness without the grace of Christ, because they will have the Saints under the law ruling and directing, and this law-ruling of it self giveth no grace to obey; bu • this is a calumnious consequence; the promises of the Gospel in the letter giveth no grace to obey; the Spirit bloweth when and whe • e • e listeth, and giveth grace freely to the gospel preached: yet we reach not that any can believe and obey the gospel without the grace of Christ.

3. The law so is passive of it self to Christ, to Adam in the s • ate of innocence, in this sense, that the law, as the law, commandeth obedience to both, but containeth not any legal promise of giving grace to obey to either Adam or Christ, As the Gospel containeth a promise of bestowing grace to believe in all the elect. Now if this be the cause why the justified are freed from the law as a rule of Righteousness, because there is no legal promise made to them by which they a • e enabled to keep the law: then was Christ Ie • us and Adam in his innocence freed from the law as a rule of R • ghteousn • sse, which is most absurd; for the law as the law, commanded Christ to fu • fill all righteousness, Matth. 3.15. but so did it Adam ; • u • show a legal promise made to Christ, by the law, that he should have grace to obey the law; indeed the Lord prom • sed hi • the Spirit above measure, but this was no law-promise: So God created Adam according to his own image, with perfect conc • eated strength and power to keep the law; but the law, as the law, made no promise to Adam, that h • e should be k • pt in obedience, But if this be called action, or activity in the law, to rule, guide, direct and command obedience as a rule, then the law is no wise passive; its more then the Kings high-way ; No way crieth to the conscience of the traveler, this is the way, no Kings way showeth the traveler his error, as the law, in its directing, ruling and teaching power, breaketh in upon the conscience, and declareth to the justified man the way he should walk in, and convinceth him of his unrighteousness, and daily faults.

Answ. Still Antinomians bewray their engine; If we say, even being justified we have no sin, we lie; and who can say I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from sin? and There is not a just man on earth, that sinneth not : 1 John. 1.10. Prov. 20.9. Eccles. 7.20. Then there cannot be a man on earth, but he is under the curse of God, but Antinomians say, and that truly, that the justified persons are freed from the curse, then they have no sin, nay they cannot sin, by their arguing, for they will have the curse essentially and inseparably to follow sin, which is most false, sin dwelleth in all the justified so long as they are here, but they are here delivered from the curse.

Our deliverance from misery and the bondage of the law is twofold, as our misery is twofold. 1. There is a guilt of sin, or our obligation to eternal wrath, and all the punishments of sin according to the order of justice by the law of God; The other misery is the blot of internal guilt of sin, by which sin dwelleth in us by nature, as a King and lord, Tyrant, awing us by the law of sin.

In regard of the former Christ is our Savior, merito by the merit of his death; in regard of the latter Christ is our Savior, efficacia, by giving us the holy Ghost, and faith to lay hold on Righteousness in Christ, and grace to walk holily before him.

In regard of the former, we are freely and perfectly justified and pardoned at once, from all sins, in our person and state, through the sense of this, and in regard of deliverance from temporal judgments and doubtings, and fears of eternal wrath, eve • y day while we seek daily bread, we des •• e • hat our sins may be forgiven; nor is this prayer a tempor • rie pattern that perished with Christ, as some perve • sly 〈◊〉 ; for Peter a • ter the Lord's ascension saith to Simo • Magus, Act. 8.22. pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may • e forgiven th •• .

In regard 〈…〉 are sa • ctified by d • g • ees n • ver 〈…〉 sin is removed in 〈…〉 th • reof, in justification; only sin • welle • h in us, while we a •• here.

In regard of the • ormer misery, faith in Christ is the only 〈◊〉 , and way to g • t out of our bondage and misery; in • ega • d of the ••• ter, R • pentance and the whole trace of our new obedience, are the the means to escape out of this misery; nor do we make acts of sanctification compartners and joint causes or conditions in the work of justification; for this is from Christ alone, solely, immediately; as by looking on the brazen serpent only, the stung Israelites were cured: Nor doth weeping or acts of men's obedience move the Lord to wash, justify and pardon our sins, but repentance and new obedience are means tending to our escaping out of the latter bondage; as the rising of the sun is a way to the full noon-light day; though we can attain to no Meridian nor full noon day of sanctifications, while the body of sin keepeth lodging in us, in this life; but the Law of works is not so enwrapt and entwined together (as Mr. Town dreameth) that if a man lay hands on any, even the least link, he inevitably pulleth the whole chain on himself, as he that is circumcised, Gal. 5. made himself debtor to the whole Law ; For circumcision, not only in the matter of justification, but also of sanctification is now unlawful; So to repent and love the brethren, to obey our parents, as looking thereby for remission of sins, should be unlawful and a falling from Christ, but in the matter of Sanctification, and of testifying our thankfulness to Christ for the work of our redemption, and as the way to the possession of the kingdom, they are no • unlawful, but commanded as necessary duties, by which an entrance is ministered to us into the heavenly kingdom.

Yea our holy walking, since it is no merit, but a fruit of grace, and a condition required in such as are saved, and have opportunity to honor Christ that w • y, taketh not away the freedom of Grace, for where the Scripture saith, we are s • ved by Grace, without works, as Tit. 3 Ephes. 2. salvation is spoken of there in regard of the title, right, jus, or claim the Saints have to heaven excluding all merits of works; our obedience is not full, complete and perfect; only they are counted so, and accepted in Christ, Phil. 4.18. Heb. 13.15, 16. Col. 3.17.

