Reply, Position 2 — Argument 3

In the Covenant of Circumcision (Genesis 17), God makes over himself [reconstructed: to] Abraham and his seed to be their God, or gives them a special interest in himself.

But in the Covenant of Works, God does not, since the fall, make over himself to any to be their God by way [reconstructed: of] special interest.

Therefore the Covenant of Circumcision cannot be the Covenant of [reconstructed: Works].

This is so plain and clear, that [reconstructed: no one] can doubt or deny it, that understands the nature of the two Covenants. [reconstructed: And] now Sir, what course do you take [reconstructed: to] avoid this Argument? Such a one sure, [reconstructed: that] no man that ever I met with took before you; and that is this: you boldly cut Abraham's Covenant (Genesis 17) into two parts, and make the first to be the pure Covenant of Grace, which is the promissory part to the ninth verse, and the Restipulation (as you call it) Page 205, [reconstructed: to] be as pure a Covenant of Works. What hard shift will some men make [reconstructed: to] maintain their opinion! You say [reconstructed: truly] Page 205, that at the seventh and [reconstructed: eighth] verses was their Restipulation; why [reconstructed: then] do you say, Page 224, that at verse [reconstructed: the] seventh, he proceeds to speak of ano[reconstructed: ther] Covenant than what he had been [reconstructed: speaking] of before? Does the promise [reconstructed: and] the Restipulation make two Cove[reconstructed: nants], or are they just and necessary parts [reconstructed: of] one and the same Covenant? You [reconstructed: also] tell us, that the Covenant (Genesis 17:1-4) was a plain transcript of [reconstructed: several] free promises of the Gospel, under [reconstructed: the] denomination of a Covenant. But [reconstructed: why] then don't you take the Restipula[reconstructed: tion] (verses 7, 8, 9, 10) to be a part of [reconstructed: it]? Oh, no, there is something required [reconstructed: on] Abraham's and his posterity's part; [reconstructed: they] must be circumcised, and that spoils [reconstructed: it] all. Why, but Sir, if the requiring of Circumcision alters the case so greatly, as to make it a quite contrary Covenant, how comes it to pass, that in the Covenant to Abraham, he himself was first required to be circumcised? Why this is the reason: here is something required on their part as a condition, and a condition quite alters the nature of the Covenant. Very well, but tell me then, why you say, Page 223, and in many other places, that the Covenant made with Abraham in Genesis 12 was a Gospel-Covenant, and yet there Abraham is obliged to walk before God, and be perfect? Does not that also there alter the nature of the Covenant, as well as here in the seventeenth chapter? You also grant the Covenant made with Abraham (Genesis 22) was a pure Gospel-Covenant, or if you deny it, the Apostle proves it (Hebrews 6:13); and yet there is more appearance of respect to Abraham's obedience in that Covenant, than is in submitting to Circumcision. See Genesis 22:16-17: "By myself have I sworn, says the Lord, for because you have done this thing, etc., that in blessing I will bless you; and in multiplying I will multiply you."

I will trouble you on this head but with one query more: if the four first verses of the seventeenth of Genesis contain a pure Gospel-Covenant as you say, and the Restipulation in the following verses makes a Covenant of Works, because it thereby becomes conditional — then tell me, if you please, whether what God graciously granted to Abraham in the former verses is not all nulled and made void again by their Restipulation? Does not this seem harsh? Here you have brought Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the believers of Abraham's race, just into the same case you brought Moses and all the Israelites before — under two opposite Covenants, where one cuts off all that the other granted.

But there is a stronger reason urged than the conditionality of the Covenant, to prove it a Covenant of Works, and that is, Circumcision is made the condition of Abraham's Covenant; and that is the worst of all conditions; for it obliges a man to keep the whole Law (Galatians 5:3). It is the yoke of bondage, and to whatever Covenant it is so annexed, it makes it become a bondage legal Covenant. If we be circumcised, Christ shall profit us nothing. Thus it was in the Covenant (Genesis 17).

Great use is made of this in many parts of your discourse; but Sir, you are greatly mistaken in applying these texts to the purposes you do. For the Apostle all along in that Epistle to the Galatians argues against the false teachers, who taught and pressed the necessity of Circumcision, as a bond obliging them to the strict and perfect obedience of the Law, in order to their justification thereby, or at least to join it with the righteousness of Christ, as a co-cause of justification (see Galatians 2:4-5 and Galatians 3:1). Now against this abuse of Circumcision it is that the Apostle argues thus, and tells them, that in submitting to it on that account, they made the death of Christ of no effect, and obliged themselves by it to the whole Law. For Circumcision did not simply and absolutely, in the nature of the work or action, oblige men to the whole Law in the way of justification by it, but it did so from the intention of the worker, and the supposition of such an opinion of it, and design in it. For in itself, and with respect to God's design in the institution of it, it was to be a seal of the righteousness of faith (Romans 4:11); and so it was an excellent, useful, instructive ordinance to all believers, as long as the ceremonial Law stood. And even when it was expiring, as the Gospel began to open more and more clearly, there was yet some kind of toleration of it, to such as were born of Jewish parents: thus Paul himself circumcised Timothy, his mother being a Jewess (Acts 16:1-3); but Titus being a Greek was not circumcised, and that because of these false teachers, that would make an ill use of that their liberty (Galatians 2:3-4). This Paul could never have done, in case Circumcision, in the nature of the act, had bound Timothy to keep the Law for justification. By which it appears that the action in its own nature did not oblige to the keeping of the whole Law, but from the intention of the agent; and therefore as the Apostle rightly argues, if a man be circumcised with this design to be justified by it, he would thereby bind himself to the whole Law, and frustrate the death of Christ to himself. But it was now to have its funeral with all other parts of the ceremonial Law which vanished, and were accomplished in the death of Christ; and it falling out that such a vile use was made of it at that time, the Apostle thus thunders against it. Had this been observed, as also the like abuse of the moral Law, you would have known how to have reconciled the Apostle's commendations of them both, with his sharp invectives against the one, and the other. But being ignorant of these two great and necessary distinctions of the Law, according to God's intention in the promulgation of it at Sinai, and the carnal Jews' sense of it, as a pure Covenant of Works, against which the Apostle so sharply inveighs in the places by you cited, all your 23 arguments from Page 183 to Page 187 fall to the ground at one stroke, your middle term having one sense in your major proposition, and another in your minor; and so every argument has four terms in it, as will easily be demonstrated by the particular consideration of the respective places from where you draw them.

So in like manner in your arguing here against Circumcision, as a bond to keep the whole Law, and as such vacating the death of Christ, is a stumble at the same stone, not distinguishing as you ought to have done, between an obligation arising out of the nature of the work, and out of the end and intention of the workers — and this every learned and judicious eye will easily discern. But we proceed to the next argument.