It is said,
* 1.18 The principal thing intended is, that the Moral Law is not the only Rule, what shall be the condition of Life or Death, and therefore not the only Rule according to which we must now be denomi∣nated, and hereafter sentenced, Just or Vnjust. To this I have already given a sufficient answer, and if I had not, our Authour answers fully for me, where he says, The precepts of the Covenant, as meer precepts, must be distinguished from the same precepts considered as conditions, upon performance of which we must live, or die for non-per∣formance? And I speak of them as meer precepts, and so they are our Rule of righteousness, & not as they are conditions either of the covenant of works or grace. And a man may be denominated righ∣teous, by the Laws Rule, when he cannot stand before the sentence of it as a covenant, of which we have heard sufficient. After a long discourse against all possibility of justification by the Law of works, as though I were therein an adversary; or that the Anti∣nomian fancy were above all answer; that a man cannot make the Law his Rule, but he makes it withal his Justification, he goes about to prevent an objection, and says, If you should say, this is the cove∣nant and not the Law, he will reply. 1. Then the Law is not the on∣ly Rule. To which I say, When my work is to make it good, that the Law is our only Rule, I marvel that he will so much as imagine, that I will say that which makes it not the only Rule. But perhaps, he thinks I do not see, how it cannot follow, as in∣deed I do not, neither can I see any colour for it. 2. He replies, It
is the same thing in several respects, that we call a Law and a Covenant (except you mean it of our covenant-act to God, of which we speak not) who knows not that praemiare, and punire are Acts of a Law? And that an Act of Oblivion or general pardon on certaine termes is a Law, and that the promise is the principal part of the Law of Grace. To which I say, that praemiare and punire are essential in a Law. Some have power of command, so that their words in just things is to be a Law, where most deny any power of punish∣ment; as an Husband over the Wife. Some parents have Autho∣rity to command children, (children remaining under the obliga∣tion of the fifth commandment as long as the relation of a childe continueth) when they have neither power to reward or punish. Jacob took himself to be in power, to command Joseph (among the rest of his Sons, as appears in the charge concerning his burial, Gen. 47. 29, 30. and chap. 49. 29. So compared) and yet he was not in power either to reward or punish him. And though they be acts of a law where he that gives the Law is in power; Yet they are no parts of a Rule, nor any directory of life to him to whom they are proposed. I know that an Act of Oblivion or general par∣don may be called a Law, as many other things are, catachresticè and abusivè; but that it should be a Law properly so called, I know not. The Romanes defined a Law, whilest that a Democratie was in force among them, to be Generale jussum populi, aut plebis rogante magistratu. Afterwards when the State was changed, and the Legislative power was in other hands, they defined it to be, Jussum Regis aut Imperatoris. And Tully's definition of a Law is, that it is, Ratio summa insita in natura, quae recta suadet, pro∣hibetque contraria. Here jussio, suasio, and prohibitio are express'd, which are not found in Acts of Oblivion. That every man, who is within the verge of such an Act, may be said to be acquit by Law, I willingly grant; seeing that act takes off the force of the Law condemning him: But that it is a Law, strictly so taken, I know not.
