Edward Fisher · 53 of 56

Appendix · Part 1

APPENDIX.

THE OCCASION OF THE "MARROW" CONTROVERSY, STATED BY

THE LATE REV. JOHN BROWN, OF HADDINGTON.

While the Church of Scotland was clear and exact in her standards, and many of

her preachers truly evangelical, a flood of legal doctrine filled many pulpits about

the time of the Revolution.

The Arminian errors of Professor Simpson were also prevalent after this time; but

the Assembly used him with great tenderness. However, they were far from being

equally kind to such as earnestly endeavoured a clear illustration of the doctrines

of God's free grace reigning through the righteousness of Christ. Mr. Hamilton of

Airth having published a catechetical treatise concerning the covenant of works

and grace, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, in a more

evangelical strain than some wished, the Assembly, 1710, prohibited all ministers

or members of this church to print, or disperse in writ, any catechism, without the

allowance of the Presbytery of the bounds, or the Commission. The Presbytery

of Auchterarder having begun to require candidates for licence, to acknowledge it

unsound to teach that men must forsake their sins in order to come to Christ,

the Assembly, 1717, on the same day they had dealt so gently with Professor

Simpson, declared their abhorrence of that proposition as unsound and most

detestable—as if men ought only to come to Christ, the alone Saviour from sins,

after they have got rid of them by repentance. Mr. James Hog, one of the holiest

ministers in the kingdom, having published or recommended a celebrated and

edifying tract of the Cromwellian age, called The Marrow Modern Divinity, the

Assembly, 1720, fell upon it with great fury, as if it had been replete with

Antinomian errors, though it is believed many of these zealots never read it, at

least had never perused it, in connection with the Second Part of it, which is

wholly taken up in the manifestation of the obligation, meaning, and advantage of

observing the law of God. They condemned the offering of Christ, as a Saviour to

all men, or to sinners as such, and the doctrine of believers' full deliverance from

under the law as a broken covenant of works. They asserted men's holiness to be

a federal or conditional mean of their obtaining eternal happiness. They

condemned these almost express declarations of Scripture, that believers are not

under the law,—that they do not commit sin,—that the Lord sees no sin in them,

and cannot be angry with them, as Antinomian paradoxes,—and condemned the

distinction of the moral law as a covenant of works, and as a binding rule of duty

in the hand of Christ. In order to explain these expressions, Messrs. James Hog,

Thomas Boston, Ebenezer and Ralph Erskines, Gabriel Watson, and seven

others, remonstrated to the next Assembly against these decisions as injurious to

the doctrine of God's grace. And in their answers to the Commission's Twelve

Queries, they illustrated these doctrines with no small clearness and evidence.

Perhaps influenced by this, as well as by the wide spread detestation of their acts

[1720] on that point, the Assembly, 1722, reconsidered the same, and made an

act explaining and confirming them. This was less gross and erroneous.

Nevertheless, the twelve representers protested against it as injurious to truth; but

this protest was not allowed to be marked. The Moderator, by the Assembly's

appointment, rebuked them for their reflections on the Assembly, 1720, in their

representation, and admonished them to beware of the like in all time coming;

against which they protested.

QUERIES AGREED UNTO BY THE COMMISSION OF THE GENERAL

ASSEMBLY, AND PUT TO THOSE MINISTERS WHO GAVE IN A

REPRESENTATION AND PETITION AGAINST THE 5TH AND 8TH

ACTS OF ASSEMBLY 1720, WITH THE ANSWERS GIVEN BY THESE

MINISTERS TO THE SAID QUERIES.

Adhering to and holding, as here repeated, our subscribed Answer given in to the

Reverend Commission, when by them called to receive these Queries, we come

to adventure, under the conduct of the faithful and true Witness, who has

promised the Spirit of truth to lead his people into truth, to make answer to the

said Queries. To which, before we proceed, we crave leave to represent, that the

title thereto prefixed, viz: "Queries to be put to Mr. James Hog, and other

Ministers, who gave in a Representation in Favours of the Marrow, to the General

Assembly, 1721," as well as that prefixed to the Commission's overture anent this

affair, has a native tendency to divert and bemist the reader, to expose us, and to

turn the matter off its proper hinge, by giving a wrong colour to our

Representation, as if the chief design of it was to plead, not for the precious truths

of the gospel, which we conceive to be wounded by the condemnatory act, but

for "The Marrow of Modern Divinity," the which, though we value for a good

and useful book, and doubt not but the Church of God may be much edified by

it, as we ourselves have been, yet came it never into our minds to hold it, or any

other private writing, faultless, nor to put it on a level with our approved

standards of doctrine.