Mr Town answereth with other Antinomians; The just and wise God who accepteth everything by due weight and measure▪ as it is found to be, he doth not, nay cannot account that which is but inchoat and partial for full and complete obedience; nor can it stand with justice to accept anything which is not first perfect, seeing that perfection and absoluteness is the ground of acceptance, both of our persons and performances; ye must make both the tree and the fruit perfectly good before God.

2. What God (saith he) hath manifested to be detestable and accursed, that he cannot accept: but he hath manifested by scripture, that what ever is not absolutely perfect, is detestable and accursed, Gal. 3.10. Hab. 1.13. Rom. 1.18. The proposition is grounded on the immutablenesse of God's nature, who cannot deny himself, I am. 1.18 and his exact justice, who will not suffer the loss of the least title of his righteousness, Mat. 5.18. God is no respecter of persons, his Law inviolable, and can suffer no abatement.

Answ. God in justification accounts us righteous in Christ, and positively guiltless, as freed from obligation to eternal wrath, and clothed with Christ's righteousness; but he accounts not us non-sinnets and free from indwelling s • nne, that should be an unjust account, for we are not so; but God accounteth our works perfect only negatively, that is, such they are before God, as he will not enter in judgment with us for them▪ but graciously pardoneth the sins of th • se works, but God doth not account these works positively worthy of life eternal, even in Christ, as he accounteth our persons, far less doth he judge them meritorious: hence there is a twofold acc • eptation; one of Good will to our persons in Christ; that is that Good will of free election, by which he render •• h us accepted in his beloved : there is another acceptance of complacency, according to which God is said to love and reward our good works, even to a cup of cold water, John. 14.21.23. Matth. 10.42. 2. Thess. 1.7. Heb. 6.10. and that of free grace, they are called perfect as perfection is opposed to hypocritical; but not perfect simply, Phil. 3.12. but the acceptance of our works in Christ is an acceptance inferior to the acceptance of our persons in justification; hence God takes pleasure in th • se that fear him, because they fear him, not as though his love quoad affectum, in it self had a cause in the creature, or can wax or increase, or can admit of a change, but because he bestoweth the fruits of his love out of free grace and a gracious promise, to our sincere walking, and this is rather the fruit of his love, amor quoad effectum, then God's love it self; all this proceedeth from a gross mistake of the nature of justification.

I answer, 2. to that: That which is inchoat sinfully defective, and imcompleat, that the righteous and unchangeable God cannot account perfect and complete, or that which is sinfully defective, or that which is sinful, God cannot account not sinful ; It is true, it were an erroneous and unjust account; now the proposition is true; but the assumption most false; the good works of the regenerate and justified are sinful. But God's accounting of them perfect▪ putteth no contradiction on them to account them not sinful: God accounts not David's adultery to be an act of chastity; This is the Papists argument against the imputed righteousness of Christ, which Antinomians being▪ utterly ignorant of the nature of justification, bring against us; the other part of the distinction is, That which is sinful and defective in it self, and inherently, or really and physically, that God cannot account perfect, that is, God cannot account it and the doer, legally free from obligation to eternal wrath, for the satisfaction of another, the surety of sinners, who has paid and suffered for it; that is most false, and should destroy the Protestant justification, when we say God accounteth the good works of believers good and perfect, so as the imperfection and sin of them is removed; we mean not by removing of the sin of these works, the total annihilation of sin, in its essence root and branch, it dwelleth in us in its complete essence while we are here, Rom. 7.17.23. Prov. 20.9. 1 John. 1.8.10. only the dominion, by sanctification, is abated, and the guilt or obligation to eternal wrath is removed in justification; and this Argument may well be retorted: Who ever is a sinner, the righteous and immutable God whose judge • meant is ac • ording to verity, and cannot suffer the loss of the least titl • of his righteousness, Matth. 5.18. cannot esteem him just, and perfectly righteous: But all men even the regenerate, are sinners: No answer, no distinction can be accommodated to this Argument, which may not be applied to their argument; for God is no less, just, righteous, immutable, true, no respecter of persons, and his Law inviolable in his accounting of persons righteous and perfect, then in accounting of works righteous and perfect. Now that the fruits and the tree are both good, and simply perfect and all the works of the justified perfect in Christ, is a point of new divinity very contrary, first to Scripture which saith I am. 3.2. in many things we offend all, 1 John. 1.8. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, ver. 10. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us▪ Antinomians say, John speaking of a mixed multitude, is to be meant to speak of the unregenerate mixed with the justified.

Answ. 1. John takes in himself. 2. He speaketh of such as confess their sins and are pardoned, ver. 9. (2) of such as have an Advocate in heaven, if they sin, chap. 2.1. and these are the justified, and regenerate, and Prov. 20.9. Who can say I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? he speaks not there of a mixed multitude, but sendeth a Law-defiance to all mankind, justified, or not justified; yea, Eccles. 7.20. There is not a just man on earth, that doth good and sinneth, no ; these words are so wisely framed, that they exclude not the justified in Christ, who undoubtly do good, but they do not so good (saith Solomon ) but they sin; so Paul complaineth, of sin dwelling in him, Rom. 7. (2) Sin original after justification, to Antinomians must be no sin, as to Papists its no sin, after baptism; (3) If our works be perfect in the sight of God, then we may be justified by our works; for Antinomians say if Christ esteem our works perfect, he may account us righteous for them and we may be said to be justified both by works and by grace, because its free grace that the Lord accounts our works Righteous: (4) We constantly deny that Christ by his death, hath given to our good works a power of meriting heaven, but if God in Christ, count then simply perfect, there is no reason to deny this, because our works are simply perfect by Antinomians way; this is more Pharisaical then Popish justification.