Chapter 14: Considerations of the Arguments for Infant Baptism

If God be the God of Abraham and of his seed (Genesis 17), therefore every male child shall be entered in the Covenant, by the initial seal of Circumcision, and so women also who eat the Passover, which the uncircumcised might not do: and Peter was sent to the Circumcision, that is, to all the Jews men and women, and so the women is some way in the men, and they might be circumcised in them upon the same ground, because the same promise is made to fathers and to children, must infants be baptized (Acts 2:39). 1. This is the Lord's own argument (Genesis 17:7); there were multitudes of differences between Circumcision and Baptism as we grant, but in the substance nature and Theological essence, and in the formal effects they are the same. We grant that Christ revealed in types, sacrifices, to come, darkly offered may differ from Christ as clearly offered, preached without these already abolished shadows, and who is now come. Yet he is the same Saviour to them who believed in him then and now (Acts 10:43; Acts 15:11). And we 2. argue not simply from the letter of the Covenant: 'I am your God, therefore be baptized,' for one might reply, 'I am your God, therefore offer such beasts to me,' it shall not follow. But 'I am your God, and the God of your seed, offering to you the same Christ and righteousness that was offered to Abraham in the same Covenant: therefore, all of you be baptized who are under the same Covenant.' For,

1. Circumcision of the flesh was a seal of the Circumcision of the heart promised in the Covenant of Grace (Deuteronomy 30:6), and of the cutting of the foreskin thereof (Jeremiah 4:4; Jeremiah 9:26; Ezekiel 36:26-27), and baptism is the same (Colossians 2:11-12; Titus 3:5).

2. Circumcision is a seal of the righteousness of faith (Romans 4:11); so is baptism, as (1 Peter 3:21; Romans 4:24).

3. Circumcision is a seal of the Covenant, and by a metonymy called the Covenant of God in the flesh (Genesis 17:7, 13); so is baptism a solemn installing of all Samaria (Acts 8) in the Christian Covenant, and so (Acts 2:39).

4. Circumcision is a solemn way of instituting any in the Church of Israel; so we are by one Spirit baptized into one body (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).

1. The command of circumcising is as large as covenanting, but that is with Abraham the father, and his seed (Acts 2:39); make the command of being baptized, ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩ — every one of you be baptized — as large as the promise of the Christian Covenant, and call: For the promise is to you and to your children, and to as many as the Lord shall call.

2. The command supposes that all the circumcised, the males of eight days old, understand not the promise of the Covenant, the nature, use, signification, and end of the seal; and the command to be baptized supposes that the children to whom the Covenant promise is made do not understand the same as touching baptism and the Covenant promise (Acts 2:39).

3. If the positive command be general that all these in Covenant should be marked with the initiatory seal of the Covenant — as (Genesis 17:7-8), 'I am your God, and the God of your seed, therefore old and young be circumcised' — then there was no other command in particular, to baptize old or young, but the institution of baptism in place of Circumcision needful. As touching the application of it to persons, old or young, except the ground of external covenanting stand as warranting to administer the seal to all, so covenanted; yes, and if there be a positive command and warrant in the New Testament to tender the seal of Baptism to none but to the aged, that can give an account of their faith, and do actually believe; then should there be an express command in the New Testament concerning Baptism as concerning the Lord's Supper — that every one before they be baptized, try and examine themselves whether they savingly believe or not, before they be baptized, otherwise they receive their own damnation, as in the Lord's Supper, for self judging and self-examination. If actual believing and being internally in Covenant, as these in whose heart and inward part the law of grace must be engraved, be the necessary condition required in all these to whom the Church can warrantably tender Baptism as the seal of the Covenant: and we require a positive command in the New Testament, 'see that you baptize none though they profess they be in Covenant, except such as can try and examine whether they savingly believe or not.' And here Anabaptists must flee to the consequences of the word and reasons drawn from the Covenant of Grace, as well as we, and an express command they cannot flee to, nor is it in Old or New Testament. It should not move us, that infants understand neither command nor seal, nor Covenant, for the argument is against the Holy Ghost, and they are obliged to answer it; for infants are as ignorant of the promises and the special mysteries of the Gospel, as of precepts of the Gospel. And yet the promises of the Covenant of Grace are expressly to infants of the New Testament (Acts 2:39), promise ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩; the Gospel promise made to Abraham (Galatians 3:16); the Gospel and promise of righteousness of the Spirit of Life (Galatians 3:17-18, 22, 29; Galatians 6:2; Romans 4:13, 16, 20; Romans 9:8; 1 Timothy 4:8; Hebrews 4:1; Hebrews 6:12, 15; Hebrews 8:6; Hebrews 9:14; 1 John 5:1) is made ⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩ to your children of the New Testament, to your infants, if they believe (say they). 1. Can infants actually believe? 2. Is not the promise so made to Turks, if they believe?

But it were an easier way to Anabaptists to say, infants under the New Testament are externally in Covenant, where parents believe, and members of the Church are followed with Covenant mercy, only because they understand not, and the administration is more spiritual under the New Testament, and faith more urged. God requires not the dipping of infants in rivers — a ceremony more onerous, more, truly, in women with child, virgins, diseased persons, in winter, in cold countries, against the word, the second commandment, the third, the fourth, the sixth, the seventh, than that it needs to be refuted — it being only a ceremony which they may well want. But now infants of believers are cast out, for no fault, of the Covenant of Grace.

(2.) From Covenant mercy to the thousand generation — contrary to (Genesis 17:7; Exodus 20:5).

(3.) From Covenant prayers and church prayers — contrary to (1 Samuel 12; Psalm 28:9; Psalm 67:1-2; Psalm 103:4-5).

