and whether circumcifion was the feal of the covenant of grace; and whether baprifm is come in its room, and is the feal of it. Now as to the

I. First of thefe, of what kind was the covenant with Abraham, Genefis xvii? I have afferted, that it was not the pure covenant of grace, but of a mixed kind; confifting partly of promifes of temporal things, and partly of spiritual ones; and you will easily observe, Sir, that the exceptions of this writer to the arguments I make ufe of in proof of it, are for the most part founded on his miftaken notions of the conditionality of the covenant of grace, and on that stupid and fenfelefs diftinction of the inward and outward covenant, before exploded; wherefore fince thele are groundless conceits and fandy foundations, what is built upon them must neceffarily fall.

II. The fame may be obferved with refpect to that part of the queftion, which relates to the covenant being made with all Abraham's feed according to the flesh, as a covenant of grace; by the help of which unfcriptural and irrational diftinction, he can find a place in the covenant of grace for a perfecuting Ifmael, a profane Efau, and all the wicked Jews in all ages, in all times of defection and apostacy; but if he can find no better covenant to put the infants of believers into, nor better company to place them with, who notwithstanding their covenant-intereft, may be loft and damned, it will be a very infignificant thing with confiderate perfons, whether they are in this Utopian covenant or no. III. As to that part of the question which relates to the natural feed of believing Gentiles being in Abraham's covenant, or to that being made with them as a covenant of grace, it is by me denied. This writer fays, I add a stroke, as he calls it, that at once cuts off all Abraham's natural feed, and all the natural feed of believing Gentiles, from having any fhare in the covenant; fince I fay, "That to none can fpiritual bleffings belong, but to a fpiritual feed, not a "natural one." But he might have obferved, that this is explained in the fame page thus, "not to the natural feed of either of them as fuch." He fays, "it is not requifite to a perfon's vifible title and claim to the external privileges "of the covenant, that he should be truly regenerate, or a fincere believer;" and yet he elsewhere fays, "that to repent and believe must be the finner's "own voluntary chofen acts, before he can have any actual faving intereft in "the privileges of the covenant:" let him reconcile thefe together. He has not proved, nor is he able to prove, that the natural feed of believing Gentiles, as fuch, are the spiritual feed of Abraham; fince only they that are Christ's, or believers in him, or who walk in the fteps of the faith of Abraham, are his fpiritual feed; which cannot be faid of all the natural feed of believing Gentiles, or of any of them as fuch. That claufe in Abraham's covenant, Afather

of

of many nations have I made thee", is to be understood only of the faithful, or of believers in all nations; and not of all nations that bear the chriftian name, as comprehending all in them, grown perfons and infants, good and bad men; and only to fuch who are of the faith of Abraham does the apostle apply it'; the stranger, and his male feed, that submitted to circumcifion, may indeed be faid to be in the covenant of circumcifion; but it does not follow, that these were in the covenant of grace; there were many of Abraham's own natural feed that were in the covenant of circumcifion, who were not in the covenant of grace; and it would be very much, that the natural feed of strangers, and even of believing Gentiles, fhould have a fuperior privilege to the natural feed of Abrabam. Thofe, and those only, in a judgment of charity, are to be reckoned the fpiritual feed, who openly believe in Chrift, as I have expreffed it; about which phrase this man makes a great pother, when the sense is plain and easy; and that it defigns fuch who make a visible profeffion of their faith, and are judged to be partakers of the grace of the covenant; which certainly is the best evidence of their interest in it; and therefore it must be best to wait till this appears, before any claim of privilege can be made; and is no other than what this writer himself fays in the words before referred to. Though, after all, I ftand by my former affertion, that covenant-intereft, even when made out clear and plain, gives not right to any ordinance without a pofitive order or direction from God; and he may call it a conceit of mine if he pleases; he is right in it, that according to it, no perfon living is capable of (that is, has a right unto) the ordinances and visible privileges of the church upon any grounds of covenant-interest, without a positive direction from God for it; as there was for circumcifion, fo there fhould be for baptifm; as, with refpect to the former, many who were in the covenant of grace had no concern with it, having no direction from the Lord about it; fo though perfons may be in the covenant of grace, yet if they are not pointed out by the Lord, as those whom he wills to be the fubjects of it, they have no right unto it. To fay, that Lot and others were under a former adminiftration of the covenant, on whom circumcifion was not enjoined, is faying nothing; unless he can tell us what that former adminiftration of it was, and wherein it differed from the adminiftration of it to Abraham and his feed; to inftance in circumcifion, would be begging the question, fince that is the thing inftanced in; by which it appears that covenant-intereft gives no right to an ordinance, without a special direction; and the fame holds good of baptifin. His fenfe of Mark xvi. 16. is, that infants are included in the profeffion of their believing parents, and why not in their baptifm too? and fo there is no neceffity of their baptifm; the text countenances one as much as it does the other, and both are equally ftupid and fenfeless.