QUERY. I.—Whether are there any precepts in the gospel that were not

actually given before the gospel was revealed?

Answer.—The passages in our representation, marked out to us for the grounds

of this query, are these:—"The gospel doctrine, known only by a new revelation

after the fall. Of the same dismal tendency we apprehend to be the declaring of

that distinction of the law, as it is the law of works, and as it is the law of Christ,

as the author applies it, to be altogether groundless. The erroneous doctrine of

justification, for something wrought in, or done by the sinner, as his

righteousness, or keeping the new and gospel law." Now, leaving it to others to

judge if these passages gave any just occasion to this question, we answer,—

1st, In the gospel, taken strictly, and as contradistinct from the law, for a doctrine

of grace, or good news from heaven, or help in God through Jesus Christ, to lost

self-destroying creatures of Adam's race, or the glad tidings of a Saviour, with life

and salvation in him to the chief of sinners, there are no precepts; all these, the

command to believe, and repent, not excepted, belonging to, and flowing from the

law, which fastens the new duty on us, the same moment the gospel reveals the

new object.

That in the gospel, taken strictly, there are no precepts, to us seems evident from

the holy Scriptures. In the first revelation of it, made in theses words,—"The seed

of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent," we find no precept, but a

promise containing glad tidings of a Saviour, with grace, mercy, life, and salvation

in him, to lost sinners of Adam's family. And the gospel preached unto Abraham,

namely, "In thee," i.e., in thy seed, which is in Christ, "shall all nations be

blessed," is of the same nature. The good tidings of great joy to all people of a

Saviour born in the city of David, who is Christ the Lord, brought and proclaimed

from heaven by the angels, we take to have been the gospel, strictly and properly

so called; yet is there no precept in these tidings. We find, likewise, the gospel of

peace and glad tidings of good things are in Scripture convertible terms; and the

word of the gospel, which Peter spoke to the Gentiles, that they might believe,

was no other than peace by Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and exalted to be Judge

of quick and dead, with remission of sins through his name, to be received by

every one believing in him. Much more might be added on this head, which, that

we be not tedious, we pass. Of the same mind, as to this point, we find the body

of reformed divines, as to instance in a few, Calvin, Chamier, Pemble, Wendelin,

Alting, the professors of Leyden, Witsius, Maestrick, Maresius, Troughton,

Essenius.

That all precepts, [those of faith and repentance not excepted,] belong to, and are

of the law, is no less evident to us; for the law of creation, or of the ten

commandments, which was given to Adam in paradise, in the form of a covenant

of works, requiring us to believe whatever God should reveal or promise, and to

obey whatever he should command; all precepts whatsoever must be virtually and

really included in it. So that there never was, nor can be, an instance of duty

owing by the creature to God, not commanded in the moral law, if not directly

and expressly, yet indirectly, and by consequence. The same first commandment,

for instance, which requires us to take the Lord for our God, to acknowledge his

essential verity, and sovereign authority; to love, fear, and trust in Jehovah, after

what manner soever he shall be pleased to reveal himself to us, and likewise to

grieve and mourn for his dishonour or displeasure, requires believing in Jehovah,

our righteousness, as soon as ever he is revealed to us as such, and sorrowing

after a godly sort for the transgression of his holy law, whether by one's self or by

others. It is true, Adam was not actually obliged to believe in a Saviour, till, being

lost and undone, a Saviour was revealed to him; but the same commandment that

bound him to trust and depend on, and to believe the promises of God Creator,

no doubt obliged him to believe in God Redeemer, when revealed. Nor was Adam

obliged to sorrow for sin ere it was committed. But this same law that bound him

to have a sense of the evil of sin in its nature and effects, to hate, loathe, and flee

from sin, and to resolve against it, and for all holy obedience, and to have a due

apprehension of the goodness of God, obliged him also to mourn for it, whenever

it should fall out. And we cannot see how the contrary doctrine is consistent with

the perfection of the law; for if the law be a complete rule of all moral, internal

and spiritual, as well as external and ritual obedience, it must require faith and

repentance, as well as it does all other good works. And that it does indeed

require them, we can have no doubt of, when we consider, that without them all

other religious performances are, in God's account, as good as nothing; and that

sin being, as the Scripture and our own standard tell us, any want of conformity

to, or transgression of the law of God, unbelief and impenitency must be so too.