(4.) From the blessing of the Lord's Covenant-presence, who dwells in the Nation, in the Kingdom (Psalm 135:21, Psalm 132:13-14, Revelation 11:15, Isaiah 19:25, Isaiah 2:1-3, 2 Corinthians 6:16): I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and be their God, and they shall be my people. 18. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord God Almighty. Though this be spoken to all the covenanted people of God, yet are infants cast out of the bosom of a Covenant Father and God?

(5.) Infants are debarred from Covenant-calling and gathering in under the wings of Christ: contrary to Matthew 28:19-20, Matthew 23:37, Psalm 147:19-20, and excluded from God's Covenant-choice: contrary to Deuteronomy 7:6-9, 13-14, Deuteronomy 10:15, and left being heirs of wrath, a prey to Satan.

(6.) They are excommunicated from Covenant-blessings earthly, and the Tabernacle-protection promised in the Old and New Testament: contrary to Deuteronomy 28:4, Leviticus 26:6-9, Psalm 37:18, 22, 25-26, Psalm 92:10, Psalm 112:1-3, Ezekiel 34:24-26, Ezekiel 36:29, 35-37, Ezekiel 8:7-8. And in the New Testament, Matthew 6:27-28, 33, 1 Timothy 4:8, Hebrews 13:5-6, which were nothing if our Heavenly Father provides bread, protection, safety, dwelling in the land, and our houses, to the fathers, but the children had no charter but to beggary, to the sword, to be devoured by wild beasts and the diseases of Egypt. And the infants have nothing from the Covenant but what infants of Amalek, and Babylon (1 Samuel 15:1-2, Psalm 137:5), and of Sodom have (Genesis 19).

(7.) They are members of Satan, of the kingdom of the Prince of darkness, not members of Christ's body, since there be but two kings, two Gods — Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:1-2, Ephesians 6:12, Matthew 12:29) and Christ the King and Head of his body. And it is known that infants within the Visible Church suffer incursions of devils, dreadful diseases, death; and being without the Covenant, as pagans, these evils must either be acts of revenging justice, and preparatory to the judgment of eternal fire, or blessed in Christ. But if the former, they are damned; if the latter, what blessing is there without Christ?

(8.) Being without the Covenant. 1. Infants cannot be chosen and predestinate in Christ to salvation (as Ephesians 1:4, Romans 9:11), nor given to Christ to be saved Covenant-ways (as John 17:2, John 6:39), nor loved from eternity, nor in time, as Arminians teach, and so must be carried in Christ to Heaven or Hell, or rather to a mid place, without God or providence, or decrees, or foreknowledge, or counsel of God. 2. They being without the Gospel-Covenant, cannot be redeemed by Jesus Christ his blood, but some other way: contrary to Acts 4:12. 3. If infants be born without sin, as Anabaptists teach, they die, and go either to Heaven — and so Christ took not on him their nature, and is not their Savior — or they go to everlasting torment, and yet never sinned, which is repugnant to Divine Justice; or to some third place of which the Scripture speaks not. And yet the word says (Revelation 20:12) that the dead small and great shall stand before God, and shall be judged. And the Scripture says infants are capable of punishment, and of being cut off, and the parents punished in them, and they bear Covenant-wrath in their parents: as is clear in the seed of Jeroboam, of Ahab, of others (Exodus 20:5, Genesis 17:14). 4. Neither remission of sins, justification, nor life eternal, nor sonship, nor adoption in Christ's suffering death, and in the blood of the everlasting Covenant, can belong to infants if they be without the Covenant.

9. Nor can children be capable of being blessed of Christ, or of his laying on of hands, as Mark 10, if they be not under the New Testament capable of Covenant-grace. And it is to be noted that covenanting parents (Luke 18):

1. Such as came to him to be cured of their diseases, and believed him to be the Messiah, the Son of David, as the blind call him (Matthew 20), and the woman of Canaan (Matthew 15, Luke 18:15), [illegible] brought to him little children, as Matthew 8:16, Matthew 9:2, Luke 4:40 — they brought the sick.

2. The children were not diseased, nor possessed; and the parents being desirous they might be blessed, as the event proved, it is clear they were not children of heathen, but members of the Visible Church.

3. [Illegible] "Of such is the Kingdom of God" (Luke 18:16) — we cannot think that his meaning is, of such as such is the Kingdom of God, as if all infants of Jew and Heathen belonged as subjects to the Visible Church, for then the infants of all Heathen should be covenanted members of the Visible Church, and yet their parents are without the Visible Church, and when they grow to age, they should without any scandal be excommunicated, which were monstrous. Nor can the invisible kingdom of God be of such, as if all infants, because infants, were saved. Nor,

4. Can the taking of them be a mere emblem that such were blessed, for so — beside that doves and lambs, for meekness, are capable of being taken in the arms of Christ and blessed — Christ bids them, in all times coming, be suffered to come, and not forbidden (v. 16), which says he desired the whole species of infants of the Visible Church to be brought to him. Nor does Christ make acts of emblems ordinary, but he will have children at all times to come to him: forbid them not. He once cursed the fig tree — that was an emblem — and did but once wash his disciples' feet, and that was an emblem. And,

5. He could not mean that only infants predestinate to glory should be suffered to come, for he says indifferently [illegible] "suffer little children to come." Now he should then have given marks to discern predestinate children and suffer them. (2.) And receive them only as disciples, in my name (Mark 6:36-37). (3.) He should have laid his hands upon some infants, as predestinate to glory, and forbidden others to come. And the parents should have known what children are predestinate to life, and should come, and what not.

