muft, during their life, hang mid-way between juftification and con, demnation; and, after death, between heaven and hell

(1.) During lite, they must hang mid-way between justification and condemnation; juftified they could not be, for juftification is the foul's paffing from death to life, John iii. 14 John v. 24. This they could not poffibly do, for the miniftration of death and condemnation hindered. He that is under condemnation by the law, cannot, during that ftate, pafs into life. And yet to be under condemnation is as impoffible on the other fides, for he that is juftified, cannot at the fame time be under condemnation, Rom. viii. 2. John v. 24. What remains then, but that during life they muft ftick mid-way betwixt both, neither justified nor condemned, and yet both fo and fo. Juftification is our life, and condemnation our death, in law: Betwixt thefe two, which are privately oppofed, there can be no medium of participation, and yet fuch a medium you here fancy.

(2.) And then after death they must neceffarily hang betwixt hea ven and hell; to heaven none can go that are under the very rigour and tyranny of the law, a pure covenant of works, as you fay they were.

To hell they could not go, being under the pure covenant of grace: What remains then, but fome third state must be affigned them? and fo at last we have found the limbus patrum, and your pofition leads us right to purgatory: a conclufion which, I believe, you yourself abhor as much as I.

(2dly,) This hypothefis pinches you with another dilemma, viz. Either there was pardon or repentance in Mofes's covenant, and the Sinai difpenfation of the law, or there was none; if you fay none, you directly contradict Lev xxvi. 40, 46. if they were, then it cannot be Adam's covenant of works.

You anfwer, p. 179 That God promifeth pardon for the breach of Mofes's covenant, and of Adam's covenant too, but neither Adam's covenant, nor the Jewifh legal covenant, promifed any pardon upon repentance, but rather threatens and inflicts the contrary.'

Reply. Either this is a direct anfwer to my argument, to prove the law at Sinai cannot be a pure Adam's covenant, because it had a promife of pardon annexed to it, Lev. xxvi. 40. but Adam's covenant had none. If your answer be direct, then it is a plain contradiction in faying it had, and it had not a promife of pardon belonging to it. Or elle it is a mere evafion, and an eluding of the argument; and your only meaning is, that the relief I fpeak of is not to be found in any promife belonging to the Sinai difpenfation, but in fome other gospel covenant or promife But, fir, this will not ferve your turn; you fee I cite the very promife of grace made to the Ifraelites on mount Sinai by the hand of Mofes, wherein God promifeth upon their humiliation to remember his covenant for their good. Now, fir, you had as good have stood to your firft anfwer, which is lefs contradictory, as to this which is no lefs fo; as will evidently appear, by a nearer and more particular view of the place, and gathering up your own conceffions

about it. That this text, Lev. xxvi. 40. hath the nature of a gracious promise in it, no man will deny, except he that will deny that God's remembering of his covenant, for the relief of poor broken-hearted finners, is no gospel promife pertaining to the covenant of grace: That it was made to the penitent Ifraelites upon mount Sinai, and there delivered them by the hand of Mofes for their relief, is as vifible and plain as the words and fyllables of the 46th verfe are to him that reads them. Let the promife then be confidered both ways. (1.) In your fenfe, as a plain direction to the covenant of grace made with Abraham for their relief; for you fay it was, p. 180. or let it be confi. dered abfolutely, as that which contained relief in itself for the penitent Ifraelites that should live towards the end of the world, after they fhould be gathered from all their difperfions and captivities, as you there speak, and more fully explicate in your accommodation of a parallel promife, p. 111, 112, 113. First, let us view it in your fenfe, as a relative promife to the covenant of grace made with Abraham. Gen. xii. to which, fay you, it plainly directs them; and then this legal difpenfation can never be the fame with Adam's covenant, for to that covenant no fuch promife was ever annexed, which should guide and plainly direct them to Chrift and pardon, as that star which appeared to the wife men directed their way to Chrift. If there be any fuch relative promise belonging to Adain's covenant in paradife, as this which I plainly fhew you was made on mount Sinai, be pleased to produce it, and you end the controverfy; but if you cannot, (as you know you cannot) then never fay the legal difpenfation at Sinai, and the covenant of works with Adam in paradife, are the very fame covenant. Secondly, Let us confider this promise absolutely in itself, and then I demand, was there mercy, relief and pardon con ́tained in it for any penitent finner prefent or to come? Yes, fay you, it extends relief to penitents, after God fhall gather them from all their captivities at the end of the world; very good. Then it is a very vigorous promife of grace, which not only reaches 430 years backward, as far as the first promife to Abraham, but alfo extends its reliefs and comforts many thoufand years forwards, even to the pureft times of the gospel, juft before Chrift's coming to judgment: And can fuch a promife as this be denied to be in itself a gofpel-promife? Sure it can neither be denied to be fuch, nor yet to be made upon mount Sinai by the hand of Moses. This dilemma is as pinching as the former.