3 K 2

Gen. xvii. 4, 5.

i Rom. iv. 16.

IV. The

IV. The next inquiry is, whether circumcifion was the feal of the covenant of grace to Abraham's natural feed. It is called a token or sign, but not a feal; this writer fays, though a token, fimply confidered, does not neceffarily imply a feal, yet the token of a covenant, or promife, can be nothing else: if it can be nothing elfe, it does neceffarily imply it; unless there is any real difference between a token fimply confidered, and the token of a covenant, which he would do well to fhew. Circumcifion was nothing else but a fign or mark in the flesh, appointed by the covenant; and therefore that is called the covenant in their flesh; and not because circumcifion was any confirming token or seal of the covenant to any of Abraham's natural feed: it was a fign and feal of the righteoufnefs of faith to Abraham; that that righteoufnefs which he had by faith before his circumcifion, fhould come upon the uncircumcifed Gentiles; but was no feal of that, nor any thing else, to any others: and according to our author's notion of it, it was neither a feal of Abraham's faith, nor of his righteousness; then furely not of any others; and yet in contradiction to this, he fays, it is" a feal of the covenant of grace, wherein this privilege of justi"fication by faith is confirmed and conveyed to believers;" and if to believers, then furely not to all Abraham's natural feed, unless he can think they were all believers; though his real notion, if I understand him right, is, that it is no confirming fign, or feal of any fpiritual bleffings to any; fince the fubjects of it, as he owns, may have neither faith nor righteousness; but of the truth of the covenant itself, that God has made one; but this needs no fuch fign or feal; the word of God is fufficient, which declares it and affures of it.

V. The next thing that comes under confideration, is, whether baptism fucceeds circumcifion; and is the feal of the covenant of grace to believers, and their natural feed. 1. This author endeavours to prove that baptifm fucceeds circumcifion from Coloffians ii. 11. but in vain; for the apostle is speaking not of corporal, but of fpiritual circumcifion, of which the former was a typical refemblance; and fo fhewing, that believing Gentiles have that through Chrift which was fignified by it; and which the apoftle describes, by the manner of its being effected, without hands, without the power of man, by the efficacy of divine grace; and by the substance and matter of it, which lay in the putting off the body of the fins of the flesh; and without a tautology, as this writer fuggefts, by the author of it, Chrift, who by his Spirit effects it, and therefore is called the circumcifion of Chrift; and is diftinguished from baptifm, defcribed in the next verfe: and as weak and infignificant is his proof from the analogy between baptifm and circumcifion; fome things faid of baptifm and circumcision are not true; as that they are facraments of admiffion into the church: Not fo