6. The text evidences that the disciples had a prejudice — and a carnal one — at infants, thinking they understood nothing of Christ and of the kingdom of grace. The disciples [illegible] rebuked these that brought them, as Anabaptists do. And Christ rebukes them and instates infants of believing parents as members of the Visible Church.

7. Nor was it extraordinary when Christ said "suffer little children to come," but he would have the species instated members of such a kingdom. Therefore, some of the kind must be saved and examples must be verified (says Mr. Cobbet judiciously) in some particulars.

8. Of such is the Kingdom of God, of such in covenant relation is the Kingdom of God, of such subjects. For if Christ's reason be, of such for humility, meekness, want of malice, and envy, as (1 Peter 2:1-3), (Matthew 18), (Psalm 131:1-2) is the Kingdom of God: he must mean by the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Glory and the triumphing Church, this sense is refused by Anabaptists. 2. The infants of Pagans and of all men, by nature, within and without the Church are as well marked resemblances of converts, as they. And we must say that Christ would have taken in his arms, and blessed all the Pagan infants, and when they grow to age they should be for no fault, but for age only, excommunicated from the blessing, for Pagan infants as well resemble humility and harmlessness (if only the personal qualifications of converts, and heart-converts, not the covenant and church-holiness of visible professors, be here meant) as infants within the Visible Church.

9. There was no other design and purpose in Christ, in that emphatic expression, forbid them not to come [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩] (Matthew 19:14), [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩] (Luke 18:16), to me their Savior, as well as the Savior of the aged, but to hold forth the common interest of the whole [reconstructed: species] of infants ([⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩]) within the Visible Church, their covenant interest in Christ, for there is no imaginable reason, but the notion of want of understanding (the prejudice of Anabaptists only) why the disciples should have aimed to debar them or any poor sinners from access to the Savior of sinners.