And if they be so, then must faith and repentance be obedience and conformity of

the same law, which the former are a transgression of, or an inconformity unto;

unbelief particularly being a departing from the living God, is, for certain,

forbidden in the first commandment, therefore faith must needs be required in the

same commandment, according to a known rule. But what need we more, after

our Lord has told us, that faith is one of the weightier matters of the law? and that

it is not a second table duty which is there meant, is evident to us, by comparing

the parallel place in Luke, where, in place of faith, we have the love of God. As

for repentance, in case of sin against God, it becomes naturally a duty; and

though neither the covenant of works nor of grace admitted of it, as any expiation

of sin, or federal condition giving right to life, it is a duty included in every

commandment, on the supposal of a transgression.

What moves us to be the more concerned for this point of doctrine is, that if the

law does not bind sinners to believe and repent, then we see not how faith and

repentance, considered as works, are excluded from our justification before God,

since in that case they are not works of the law, under which character all works

are in Scripture excluded from the use of justifying in the sight of God. And we

can call to mind that, on the contrary doctrine, Arminius laid the foundation of his

rotten principles, touching sufficient grace, or rather natural power. "Adam," says

he, "had not power to believe in Jesus Christ, because he needed him not; nor

was he bound to believe, because the law required it not. Therefore, since Adam

by his fall did not lose it, God is bound to give every man power to believe in

Jesus Christ." And Socinians, Arminians, Papists, and Baxterians, by holding the

gospel to be a new, proper, preceptive law, with sanction, and thereby turning it

into a real, though milder covenant of works, have confounded the law and the

gospel, and brought works into the matter and cause of a sinner's justification

before God. And, we reckon, we are the rather called to be on our guard here,

that the clause in our representation, making mention of the new, or gospel law, is

marked out to us, as one of the grounds of this query, which we own to be

somewhat alarming. Besides all this, the teaching that faith and repentance are

gospel commandments, may yet again open the door to Antinomianism, as it

sometimes did already, if we may believe Mr. Cross, who says, "History tells us

that it sprung from such a mistake, that faith and repentance were taught and

commanded by the gospel only, and that as they contained all necessary to

salvation, so the law was needless."

On this head also, namely, that all precepts belong to the law, we might likewise

adduce a cloud of witnesses beyond exception, such as Pemble, Essenius, Anth,

Burgess, Rutherford, Owen, Witsius, Dickson, Fergusson, Troughton, Larger

Catechism on the duties required, and sins forbidden in the first commandment.

But, without insisting further, we answer,—

2dly, In the gospel, taken largely for the whole doctrine of Christ and the apostles,

contained in the New Testament, or for a system of all the promises, precepts,

threatenings, doctrines, histories, that any way concern man's recovery and

salvation, in which respect, not only all the ten commandments, but the doctrine

of the covenant of works belong to it, but in this sense, the doctrine is not

contradistinct from the law;—in the gospel, taken thus at large, we say, there are

doubtless many precepts that were not actually given [that is, particularly and

expressly promulgated or required] before the gospel was revealed. Love to our

enemies, to instance in a few of many, mercy to the miserable, bearing of the

cross, hope and joy in tribulations, in prospect of their having a desired issue,

love, thankfulness, prayer, and obedience to a God Redeemer, zealous witnessing

against sin, and for truth, in case of defection from the faith or holiness of the

gospel, confessing our faults to and forgiving one another. All the ceremonial

precepts under the Old Testament together with the institutions of Christ under

the New, faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with many more, to say

nothing of personal and particular precepts, were not actually given before the

gospel was revealed; all which are nevertheless reducible to the law of the ten

commandments, many of them being plain duties of the law of nature, though

they had no due and proper objects, nor occasions of being exercised in an

innocent state. It is true, there are many of them we had never heard of, without

the gospel had been revealed; yet are they not, therefore, in any proper sense,

precepts of the gospel, but of the law, which is exceeding broad, extending to new

objects, occasions, and circumstances. The law says one thing to the person

unmarried, and another thing to the same person when married; one thing to him

as a child, another thing to him as a parent, &c., yet is it the same law still. The

law of God being perfect, and like unto its Author, must reach to every condition

of the creature; but if for every new duty or new object of faith there behoved to

be a new law, how strangely must laws be multiplied! The law itself [even as in

the case of a man] may meet with any changes, and yet remain the same as to its

essence. Now, as to faith and repentance, though ability to exercise them, and

acceptance of them, be by the gospel, yet it is evident they must be regulated by

the same law, the transgression of which made them necessary. The essence of

repentance, it is plain, lies in repeating and renewing, with a suitable frame of

spirit, the duties omitted, or in observing the law one had violated. For as the

divine perfections are the rule and pattern of God's image in man, as well in his

regeneration as in his creation, so the holy law of God is the rule of our

repentance, as well as of our primitive obedience. And why faith, when it has

God Mediator, or God Redeemer, for its object, may not be from the same law as

when it had God Creator, or God Preserver for its objects, we cannot see.