Perhaps you will fay, This promife did not belong to the moral law given at Sinai, but to the ceremonial law: If fo, then I should reasonably conclude, that you take the ceremonial law (of which you seem to make this a branch, p. 181.) to be a covenant of grace, feeing one of its branches bears fuch a gracious promife upon it. No, that muft not be fo neither; for fay you, p. 151. the ceremonial covenant is of the fame nature with the covenant of works, or law written in tables of fone: Whither then fhall we fend this promife? To the covenant

of grace we must not fend it, unless only as an index or finger to point to it, because it was made upon mount Sinai, and delivered to Ifracl by the hand of Mofes : To the gofpel-covenant we must not therefore annex it; and to the legal dispensation at Sinai you are as loth to annex it, because it contains fo much relief and grace in it for poor penitents; and that will prove, that neither the moral nor ceremonial law (place it in which you please) can be a pure covenant of works as Adam's was.

Moreover, in making this the promise which muft relieve and comfort the diftreffed Ifraelites in the pureft gofpel-times, towards the end of the world, you as palpably contradict yourself in another respect; for we fhall find you by and by ftoutly denying, that the gofpel promifes have any conditions or qualifications annexed to them; but fo hath this, which you fay relates to them that fhall live at the end of the world." If their uncircumcifed hearts be humbled, and if they accept the punishment of their iniquities, then will I remember my covenant," &c. But be this promife conditional or abfolute, two things are undeniably clear: (1.) That it is a promise full of grace, for the relief of law-tranfgreffors, ver. 40. (2.) That it was a mount Sinai promife, ver. 46. And fuch a promife as you can never fhew in Adam's covenant.

Befides, it is to me an unaccountable thing, that a promise which hath a double comfortable afpect, 430 years back, and fome thousands of years forward, fhould not caft one comfortable glance upon the penitents of the prefent age, when it was made, nor upon any till near the end of the world. What think you, fir, of the 3000 Jews pricked at the heart, Acts ii. had they no relief from it, becaufe their lot fell not late enough in time? Were the penitent Jews in Mofes and Peter's days all born out of due time for this promife to relieve? O what shifting and fhuffling is here! Who can think a man that twifts and winds every way, to avoid the dint of an argument, can poffibly have a moral affurance of the truth of his own opinion?

(3.) You fay, pag, 134. That through Chrift's fatisfaction there is no repugnancy, or hoftile contrariety, betwixt the law and promife, but an agreement betwixt them, and that they differ only in refpect of ftrength and weakness; the gofpel is able to go through. ftitch with it, which the law cannot do.'

Reply. Well then, the law, confidered as a covenant of works, whofe terms or condition is, "Do this and live;" and the promise or gospel, whofe condition is, "Believe and thou shalt be faved;" are not specifically different, but only gradually, in point of ftrength and weakness: and the reafon you give is as itrange, that this comes to pass through the fatisfaction of Christ. Good fir, enlighten us in this rare notion. Did Chrift die to purchase a reconciliation betwixt the covenant of works as fuch and the covenant of grace, as if both were now by the death of Chrift agreed, and to be justified by works and by faith, fhould after Chrift's death, make no odds or difference between

them? If it be fo, why have you kept fuch a coil to prove Mofes's and A lam's covenant, yea, Abraham's too, being a covenant of works, can never confift or mingle with the gospel-covenant? And then I fay, you contradict the apoftle, who fo directly oppofes the covenant of works as fuch, to the covenant of grace, Gal. iii. 18. and tells us they are utterly inconfiftent and exclufive of each other; and this he fpake after Chrift's death and actual fatisfaction. But,