10 Christ took them in his arms, laid his hands on them, blessed them. Now this was a personal real favor bestowed upon infants, had infants been mere symbolic and doctrinal resemblances of the humility of real converts, and the young ones as much without the Covenant as Pagans, and as incapable of Covenant grace and Covenant seals, because void of actual faith now under the new Gospel administration, as horses or beasts, let the opponents of their Baptism show what sort of blessing it was, that Christ bestowed upon them, if it be not: 1. Of more value than Jacob's blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh, or at least as real, and certain, Christ the Lord from heaven must as Sovereign, who had power to curse the fig tree and it withered, by his Sovereign power have blessed, in them, the whole race of infants in the visible Church, and declared them covenanted Church members under the New Testament in this eminent act of blessing the children and in commanding that all such might have free access to him as King, since the young ones were Subjects of the Kingdom of God, as well as the aged, and expressly forbids, that in time to come, they be hindered to come to him (Mark 10:14, Luke 18:16, Matthew 19:14) and three Evangelists are three sufficient witnesses. (2.) Christ the Lord is the Supreme and Sovereign Lord of blessing and cursing: for in him all the nations of the earth, and with them, young ones a considerable part of the covenanted nations, must be blessed. (3.) If Isaac blessed Jacob, and he must be blessed (Genesis [reconstructed: 27]:29, 33) and Jacob blessed the twelve Tribes (Genesis 49:28) and Moses the man of God blessed Israel, before his death (Deuteronomy 33:1-2, etc.) with Covenant blessings, and they were really blessed, Christ must as really with Covenant blessings, have, in this, blessed the whole race of infants of covenanting parents, except Anabaptists say that it was some complimentary salutation, for the fashion that Christ bestowed upon infants, when the Evangelists say, he blessed them (Matthew 19:13, [illegible]; Mark 10:16, [illegible]). 4. By the gloss of the Adversaries, Christ blessed them symbolic and doctrinal resemblances of the humility and docility of real converts, and they were blessed as mere signs, as the Elements in the Sacraments are blessed, or as new-made crucifixes are blessed and dedicated to divine worship, as resemblances of Christ crucified; and as Popish Images are symbolically blessed, a strange device — or rather a strong delusion. 4. If Christ prayed for infants as Matthew says the mothers or parents sought that of him (Matthew 19:13) his prayers must be grounded upon the word of the Covenant, and what could he seek for infants' peace in these, but Covenant mercies and salvation: for Christ was not to work a miracle upon them, and he satisfied the desires of these, who brought them on their arms, and therefore could not go on their feet nor give a confession of their faith, they were born as the man sick of the palsy (Matthew 9:2). (5.) Now as Christ is always heard in his prayers (John 11:42) so his blessing he bestowed upon them (though Anabaptists will have them without Christ and the Covenant and under the curse of God) must either be a blessing of the Covenant of Grace, or of the Covenant of Works, for a third sort of blessing the Scripture knows not: Moses takes all blessings up in these two (Deuteronomy 27:12, 15-16; Deuteronomy 28:2-3, 15-16; Deuteronomy 30:19) I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, and so does Paul (Galatians 3:10, 13-14; Hebrews 6:7-8, 14-15). But Christ could not bestow the Law blessing of Works upon these infants, for they had not fulfilled the Law in their persons, nor can infants or any flesh be justified by the Law (Romans 3:20) therefore must Christ have bestowed upon them the blessing of the Covenant of Grace (Galatians 3:14; Hebrews 6:14) let it be the blessing of remission and life, or real right to the Kingdom of God, it is a blessing of the Covenant. 6. The faith of the parents that brought them is held forth (Matthew 19:13) Then were little children brought to him, that he might lay his hands on them and pray: then had they faith in Christ, that his praying and blessing should be available to infants, it is a conjecture that they came with a may-be, or as Mr. Cobbet well says, a faith grounded upon a possibility of Election separated from the Covenant, that is secret, and the Covenant revealed, and so this, not election abstracted from that, can be the ground of faith (Deuteronomy 29:29) and when Christ says (Matthew 18:4, 10) that little ones' Angels behold the face of his Father, and the Holy Ghost says (Hebrews 1:13) that Angels are Ministering Spirits, [illegible], for these that shall by heritage or lot enjoy salvation. It is clear infants have their share of salvation, and by Covenant it must be. As also the blessed seed is promised to Adam before he has a child, and to his seed: to Seth, Japheth, Isaac, Jacob, Abraham, when Cainan, Ham, Ishmael, Esau, Abraham's idolatrous house, to David, when his brethren are refused, and to these as heads of Generations, when contrary Generations, and the houses of Cainan, Ham, Ishmael, are rejected: Hence the house of Israel, the seed of Israel, the seed of Jacob, and there shall be added to the Gentiles (Isaiah 49) who shall bring in to the Church their sons and their daughters upon their shoulders, 22. Isaiah 54:1: Sing O barren — for more are the children of the desolate than of the married wife says the Lord. Isaiah 60:4: Lift up your eyes round about, and see, all they gather themselves about, they shall come to you: your sons shall come from far, and your sons shall be nourished at your side. Israel marrying and Israel according to the flesh is the holy seed (Nehemiah 7:61; Nehemiah 9:2) the holy seed have mingled with the heathen. 1 Chronicles 16:13: O you seed of Israel his servants, you children of Jacob whom he has chosen, be mindful of his Covenant. And this holiness by external covenanting is extended to the Gentiles (1 Corinthians 7:14) But now are your children holy; and it is holiness the Jews to be called in (Romans 11:16) If the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy [illegible] also the branches. So it is prophesied (Isaiah 61:9) Their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: All that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed that the Lord has blessed. 6. But you shall be named the Priests of the Lord, (holy by Covenant as was Aaron's house, because in Covenant visibly with God) men shall call you the Ministers of our God: You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles; and in their glory shall you boast yourselves (Isaiah 62:2) You shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord has named. v. 12: And they shall call them the holy people, the Redeemed of the Lord: And you shall be called, Sought out, A City not forsaken. Isaiah 65:22: As the days of a tree, are the days of my people: and my Elect (by calling) shall long enjoy the work of their hands. Surely he prophesies of a visibly covenanted people under the New Testament: For he adds, v. 23: They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth in trouble: for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. Now to any godly reader, there is here: 1. Prophecy to be fulfilled of the Gentiles brought in, as is clear ([reconstructed: Isaiah 61:1-4]) Christ, Luke 4, applies that text to himself. And 9: Their seed shall be known among the Gentiles. Isaiah 62:2: The Gentiles shall see your Righteousness. And for Isaiah 65:1-4, Paul expounds it of the incoming of the Gentiles (Romans 9:24, 26; Romans 10:20; Ephesians 2:12-13; Romans 15:20). (2.) He speaks of a visible Church and of their seed, known among the Gentiles, all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord has blessed ([reconstructed: Isaiah 61:9]). But they did not see the white Stone (the seal of their election) and a new Name which none can read but he that receives it ([reconstructed: Revelation 2:17]). And they see them a seed and offspring of the covenanted people of God. Isaiah 62:12: They shall call them the holy people: then they must judge them a visible Church. But a Church of such as are predestined to glory, they cannot see them to be. (3.) [reconstructed: Isaiah 65]: They are a visible Church. 21: They shall build houses and inhabit them — 22: They shall not build and another inhabit, They shall not plant and another eat. And the reason is, 23 — because they are (they shall be, it is a prophecy under the New Testament) the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. Jeremiah 23:22: As the host of Heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the seed of David. What seed? The visible seed: And the Levites that minister to me, will I multiply: He alludes to the promise made to Abraham, of multiplying his seed (Genesis 13:15; Genesis 15:5; [reconstructed: Genesis 22:17]). And this promise made to Abraham (says Calvin) belongs to them all, and he would have them not to doubt of the restitution of the people to their own land. Now the people and Levites, and house of David were never so multiplied in the Jews, after the deliverance from Babylon, and therefore must be extended to the New Testament. And if God establish David's seed forever (Psalm 89:4) and the seed of his people shall possess the gates of their enemies (Genesis 24:60) and if he pour his Spirit upon the seed of Jacob (Isaiah 44:3) and circumcise the heart of the seed of his people (Deuteronomy 30:6) and put his words in the mouth of the seed of his people, and their seeds' seed forever (Isaiah 59:21) and the seed of the righteous be blessed on earth (Psalm 37:26) not simply because they are a seed (for the whole seed of man should be blessed, if so) but because they are the seed of his servants (Psalm 69:36) of the Jews (Esther 6:13) the children of his Servants (Psalm 102:28) — see Jeremiah 31:35-37; Isaiah 6:13 — because the seed of Abraham, and in the Covenant made with Abraham (Exodus 2:24; 2 Kings 13:23; Psalm 105:8-9; Psalm 111:5, 9; Genesis 17:2, 7, 9; Leviticus 26:42, 45; Ezekiel 16:60; Luke 1:72; Exodus 6:4; Deuteronomy 8:18, etc.) then must the Covenant be established under the New Testament with the visible seed; and if there were an abridging and contracting of this favor to the Elect only, it would have been shown, and the Charter of reservation and exception must have been penned in the Old or New Testament. 2. Otherwise the seed of all Gentiles called in to Christ by the Preached Gospel, must be visibly cursed of God, cut off from the people of God, separated from the Lord, from the Congregation of his people, not to the tenth Generation only as the Ammonite, the Moabite, the Bastard (Deuteronomy 23:1-3) and excommunicated out of the Camp as unclean, nor should Christians marry or Covenant with them: As Deuteronomy 23:14; Leviticus 13:43-46; Deuteronomy 7:1-3; Exodus 34:15-16; 1 Kings 11:2; Ezra 9:2, 12; Nehemiah 13:23; Judges 3:6-7; Judges 4:2. 3. Except there be some middle between a cursed and a blessed seed, a seed in the Church, and in Covenant, and the seed of the Serpent, of heathen, without the Covenant. 2. A middle between the Kingdom of darkness, of Satan, and the Kingdom of God of his dear Son: contrary to Ephesians 2:2-4; Acts 26:18; Colossians 1:13-14; 1 Peter 2:9-10; Ephesians 5:8, which is unknown to Scripture. Indeed the Covenant is made to Christ and his seed (Galatians 3:16) and the same blessings of Abraham, comes on us Gentiles (Galatians 3:13-14). But he and all his seed were blessed and in grace by the external call of the Covenant (Ezekiel 16:1-8; Deuteronomy 7:7-8; [reconstructed: Romans 9:25]) I will call them my people that were not my people, and her beloved which was not beloved. And this external calling is of Grace and so grace, no merit, as well as predestination to life is grace, or for grace. For whoever are called, not because elect, but because freely loved of such a God and without merit called, Father and Son, they are in a state of grace. But so are all within the visible Church. If any object, by Christ's coming all the nations old and young are not become the nations of the Lord and of his Christ, but only true believers, even by our doctrine.