was

was circumcifion; not of the Gentiles, who had it not, nor were admitted by it, and yet were in the church; nor even of the males, for they were not circumcifed till eight days old, yet were of the Jewish church, which was national, as foon as born; and perfons may be baptized, and yet not be entered into any visible church: Nor are they badges of relation to the God of Ifrael; fince on the one hand, persons might have one or the other, yet have no spiritual relation to God; and on the other hand, be without either, and yetbe related to him nor are either of them feals and figns of the covenant of grace, as before fhewn nor is baptifm abfolutely requifite to a person's approach to God with confidence and acceptance in any religious duty, private or public. Baptifm ferves not to the fame ufe and purpose in many things that circumcifion did; it is not the middle wall of partition; nor does it bind men to keep the whole law, as circumcifion; and though there may be fome feeming agreement, arguments from analogy are weak and dangerous: fo from the priest's offering a propitiatory facrifice, wearing the linen ephod, and one high priest being above all other priests, the Papifts argue for a minister's offering a real propitiatory facrifice, for wearing the furplice, and for a Pope, or univerfal Bishop; and others from the fame topic argue for tithes being due to minifters, and for the inequality of bifhops and prefbyters, there being an high priest and inferior ones and to this tends our author's third argument, that either baptifm fucceeds circumcifion, or there is nothing at all inftituted in its room; nor is there any neceffity that there fhould, any more than that there fhould be a Pope in the room of an high priest, or any thing to answer to Eafter, Pentecoft, &c. all which, as circumcifion, had their end in Chrift: nor does the Lord's-fupper come in the room of the passover; what answers to that is, Chrift the passover Jacrificed for us; and did it, by this argument from analogly, infants ought to be admitted to the Lord's-fupper, as they were to the pafsover: by this way of arguing, and at this door, may be brought in all the Jewish rites and ceremonies, under other names: and after all, what little agreement may be imagined is between them, the difference is notorious in many things; fome of which this author is obliged to own; as in the subjects of them, the one being only males, the other males and females; the one being by blood, the other by water; and besides they differ as to the perfons by whom, and the places where, and the ufes for which, they are performed; wherefore from analogy and refemblance is no proof of fucceflion, but the contrary.

My argument from baptifm being in force before circumcifion, to prove that the one did not fucceed the other, is fo far from being allowed by our author a proof of it, that he will not allow it to be a bare probability, unless I could prove they had been all along cotemporary: but if I cannot do it, he and his

brethren

brethren can, who give credit to the Jewish custom of baptizing their profelytes and children; and which they make to be a practice, for which the Jews fetch proof as early as the times of Jacob; and I hope, if he will abide by this, he will allow that baptifm could not come in the room of circumcision.

2. He next attempts to prove that baptism is a seal of the covenant of grace to believers and their feed, by a wretched perverfion of feveral paffages of fcripture, in which no mention is made of the covenant of grace, and much less of baptifin as a feal of it; and which only speak of believers, and not a fyllable of their infants; and all of them clear proofs, that believers, and they only, are the proper subjects of baptism; as may easily be obferved by the bare reading of them.

3. My fentiment of the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's fupper not being feals of the covenant of grace, he thinks, is borrowed from the Socinians. Thefe have no better notion of the covenant of grace than himself, nor of the efficacy of the blood of Chrift for the ratification of it, nor of the fealing work of the fpirit of God upon the hearts of his people. My fentiment is borrowed from the scriptures, and is established by them; the blood of Christ confirms and ratifies the covenant, the bleffings and promifes of it, and is therefore called the blood of the everlasting covenant; the bleffed fpirit is the fealer of believers interest in it, or assures them of it. So that there are not two feals of the covenant of grace, as he wrongly obferves. The blood of Chrift makes the covenant itself sure, and is in this sense the seal of that; the spirit of God is the feal of interest in it to particular perfons; and in neither fenfe do or can ordinances feal.

4. Upon the whole, what has this author been doing throughout this chapter? has he proved that the natural feed of believers, as fuch, are in the covenant of grace? he has not. The covenant he attempts to prove they are in, according to his own account of it, is no covenant of grace. Does it fecure any one fpiritual bleffing to the carnal feed of believers? it does not. Does it fecure regenerating, renewing, fanctifying grace, or pardoning grace, or juftifying grace, or adopting grace, or eternal life? it does not. And if fo, I leave it to be judged of by fuch that have any knowledge of the covenant, if fuch a covenant can be called the covenant of grace; or what fpiritual faving advantage is to be had from an intereft in fuch a covenant, could it be proved.

He would have his readers believe, that the covenant, he pleads infants have an intereft in, is the fame under all difpenfations, and in all ages: the covenant of grace is indeed the fame, but the covenant he puts the infant-feed of believers into, is only an external administration; and this, he himself being judge, can

* See John iii. 33. Mark xvi, 16. Matt, xxviii, 19. 1 Peter ii, 21. 1 Cor. xii. 13. 1 Heb. xiii. 20. Ephes. i. 13.

not