(4.) That which more amazes me, is the ftrange anfwer you give to Mr Sedgwick, p. 132, 133. In your return to his argument, That if the law and the promife can confift, then the law cannot be fet up as a covenant of works. You answer, That the law and the pro' mife having divers ends, it doth not thence follow, that there is an 'inconfiftence betwixt them, and that the law, even as it is a cove'nant of works, instead of being against the promise, tends to the 'establishment of it. And p. 133. that by convincing men of the 'impoffibility of obtaining reft and peace in themfelves, and the ne'ceffity of betaking themselves to the promife, &c. the law is not against the promife, having fo blessed a fubferviency towards the establifhment thereof.' Here you own a fubferviency, yea, a blessed fubferviency of the law to the promife, which is that Mr Sedgwick and myfelf have urged to prove it cannot be fo, as it is a pure Adam's covenant, but that thereof it must come under another confideration; only here we differ; you fay it hath a bleffed fubferviency to the promife, as it is the fame with Adam's covenant; we fay it can never be fo as fuch, but as it is either a covenant of grace, tho' more obfcure, as he speaks; or though the matter of it fhould be the fame with Adam's covenant, yet it is fubferviently a covenant of grace, as others fpeak; and under no other confideration can it be reconciled to the promise.

But will you ftand to this, that the law hath no hoftile contradiction to the promife, but a bleffed fubferviency to it, as you speak p. 173. where you fay, That if we preach up the law as a covenant of life, or a covenant of faith and grace (which are equipollent terms) let us diftinguifh as we pleafe between a covenant of grace abfolutely and fubferviently fuch; then we make an ill ufe of the law, by perverting it to fuch a fervice as God never intended it for, and are guilty of mingling law and gofpel, life and death together.'

Reply. Here, fir, my understanding is perfectly pofed, and I know not how to make any tolerable orthodox fenfe out of this pofition: Is the law preached up as a pure covenant of works, (that is, preffing men to the perfonal and punctual obedience of it, in order to their juftification by works) no way repugnant to the promife, but altogether fo, when preached in fubferviency to Chrift and faith? This is new divinity with me, and I believe must be so to every intelligent reader. Do not I oppose the promise, when I preach up the law as a pure covenant of works, which therefore as fuch must be exclufive of Chrift and the promife? And do I oppofe either, when I tell finners the terrors of the law ferve only to drive them to Chrift, their only remedy, who is

"the end of the law for righteousness, to every one that believeth," Rom. x. + Are works and grace more confiftent than grace with grace? Explain your meaning in this paradoxical expreffion, and leave *not yourself and others in fuch a maze. I read, Gal. iii. 19. for what end God publifhed the law 430 years after the promise was made to Abraham, and find it was added because of tranfgreffion, portion, it was put to, not fet up by itself alone as a diftinct covenant, but added as an appendix to the covenant of grace; whence it is plain, that God added the Sinai law to the promife, with evangelical ends and purposes. If then I preach the law to the very fame evangelical ufes and purposes for which God added it to the promife, do I therein make an ill ufe of the law, and mingle life and death together? But preaching it, as a pure covenant of works, as it holds forth juftification to finners by obedience to its precepts, do I then make it bleffedly fubfervient (as you fpeak) to the promise or covenant of grace? The law was added because of tranfgreffion, that is, to reftrain fin in the world, and to convince finners under guilt, of the neceffity of another righteousness than their own, even that of Chrift, and for the fame ends God added it to the promise. I always did, and ftill fhall preach it, and I am perfuaded, without the leaft danger of mingling law and gofpel, life and death together, in your fenfe.

It is plain to me, that in the publication of the law on Sinai, God did not in the leaft intend to give them so much as a direction how to obtain juftification by their moft punctual obedience to its precepts, that being to fallen man utterly impoffible; and befide, had he promulged the law to that end and purpose, he had not added it, but directly oppofed it to the promife; which it is manifefted he did not; Gal. iii. 21. "Is the law then against the promife of God? God forbid." And verfe 18. makes it appear, that had it been fet up to that end and purpose, it had utterly difannulled the promife; for if the inberitance be of the law, it is no more by promife. What then can be clearer, than that the law at Sinai was published with gracious gofpel-ends and purposes, to lead men to Chrift, which Adam's covenant had no respect or reference to? And therefore it can never be a pure Adam's covenant, as you falfly call it, neither is it capable of becoming a pure covenant of works to any man, but by his own fault, in rejecting the righteousness of Chrift, and feeking juftification by the works of the law, as the mistaken carnal Jews did, Rom. x. 3. and other legal jufticiaries now do. And upon this account only it is that Paul, who to highly praifes the law in its fubferviency to Chrift, thunders fo dreadfully against it, as it is thus fet by ignorant mistaken fouls in direct oppofition to Chrift.

(5thly) And further, to clear this point, the apostle tells us, Rom. x. 4. "For Chrift is the end of the law for righteoufnefs to every one that believeth." Whence I argue, That if Adam's covenant had an end, namely, the juftification of men by their own perfonal obedience; and the law at Sinai had a quite contrary end, namely,

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