They have become the kingdoms of the Lord, not only because they are truly converted, but because they are the chosen of God in the office-house of Christ, and Christ reigns over them by the scepter of his Word whom he is to convert. And external covenanting with God is of itself free grace and a singular favor bestowed of God (Psalm 147:19-20; Deuteronomy 5:1-2; Matthew 21:42-43; Luke 14:16, 21).

2. It is free grace that God will have hypocrites and real infidels to beget children to him that are internally in covenant with him; and fills up the number of the Elect by reprobate parents who are instrumental to the in-coming in the world, and into the Visible Church, of many heirs of glory: and in so doing there is a church right communicated from reprobate parents to their children, that are heirs of glory.

3. External covenanting goes before internal covenanting, as the means before the end, and the cause before the effect: for faith comes by hearing of a sent preacher (Romans 10:14), and the preaching of the gospel is a saving means of begetting a new heart and of a new spirit. Hence, first, all must be first externally in covenant, before they can be internally and really in covenant. 2. God is a God simply to some, and no more but a God to them in regard of outward church privileges, as the Word, seals, protection, peace, hedge of discipline, his planting and watering by a ministry. But he is, to speak so, more than a God to others (Hosea 2:19): I will betroth you to me forever, indeed I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercy. Now the Lord is joined to backsliding Israel, in an external marriage covenant: but (Jeremiah 3:14) not in righteousness, in loving kindness and mercy, in reference to the rotten party. In regard of which he says, verse 2: Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband. (Zechariah 8:7) Thus says the Lord, I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country. 8. And I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness. Then he is not to all a God in truth and righteousness, fulfilling the first and substantial promise of engraving the law in the heart, not that he keeps not covenant even to external confederates, to wit, the conditional covenant, for if they should believe they should be saved; but he promised not a new heart, and faith to them. 3. Because he is a God external to the Elect, and that of free grace, therefore he is a God in truth and righteousness, to engrave his law in their heart. But external confederation is not the adequate cause, for then he should give a new heart to all, with whom he externally covenants, but the adequate cause is confederation external tali modo, out of his discriminating love and free grace he is a God to some. 4. He is a God to his Elect that he may engrave his law in their heart and inward parts; so that the promising to be a God tali modo, is the cause, and the engraving of a new heart is the effect. (Jeremiah 31:33; Jeremiah 32:38) And they shall be my people, and I will be their God — that is the cause. (Verse 39) I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me forever; for the good of them and of their children after them. See the same order (Ezekiel 11:19-20), though the words lie not in that order there and here. And (Hebrews 8:10) 5. God is not then a God to any, because they have a clean heart, and the law engraved therein, for then they should be in covenant, before they be in covenant; and so this is true (because he is our God in truth and righteousness, therefore we believe) but this is not true (because we believe, therefore he is our God) except we argue from the effect to the cause.