QUERY II.—Is not the believer now bound, by the authority of the Creator, to

personal obedience to the moral law, though not in order to justification?

Ans.—What is given us for the ground of this query, is the following clause of our

representation, viz:—"Since believers are not under it, to be thereby justified or

condemned, we cannot comprehend how it continues any longer a covenant of

works to them, or as such to have a commanding power over them, that covenant

form of it being done away in Christ with respect to believers." This clause of the

representation being so much one, even in words, with our Confession, we could

never have expected the Reverend Commission would have moved a query upon

it; but since they have been pleased to think otherwise, we answer

affirmatively:—

The believer, since he ceases not to be a creature by being made a new creature,

is, and must ever be bound to personal obedience to the law of the ten

commandments, by the authority of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, his Creator.

But his authority is, as to him, issued by and from the Lord Jesus Christ, at

whose mouth he receives the law, being as well his Lord God Creator, as his Lord

God Redeemer, and having all the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in him; nor

can nor will the sinful creature ever apply himself to obedience acceptable to God,

or comfortable to himself, without the Creator's authority come to him in that

channel.

We are clear and full of the same mind with our Confession, that the moral law of

the ten commandments does for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others,

to the obedience thereof, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also

in respect of the authority of God the Creator who gave it, and that Christ does

not in the gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation; for how

can it lose anything of its original authority, by being conveyed to the believer in

such a sweet and blessed channel as the hand of Christ, since both he himself is

the supreme God and Creator, and since the authority, majesty, and sovereignty

of the Father is in his Son, he being the same in substance, equal in power and

glory? "Beware of Him," says the Lord unto Israel, concerning Christ the angel of

the covenant, "and obey his voice, provoke him not: for my name is in him." That

is, as we understand it, my authority, sovereignty, and other adorable

excellencies, yea the whole fullness of the Godhead is in him, and in him only will

I be served and obeyed. And then it follows, "But if thou shalt indeed obey his

voice, and do all that I speak." The name of the Father is so in him; he is so of

the same nature with his Father, that his voice is the Father's voice: "If thou obey

his voice, and do all that I speak."

We desire to think and speak honourably of Him, whose name is "Wonderful,

Counselllor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace."

And it cannot but exceedingly grate our ears, and grieve our spirits, to find such

doctrines or positions vented in this Church, especially at a time when the Arian

heresy is so prevalent in our neighbour nations, as have an obvious tendency to

darken and disparage his divine glory and authority, as that, if a believer ought not

to receive the law of the ten commandments at the hand of God, as he is Creator

out of Christ, then he is not under its obligation, as it was delivered by God the

Creator, but is loosed from all obedience to it, as it was enacted by the authority

of the Lord Creator; and that it is injurious to the infinite majesty of the Sovereign

Lord Creator, and to the honour of his holy law, to restrict the believer to receive

the ten commandments only at the hand of Christ. What can be more injurious to

the infinite majesty of the sovereign Lord Redeemer; by whom all things were

created that are in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be

thrones or dominions, principalities or powers, than to speak as if the Creator's

authority was not in him, or as if the receiving the Creator's law from Christ did

loose men from obedience to it, as enacted by the authority of the Father? Woe

unto us, if this doctrine be the truth, for so should we be brought back to

consuming fire indeed; for, out of Christ, "He that made us will have no mercy

upon us; nor will he that formed us show us any favour." We humbly conceive,

the Father does not reckon himself glorified, but contemned by Christians offering

obedience to him as Creator out of Christ. Nor does the offering to deal with him

after this sort, or to teach others so, discover a due regard to the mystery of

Christ revealed in the gospel; for it is the will of the Father, the Sovereign Lord

Creator, that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour himself; and

that at, or in the name of Jesus every knee should bow; and that every tongue

should confess Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, who having in

these last days spoken unto us by his Son, by whom also he made the worlds,

and with an audible voice from heaven has said, "This is my beloved Son in

whom I am well pleased hear ye him." Were it not we would be thought tedious,

Perkins, Durham, Owen, and others, might have been heard on this head. But we

proceed to—

QUERY III.—Doth the annexing of a promise of life, and a threatening of

death to a precept, make it a covenant of works?

