Vindiciae Legis

Anthony Burgess — from the Text Creation Partnership’s transcription of the 1647 second edition, keyed by hand from the page images.

Vindiciae Legis, or A Vindication of the Morall Law and the Covenants is twenty-nine lectures given at Lawrence-Jury in 1646, against the Antinomians of the day — and behind them the Papists, Arminians and Socinians. Burgess takes the law through every state it has stood in: the law of nature written on the heart, the law given to Adam and the covenant of works, the moral law promulgated by Moses, Christ’s exposition of it in the Sermon on the Mount, and the difference between the law and the gospel. It is the fullest Westminster-era defence of the third use of the law.

Spelling and punctuation are as printed in 1647. A few words the transcribers could not read, and the Greek and Hebrew their transcription does not carry, are marked […].

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Contents (32)

1. The Dedication to the Lady Ruth Scudamore
2. To the Reader
3. The Law Is Good, If a Man Use It Lawfully
4. The Position and the Supposition Opened
5. The Antinomian’s Corrupt Inferences from Justification
6. Upon What Grounds the People of God Are to Obey the Law
7. Whether the Law Is Made for a Righteous Man
8. The Whole Theology of the Law of Nature
9. The Law of Nature Written in the Hearts of the Gentiles
10. The Knowledge and Light of the Law of Nature
11. The Ability and Power of Nature, against Pelagians and Papists
12. Objections Answered Concerning the Power of Nature
13. The Law God Gave Adam, Considered as a Law
14. The Moral Law Implanted in Adam
15. The Law Given to Adam, Considered as a Covenant
16. The Close of the Discourse on Adam’s Law and Covenant
17. The Moral Law Given by Moses
18. The Historical Passages in the Promulgation of the Moral Law
19. The Ministry of Angels in the Promulgation of the Law
20. Questions Concerning the Dignity of the Moral Law
21. The Law as a Rule, and Christ’s Exposition of It
22. Against the Papists, Anabaptists and Socinians on the Law
23. Two Questions on Christ’s Interpretation of the Law of Moses
24. The Abrogating of the Moral Law
25. That Christ and Grace Do Not Destroy the Law
26. The Perpetual Obligation of the Moral Law
27. The Law Considered as a Covenant
28. The Law of Works and the Law of Faith
29. The True Difference between the Law and the Gospel
30. Whether the Gospel Preaches Repentance
31. Christ the End of the Law for Righteousness
32. Christ Came Not to Destroy the Law, but to Fulfil It