But to return: Calvin on Matthew 19:14. We hence gather that the grace of Christ is extended to infant age, for whole mankind had perished. Beza, Infants are also comprehended in the free Covenant. Pareus, it's unlawful to [reconstructed: bar] these from baptism and the Church, whom Christ [reconstructed: bids] come to him, etc. Obj. But Christ commands not they be baptized. Answ. Nor does Christ in this place command the Parents to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord: Nor speak the Evangelists of any Parental duty; shall we from that conclude, it was not Christ's mind that the Parents take care of the fourth and fifth Command? Pareus says, it was neither time nor place. Matthew 28:19. he bids baptize all. 3. He who prayed for them, blessed them, laid his hands upon them, invited them to bring Infants to him (of all which Infants were as incapable, as of the use and ends of Baptism and of actual confession of sin and of believing) judged they ought be Baptized. 4. It's never to be found where any are Baptized, but the Head of the Family is Baptized: And when we read that houses were Baptized (1 Corinthians 1:16; Acts 16:33), there is no more ground to say Infants are not Baptized, than to say when the Lord says to Abraham (Genesis 12:2), I will bless you, and make your name great. And (Genesis 22:17), in blessing I will bless you. And when the Lord says (Isaiah 19:25), blessed be Egypt my people; he should mean, he would bless Abraham, not his seed, and that he minds to bless the aged of Egypt, and of Assyria, but not their seed and infants, because they understand not what a blessing of God means; and yet the fruit of the womb and the seed are said to be blessed (Psalm 37:26; Deuteronomy 7:13), and God so entreated to bless Israel, and to bless David's house (Psalm 28:9; Psalm 67:1; Deuteronomy 26:16; 2 Samuel 7:29), the meaning should not be that God would bless the young Infants and Children in Israel and in David's house: And when Jacob is said to provide for his own house (Genesis 30:30), and the believer to provide for his Family (1 Timothy 5:8), the meaning should be that they should provide for the aged of the house, who understood what provision is, but should not provide for the young ones, who cannot know what it is to be hungry tomorrow. To say young ones are not capable of Baptism, is to beg the Question. For (1.) all Israel were Baptized in the Sea and in the Cloud, old and young (1 Corinthians 10:1-2). (2.) All Israel old and young are capable of the blessing Covenanted (Psalm 28:9; Psalm 67:1-2), and so of the seal: Anabaptists grant (as they must) if Infants be in Covenant, they ought to receive the Seal of the Covenant. Lastly, how is it that by baptized houses, must be meant only those come to age who can actually believe?

The Jews (Romans 11:16) are holy root and branch, first fruit and lump, fathers and children, and the Jews shall be brought in again. Why? The generation to come in is holy, for the Covenant made with their fathers. Well say Anabaptists, but notwithstanding of the federal holiness you talk of (Romans 11:16), that gives not right to the cast off to be Baptized, and admitted to Church privileges; for the cast off are no Church, and have no Church privilege, your federal holiness then must be a dream?

Ans. But these to come in, and to be re-ingrafted are holy, intentionally, in the decree of God, because of their beloved fathers, and when God shall call them, the same Covenant made with Abraham gives them right; and these branches not in being, and the unborn generation are only intentionally holy by this federal holiness, and they shall be actually holy, when they shall be born, but it follows not, but the present generation not broken off through unbelief, as Paul and others called by the name of election (Romans 11:7), have right, because of their fathers. For God has not cast off his people, whom he has foreknown. For I am an Israelite (says Paul, verses 1-2) of the seed of Abraham, and there are thousands of Jews now hidden as in Elijah's time, who bowed not their knee to Baal; but the body of them, the great bulk is fallen away and cut off. Hence the Jews are holy federally and not holy, beloved of the fathers federally, and not beloved federally, holy and keep Church right to Baptism, and Ordinances, in regard of the founder and invisible part: And not holy federally nor having any Church right to Baptism, in regard of the willfully broken off body, that crucified Christ and stand to their fathers' bloody deed, these have no more Church-part nor portion to Ordinances, than Simon Magus (Acts 8), notwithstanding of their carnal descent from Abraham.

And when God made the Covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17), and renewed the same (Deuteronomy 29), he made it with these who were not there standing (v. 14, 15): not with you only, etc., but virtually, radically with us Gentiles, who were not then born, as touching the substantials — for priesthood, law-service, types, sacrifices, circumcision, yes, baptism, the Lord's Supper, pastors, teachers, elders to rule, deacons, were all accidents to the substance of the Covenant, to wit, to believe in Christ and to obtain righteousness and life by Christ. As the same way to the same city has other hedges, way-marks, bridges this year which it had not 500 years ago. And consider a father that knows he shall beget so many hundred sons who shall all be kings, and have the same royal inheritance — he writes a charter entitling them all, before they be born, to the same inheritance: they have all virtual and radical right, before they be born, with the first heir; and when they are born, he makes not another Covenant with them. So (Deuteronomy 29:14, 15) he says not, he shall make another Covenant with these when they shall be born: but I make a Covenant with you, and with these that are not here, not born. Hence by way of excellency he calls it the Covenant, the Covenant of the Lord (Jeremiah 2[illegible]:9; Deuteronomy 4:23; Joshua 23:11); My Covenant, says the Lord (Genesis 17:7, 9, 10; Exodus 19:5; Psalm 50:16); His Covenant (Psalm 105:8); He remembered his Covenant forever (Psalm 111:5); He will remember his Covenant forever (Psalm 5:9); His Covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (2 Kings 13:23), when Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel, in their saddest afflictions (Leviticus 26:42, 43). The Scripture is called the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 24:7; 2 Kings 23:4; 2 Chronicles 34:30, 21). The question is easily determined — it can be the Book of no Covenant, but of that made with Abraham, the oath to Jacob (1 Chronicles 16:16, 17; Psalm 105:9; Jeremiah 11:5; Daniel 9:11; Luke 1:73; Hebrews 6:15, 17), and to the fathers, the everlasting Covenant (Genesis 9:16; Genesis 17:9, 13), which relates to Adam also (Leviticus 24:8; 2 Samuel 23:5), made to David (1 Chronicles 16:17; Psalm 105:10; Isaiah 61:8; Hebrews 13:20), which cannot be, if there be so many Covenants, as some speak of. The new Covenant, and the better Covenant (Hebrews 8:8, 13; Hebrews 12:20; [reconstructed: Jeremiah 31:8]; Hebrews 7:21) — which newness and excellency is all expounded of the Mediator now God, the Word made flesh (Hebrews 7, 8, 9).