We answer, as in our representation, That the promise of life, and threatening of

death, superadded to the law of the Creator, made it a covenant of works to our

first parents, proposed; and their own consent, which sinless creatures could not

refuse, made it a covenant of works accepted. "A law," say the judicious

Durham, "doth necessarily imply no more than, first, to direct; secondly, to

command, enforcing that obedience by authority. A covenant doth further

necessarily imply promises made upon some conditions, or threatenings added if

such a condition be not performed. Now, says he, this law may be considered

without the consideration of a covenant; for it was free to God to have added or

not to have added promises; and the threatenings, upon supposition the law had

been kept, might never have taken effect." From whence it is plain, in the

judgment of this great divine, the law of nature was turned into a covenant by the

addition of a promise of life and threatening of death. Of the same mind is

Burgess and the London ministers, Vindicie Legis, page 61. "There are only two

things which go to the essence of a law, and that is—1st, direction; 2d, obligation.

First, direction: therefore a law is a rule: hence the law of God is compared to

light. Second, obligation; for therein lieth the essence of sin that it breaketh this

law, which supposes the obligatory force of it. In the next place, there are two

consequents of the law, which are ad bene esse, that the law may be the better

obeyed; and this indeed turneth the law into a covenant. First the sanction of it by

way of promise; that is a mere free thing: God, by reason of that dominion which

he had over man, might have commanded his obedience, and yet never made a

promise of eternal life unto him. And, secondly, as for the other consequent act of

the law, to curse and punish, this is but an accidental act, not necessary to a law,

for it comes in upon supposition of transgression. A law is a complete law,

obliging, though it do not actually curse; as in the confirmed angels it never laid

any more than obligatory and mandatory acts upon them; for that they were

under a law is plain, because otherwise they could not have sinned, for where

there is no law, there is no transgression."

Though there is no ground from our representation to add more on this head, yet

we may say, that a promise of life made to a precept of doing,—that is, in

consideration or upon condition of one's doing, be the doing more or less, it is all

one, the divine will in the precept being the rule in this case, is a covenant of

works. And as to believers in Christ, though in the gospel, largely taken, we own

there are promises of life, and threatenings of death, as well as precepts; and that

godliness hath the promise, not only of this life, but of that which is to come,

annexed to it, in the order of the covenant: yet we are clear no promise of life is

made to the performance of precepts, nor eternal death threatened in case of their

failings whatsoever in performing, else should their title to life be founded not

entirely on Christ and his righteousness imputed to them, but on something in or

done by themselves; and their after sins should again actually bring them under

vindictive wrath and the curse of the law; which, upon their union with Christ

who was made a curse for them, to redeem them from under it, they are,

according to Scripture and our Confession, for ever delivered from. Hence we

know of no sanction the law, standing in the covenant of grace hath with respect

to believers besides gracious rewards, all of them freely promised on Christ's

account for their encouragement in obedience, and fatherly chastisement and

displeasure, in case of their not walking in his commandments; which to a believer

are no less awful and much more powerful restraints from sin than the prospect

of the curse and hell itself would be. The Reverend Commission will not, we

hope, grudge to hear that eminent divine, Mr. Perkins, in a few words, on this

head, who having put the objection, "In the gospel there are promises of life upon

condition of our obedience, as Romans 8:13, 'If ye through the Spirit,'" &c.;

answers, "The promises of the gospel are not made to the work, but to the

worker; and to the worker, not for his work, but for Christ's sake according to his

work: e.g., The promise of life is not made to the work of mortification, but to

him that mortifies his flesh; and that not for his mortification, but because he is in

Christ, and his mortification is the token and evidence thereof." This, as it is the

Old Protestant doctrine, so we take it to be the truth. And as to the believer's total

and final freedom from the curse of the law upon his union with Christ,

Protestant divines, particularly Rutherford and Owen, throughout their writings,

are full and clear on this head.

QUERY IV.—If the moral law, antecedent to its receiving the form of a

covenant of works, had a threatening of hell annexed?

Ans.—Since the law of God never was, nor will ever in this world be the stated

rule, either of man's duty towards God, or of God's dealing with man, but as it

stands in one of the two covenants of works and grace, we are at a loss to

discover the real usefulness of this query, as well as what foundation it has in our

representation.

As to the intrinsical demerit of sin, we are clear, whether there had ever been any

covenant of works or not, it deserves hell, even all that an infinitely holy and just

God ever has or shall inflict for it; yet what behoved to have been the Creator's

disposal of the creature, in the supposed event of sin's entering, without a

covenant being made, we incline not here to dip into; but we reckon it is not

possible to prove a threatening of hell to be inseparable from the law of creation,

the obligation of which, because resulting from the nature of God, and of the

creature, is eternal and immutable: for confirmed angels, glorified saints, yea, and

the human nature of Christ, are all of them naturally, necessarily, and eternally

obliged to love, obey, depend on, and submit unto God, and to make him their