Christusregnat
Puritan Board Professor
Anthony Burgess was on the Westminster Assembly's committee that drafted the chapter on the Law of God. The Fellows and President of Sion College requested Burgess to put these lectures into print. As such, they give a good window into the Confession's points on the law as delivered by Moses. The following quotations are from Anthony Burgess' Vindiciae Legis:
This book is available as a free PDF through the Westminster Assembly Project.
p. 217.some parts of the law may be abolished, and yet not the whole nature of it. For there is in the law these parts: First, the commands; second, the promises of life to him that does them; and thirdly, the treatenings of eternal wrath to him that fails in the least. Now the moral law, though it be abrogated in respect of the two latter to a believer, yet in respect of the former it still abides. Yea, and will continue in heaven itself. And we have already proved against the Antinomians that one part of the law may abide when the other does not.
p. 225.What? Does the Apostle use contradictions in the same chapter? Press them to obey the law, and yet reprove them for desiring to be under it? No, certainly, but when they would seek justification by the law, then he reproves them. And when, on the other side, they would refuse obedience to the law, then he admonishes them to the contrary. As for their distinguishing between the matter of the law and the law, we have already proved it to be a contradiction.
p. 237.The law (as to this purpose) may be considered more largely, as that whole doctrine delivered on Mount Sinai, with the preface and promises adjoined, and all things that may be reduced to it. Or more strictly, as it is an abstracted rule of righteousness, holding forth life upon no terms, but perfect obedience. Now take it in the former sense, it was a covenant of grace; take it in the latter sense, as abstracted from Moses his administration of it, and so it was not of grace, but works.
p. 238.The first [proof] shall be taken from the relation of the covenanters; God on one part, and the Israelites on the other. God did not deal at this time as absolutely considered, but as their God and Father. Hence God says, 'he is their God,' and when Christ quotes the commandments, he brings the preface, “Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is one.' And in Romans 9:4, 'To the Israelites beong adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the promises.' Now unless this were a covenant of grace, how could God be their God, who were sinners?
p. 238.If we consider the good things annexed unto this covenant, it must needs be a covenant of grace. For there we have remission and pardon of sin, whereas in the covenant of works, there is no way for repentance or pardon. In the Second Commandment, God is described to be 'one show mercy unto thousands,' and by 'showing mercy,' is meant pardon, as appears by the contrary, 'visiting iniquity.' Now does the law, taken strictly, receive any humbling and debasing of themselves? No, but curses every one that does not continue in all things commanded, and that with a full and perfect obedience.
p. 241.many of these places [that are derogatory of the law] are true in a respective sense, according to the interpretation of the Jew, who taking these without Christ, making if a killing letter, even as if we should the doctrine of the gospel, without the grace of Christ.
p. 241.And, certainly, if any Jew had stood up and said to Moses, Why do you say you give us the doctrine of life; it's nothing but a killing letter, and ministry of death? would he not have been judged a blasphemer against the law of Moses? The Apostle therefore must understand it as separated, yea, and opposed to Christ and his grace.
p. 243-4.take notice of two things as a foundation: first, that the law and the gospel may be compared one with another, either in respect of the grace of God gave under the Old Testament and the New, and then they differ only gradually; for they under the law did enjoy grace and the Spirit of God (though Socinians deny it) although indeed in respect of the gospel, it may comparatively be said, no spirit and no grace; as when it is said, 'The Holy Ghost was not yet given,' because it was not so plentifully given. Or, secondly, the doctrine of the law in the mere preceptive nature of it, may be compared with the doctrine of the gospel, having the grace of God annexed unto it and going along with it. Now this is in some respects an unequal comparison; for if you take the doctrine or letter of the gospel without the grace of God, that letter may be said to kill as well as the letter of the law. Only this is the reason why we cannot say, The Spirit of God, or grace, or life is by the law, because whatsoever spiritual good was vouchsafed to the Jews, it is not of the law, but of the grace of God, or the gospel. Therefore, whensoever we compare law and gospel together, we must be sure to make the parallel equal, and to take them so oppositely that we may not give the one more advantage or less than the nature of it craves or desires.
p. 255.It is true, the Lutheran divines do expressly oppose the Calvinists herein, maintaining the covenant given by Moses to be a covenant of works, and so directly contrary to the covenant of grace. Indeed, they acknowledge that the fathers were justified by Christ, and had the same way of salvation with us; only they make that covenant of Moses to be a superadded thing to the promise, holding for a condition of perfect righteousness unto the Jews, that they might be convinced of their own folly in their self-righteousness.
This book is available as a free PDF through the Westminster Assembly Project.