And we would remember that in Romans 11, Paul proves first that God has not cast off the Jews wholly. First argument: because I, Paul, am a Jew, and he has not cast me off — therefore in one, the Covenant may stand. Second: from his unchangeableness — God has foreknown them. Third: from the example of the church in the days of Elijah. By way of preoccupation, it is true many are fallen off: but as then seven thousand were in Israel who bowed not their knee to Baal, so now — because the election of grace does not fall now, or then. Then says he, not of works. He [reconstructed: reconciles] that he says with what came before, by a preoccupation: and have all the Jews fallen short of righteousness? And he answers: all are not fallen short. The election — that is, the elected — have obtained righteousness, the rest not. Second: to make way to exhort the Gentiles to walk worthy of the place and room of the Jews. He speaks some more of the doctrine of reprobation, as he spoke in Chapter 9 of eternal predestination, and of the casting out of the Jews, and of their blinding and hardening. They have fallen in God's decree, not that they may utterly fall. Second, that the Gentiles may be provoked by their fall.

Hence by diverse arguments he proves that the Jews shall be brought in again to Christ. First: from four ends of the Jews' fall (v. 11): (2) to provoke them to come in (v. 11); (3) that some may be saved; (4) for the riches of the world's salvation. From which the magnifying of Paul's ministry (v. 13, 14). Second argument: from the great fruit — if their fall be the riches of the world, their coming in again must be the resurrection from the grave of the buried, unbelieving world (v. 15).

3. Argument. They must be brought in. These who are holy separated from the world, for the Covenant-call of God, must be brought in again: But so is Israel. The assumption he proves by parts. 1. The mass and root of Israel is holy, the Fathers were the Covenanted visible stock, line, root, as all the Old Testament says: then the posterity, the first fruits, the branches partly born, partly to be born, must be holy Covenant-ways: The tree, root and branches are holy and of the same nature; Therefore the branches have right to Christ, to the Covenant, to Baptism and the seals. Hence Anabaptists, without all reason, say that he speaks not of federal and external holiness, but of real, internal and true holiness, only of the invisible body predestinated to life: for though invisible holiness cannot be excluded, except we exclude the holiness of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were without doubt a part of the root: yet he must be taken to speak of that holiness of the Covenant and Church, as made visible and of the visible collective body of the Jews, not of only real and invisible holiness. 1. Because this was true in the days of Elias, If the root be holy the branches are holy; And it is a New Testament truth of perpetual verity, If the Fathers be holy so must the Sons. The Fathers have Church-right to Circumcision, to Baptism, to the Passover, and to the Lord's Supper, so have the Children: but it is most false of the invisible mystical body and root only, and of real and internal holiness; For neither in Old or New Testament is it true, If the Fathers be predestinated to life, justified and sanctified and saved, so must the Children be. Ishmael, Esau, Absalom, and all the world of Hypocrites called from their profaneness Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:10), uncircumcised in heart, as Egypt, Moab and Ammon (Jeremiah 9:26), as the Philistines (Amos 9:7). Then should that (2.) distinction of Jews in the heart, and inward, and of Jews in the flesh (Romans 2:28), and of the children of the flesh, that are not of the spiritual seed, and of the children of the promise (Romans 9:7-8), and of the persecuting children of the bond woman not justified by faith, and of the children of the promise (Galatians 4:23-24, etc.) fall to the ground. Indeed 3. If by the root and the lump be understood only Believers and chosen to life, the whole Israel, which is as the sand of the sea, should be saved, whereas the Word of God says, a remnant only shall be saved, [reconstructed: Tertia] LXX. A part taken out shall be saved (Romans 9:27; Isaiah 10:22-23; Hosea 1:10). 4. By the branches must be meant all the visible body of the Jews, old and young. Now if Anabaptists give us a Visible Church of the Jews of all real believers, even the branches and Infants, (which shall hardly be proven by the Scripture) these infants at least being visible Believers may lawfully be baptized, being both internally and visible, and externally in Covenant. For this Scripture is expressly expounded by them of real and inherent holiness, and so Infants must be real Believers and in Covenant. Therefore they must be baptized: What can be replied is not imaginable: but they have not actual faith, and possibly that is not known to the Church. But this Scripture says that the branches and root both are holy. 2. It shall be new divinity, that none are to be baptized but such as are under the actual [reconstructed: exercise] of their faith, a thing that cannot be discerned by the Church, in these that are come to age. 5. Here shall also be this new divinity, that predestination to life and glory must be propagated and derived from the lump to the first fruits, from the root and parents to the branches and children.

