Chapter 10

Q. What are the false grounds of the Lord's making the Covenant of Grace?

A. There are two bastard grounds devised by Arminians. 1. Because the Covenant of Works cannot oblige both to active and passive obedience, but to one of them only (say they) and the Covenant of Works was so rigid, that God could not follow it out, and cast infants in hell for a sin which is theirs, only by imputation, and was pardoned to the first man that committed it. Therefore he was necessitated to make a Covenant of Grace with all mankind, none excepted. But the Covenant of Works is broken, and can now be a way of justification and salvation to none, but yet it obliges all. And sin cannot make us lawless, for the spiritual Law is of an eternal obligation. 2. They that never heard of Christ, perish by the Law, and not by the Covenant of Grace of which they never heard, and the Gospel is written in the heart of none. 3. The first Covenant was holy and spiritual, and God should unjustly threaten death upon infants, if they be not guilty of eternal condemnation, as Arminius, disp. pub. 7. th. 16.3. and the Scripture says, infants are guilty of this sin (Ephesians 2:3; Romans 5; Psalm 51:5; Job 14:4). As also Christ must not have died for the sins of infants, if there be no sin in them, they need not the ransom of Christ's blood. The other bastard ground is, the natural antecedent desire and love of God to have all saved, moved him (say they) to make this Covenant of Grace with all. But this makes away free-grace, and changes God as the blind Talmud, which says God has a secret place in which he afflicts himself, because he burnt the Temple, and delivered the Jews to captivity. As also, the Lord remembering the captivity of the Jews, and their desolation, he pours out two tears every day in the Sea or Ocean, and for grief, smites his breasts with both his hands. And the Alcoran says, that God and the Angels wish well to Mahomet, but cannot free him from death. So made the heathen their Jupiter to deplore the destinies which he could not amend. And what is this, but to say, God has passionate desires to have all, elect, and reprobate, men, and angels, to obey and be eternally saved, but he cannot help the matter; and therefore must upon the same account, be sorrowful and mourn that he cannot get all saved, which destroys the power of grace and restrains the outgoings of free-love.