5. It is against the whole current of the text, that Paul spoke abstractly of the only invisible body really sanctified, and not of the visible body. For 1. The invisible body is an elect seed that cannot fall away; but the body that here he speaks of are such, of which a part are hardened and blinded, and under the spirit of slumber, and a part elect and chosen. 7. The election have obtained, the rest are hardened, and of such a body, compared with the body in the time of Elijah, of which multitudes fell away, slew the prophets, dug down the altars, and a good number were believers, that bowed not their knee to Baal, and so is the body now, says Paul, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. [illegible], which is a mixed body. 3. He speaks of the body that has fallen and stumbled (verse 11), and these to whom he preaches, to provoke them to a holy emulation, to come in to Christ, by the incoming of the Gentiles (verses 13-14), which is surely a visible body, and which shall be ingrafted in again (verse 23), which includes a visible body of diverse generations. 4. Indeed he must speak of a national election and external calling, as (Deuteronomy 7:7-9), (Deuteronomy 10:15), (Psalm 132:13), (Isaiah 41:2) — not of a personal election of some certain persons who fell, were blinded, rejected fully and totally in their persons, and received in and ingrafted as sound believers again — for the Scripture speaks of no such coming in and out, but of a huge numerous body of which some fell, some stand, and includes diverse generations. 5. The collective visible body of Jews and Gentiles are such as Paul preaches to (verses 13-14), such as are ingrafted in, in the room of the Jews, and ingrafted into the olive of the visible body, and partake of the fatness of ordinances, Baptism, Covenant comforts, promises. Now if any say that this proves not that infants are ingrafted, then must they say that infants of the Jews before Christ partook of no fatness of the Covenant, Circumcision, Blessings, Presence, Protection. 2. That they were not broken off with their fathers, and so that they now stand. 3. That the infants of the Jews are not holy branches, as the root is holy, as [illegible] — and that none but the fathers shall be ingrafted in, and only 4. the aged and the baptized actual believers of the Gentiles are the ingrafted ones, not their infants, they are all heathen and pagans, as well as the cast off Jews. 5. That the Jews' ingrafting in again shall be to their great hurt, so as God was long ago their God, but shall no more in time coming be their God, then of the pagans and the lately cut off fathers: nor can the adversaries say that Jewish infants were broken off through unbelief, because they are capable neither of belief nor of unbelief. Then they remain in the olive tree, members of the church as before, and God must be still their God, when the fathers are cut off (verse 17). And again, when the fathers shall be reingrafted and they made Christians, the infants shall be out of Christ, and have no more Covenant right or church right to Baptism, than the infants of Egyptians and Philistines had to Circumcision.

Objection: Shall not, by this means, all the infants of all the Gentiles be ingrafted in, and baptized?

Answer: The text warrants us to say it only of the children of the ingrafted and called Gentiles, that they have right to baptism.

Objection: This text is spoken of these that have hereditary Covenant right, from their natural father Abraham. We Gentiles have not that natural relation to Abraham, nor are we his natural sons, nor branches?

Answer: It is false, that the Jews by birth as birth, had hereditary right to church privileges; they had right by such a birth from Abraham taken in out of free love to Covenant fellowship with God, and his children are natural, that is, kindly. 2. First branches and sprigs, before us Gentiles, to believing Abraham, but we believing are made Abraham's by proportion, and are secondary and so wild branches. 2. Abraham is not the physical, but a moral root. For the Covenant was made with Abraham, not as a believing father, but as a believing head of children, of servants, and strangers under him, as the Covenant is laid as a heavenly depositum upon Zacchaeus, in relation not to his children only, but to his house (Luke 19). For when he is made a son of Abraham, salvation, that is, the Covenant of Life, comes to him and to his house: and so to Cornelius (Acts 10), and to the jailer (Acts 16), and to their houses, and the same way I distinguish seeds.

Question: How can the Jews that are come in be federally holy for their fathers? Since now it is about fifteen hundred years since their fathers were broken off from church and Covenant: may not all the world — Jews and Gentiles — be federally holy branches, by the same reason, because the Covenant was made with, and preached to Adam, a believing root and father in Paradise? So it would appear once in the Covenant of Grace; and all the seed to the coming of Christ are federally holy, as well as they. Answer: This is as great a difficulty to the adversaries (and insuperable) as to us, for the Jews unborn by their way are no more holy in their branches and offspring than Turks and Indians, and their children, until they grow to age and actually believe, and so are the infants of Americans, and such as worship the sun, or Satan, that way holy. And so the branches of the Jews have no holiness from the root, nor are they beloved for the fathers, as verse 28. 2. All the Jews do not cease to be members of the invisible church; for Paul says (Romans 11:25) blindness in part has happened to Israel [illegible] — to a part of Israel: for although the visible mass and body of the Jews rejected Christ and wrath came upon them to the outmost (1 Thessalonians 2:16), yet that is not said universally of all the Jews, 14. [illegible]. Indeed Paul wrote to the Jews the epistle to the Hebrews. James to the twelve tribes scattered abroad (James 1:1), and Peter (1 Peter 1:1), and John to the Jews: I judge, not in a visible body, and these are not broken off the olive, and do, though not in a visible church way, derive Covenant right to the branches that shall be ingrafted in. But many nations descended of Adam have universally rejected Christ, and know not the name of Christ the blessed seed.

Question: May we not say that the root is Christ as mystical head, from whom we partake of the [reconstructed: sap] of grace and life and fatness?

Answer: The intent of Paul is to prove that the Jews cut off, because of their unbelief, shall be grafted in again, in the Lord's own time, because of the holiness of the covenant, that was in the root and in the first fruits Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is true, their covenant-holiness is not the adequate cause, why they shall be grafted in really into Christ, for so all the carnal children, who had this relative holiness must be really grafted into Christ, but it is with the Lord's free love, both the cause of their personal, and of their church grafting, and the continued deriving of that relative holiness being a continued free favor in its kind, is the Lord's love in the same kind to root and branches, otherwise it should not bear truth, which, is said (Romans 11:28) which [reconstructed: expounds] this, (Romans 11:28) that they are beloved for the fathers, not as if they were predestined to life, because Abraham was so chosen, but because of the Father's covenant-holiness, which was holiness from Christ not as root and head, through influence of saving grace, but as a political head which yet is, what we say. For because Christ is holy as root, head and Redeemer, the Jews once his visible Church and to be so again, the branches are not really holy by faith, because all of them were not in Christ. But if all Jews and Gentiles, and also infants who are Jews and Gentiles and parts of the body be baptized into the visible body, so are infants. See more of this in Mr. Cotton, Mr. Black, Mr. Cobbet, Mr. Richard Baxter, who have closed the dispute learnedly.