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is expressly said, "that wrath has come upon them to the uttermost." It will follow, that it was a valid covenant plea, which the Jews advanced, "We have Abraham to our father;" whereas, it is expressly condemned, as having no warrant in the covenant.

It will follow, that the covenant was so constructed as to give the reins entirely to licentiousness, with respect to the descendants of Abraham; in the same manner that the doctrine of universal salvation does, with respect to the world at large, and it will follow, that all the solemn denunciations of the holy Jesus against the hypocrites among the Jews, were words without reason or meaning.

Upon the whole, we conclude with certainty, that the seed respected in the covenant, and with whom it was established, is that portion of the natural descendants of Abraham, who were predestinated to be joint heirs with Christ of an everlasting inheritance. These are numerous, and are characterized in a manner which does by no means apply to all the nominal Israel. For the writer to the Hebrews says xi. 13 and 14 verses. “Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth : Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city."

Having ascertained whom we are to understand by the seed, we are next to enquire respecting the visibility of the seed. This is of importance, that we may have just views of the divine economy in regard to the Church, and that we may duly regulate our own conduct. A thing may be contemplated as being what it is in the sight of God, who cannot err; and what it appears to be in the sight of man, who has not intuition,

* How strange that any one should suppose the promises respected ultimately temporal objects; when the true Israel did not in this world receive them.

but whose judgment is to be regulated by evidence. To God, before whom all things are naked and open, the distinction between visible and invisible does not apply. But to men, who receive their ideas through a fallible medium, it does. We find ourselves often mistaken with respect to the objects we contemplate. The earth appears to us a plain, and that it is, has been the serious opinion of thousands of philosophers. But voyagers have proved it to be a globe. Judas was considered, by his fellow disciples, as a friend to Christ, till the treasonable designs of his heart were disclosed. The divine Being, perfectly wise and good, ever treats man according to his nature. He does not require of him knowledge beyond the reach of his capacities.-His institutions, and laws, must of course be ever understood, as coinciding with his condition and capaci ty. They must be suited to the doctrine, that, man looketh on the outward appearance. To interpose by constant revelations, in order to determine the real moral state and future destiny of every individual, would be incompatible with a state of trial. To unmask the hypocrite, and extirpate him from the midst of the holy people, would be to anticipate the judgment. Engaged to perpetuate a seed to Abraham, and designing them, not only as monuments of his grace, but as depositaries of his will, it was necessary that God should form them into a visible society; that they should be as a city set on an hill which cannot be hid. In this case they would have reciprocal obligations to one another. They would be visibly brethren; and be bound to treat each other as such. This visible society would necessarily comprehend some, and it may be very many, who are not really children of promise. The wheat and the tares, as is the case in the Christian Church, would necessarily grow together. The purest discipline would not prevent; and never was designed to prevent it. Discipline is designed to extirpate open offenders; but not those, who, though in the sight of God they may be servants of Satan, in the sight of men, are servants of God. For God to deter

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mine, then, and to inform us, who are the seed under his eye, is one thing; and for him to dircct us whom we are to consider, and treat as the seed, is another. It may be necessary for us, while obedient to his direction, to treat some as not of the seed, who really are; and some as of the seed who really are not. Neither Elijah nor the disciples appear to have acted improperly, in their treatment of those whom their opinions respected.* So long as Judas appeared to the disciples, to be, or they were taught by Christ to view and treat him, as a friend; they could not with propriety treat him as an enemy. It was necessary then for God to inform whom he would have viewed and treated as the seed? Now, what has he in fact informed us on this important point? I answer. He has told us,

that we are to consider and treat all those, as the seed, who are natural descendants of Abraham, except ing such, as he has himself rejected by his testimony. This testimony may be either direct and express; or be made in the execution of the laws which he has enacted, for the very purpose of, "discerning between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serveth God, and him who serveth him not." The covenant was established, as to the outward administration of it, with the natural seed of Abraham indefinitely; but God soon made express exceptions. He expressly excepted Ishmael and his lineal descendants; and the sons of Keturah, and their descendants. He expressly excepted Esau, and his descendants. He expressly excepted the rebellious thousands, who, in the day of provocation and of temptation in the wilderness, openly refused to have him for their God. And he has ex

Dr. Gill concedes, Reply to Clark, page 14, that " baptism was administered to Simon Magus in the pure primitive way, by an apostolic person, yet he was in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity." At the same time he says, page 9. "A dedication ought to be previous to baptism. And believers must first give themselves to the Lord, and then are baptized, in his name." If Simon Magus was in the gall of bitterness, and bond of iniquity, he was not a real be. liever. He had not given himself to the Lord. He must have been baptized, because he appeared to have done so. Then, to proceed upon the ground of a visibility which is sometimes founded in mistake, is to act in a pure and apostolic way. I cannot think any person will be disposed to deny the justness of this distinction.

pressly excepted the multitudes who have now a vail upon their hearts. They are broken off, and not to be counted for the seed till they are grafted in again.-Then, "all Israel," i.e. the true Israel, the seed "shall be saved." The primitive law of the covenant, comprehensive of all other laws pertaining to visible subjection, in the execution of which divine exception was testified, is this, Genesis, xvii. 14. "And the uncircumcised manchild, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant." The unpermitted neg.lect of circumcision, even though it was the parent's fault only, determined that the child should no longer be counted and treated as of the seed. The reason is obvious. The visibility of the infant, as one of the seed, stood, by divine appointment, in inseparable connexion with the visibility of the parent. If the parent refused to circumcise his child as God had appointed, he divested himself of the visibility of being one of his people. He wilfully trampled upon the covenant. He trampled upon God's authority, and thereby disowned him from being his God. Romans ii. 25."For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law; but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circum cision is made unsircumcision." He excluded his child with himself. The parent and the infant offspring were constitutionally united; because, the seed came on, from generation to generation, by natural descent. The infant child was to be counted for the seed till the neglect of circumcision; not afterwards. He was visibly of the seed, and a subject of the covenant, by birth. Hence God says, Ezekiel xvi. 20. "Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, which thou hast born unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain my children ?"

It is not the least objection to this idea, that the infant was incapable of consenting to the covenant, and was wholly passive in circumcision. That the infant was wholly passive, in becoming a visible subject of the

covenant, is implied in this very passage in Ezekiel, It was born to God. Its initial covenant state was understood to take place passively. The infant was covenanted about. The whole seed was; Christ himself was, as the great high priest, the representative of the seed, their elder brother. In this sense only the infant was a covenantee. And the real seed were covenantees in this sense, as covenanted about, interminably; as much after a personal consent, as before it; and as much before it, as after it. Consent did not interest in the covenant. It will be remembered the promise was absolute. It was the promise only which interested.. The consent of the subject was but the execution of the promise. If consent were the thing which interested, then a personal profession would have been necessary to constitute a visible standing in the covenant. But as it was not, an infant might have as complete a visible standing in the covenant as the adult.* It is a mistake which has led to very erroneous conclusions, to suppose that visibility of covenant standing rests upon one uniform principle. It may have different grounds. It may take place by the appointment and testimony of God, as well as by personal consent. God have put his hand upon an infant to bless it, and thereby have let us know that it is a subject of his kingdom, it must be daring impiety in us to deny its covenant standing.

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Neither is it any objection, that the visible covenant standing of the infant must be different from that of the consenting adult, who gives evidence that he is really sanctified. For, though a consenting adult, like Stephen, full of the Holy Ghost, appears to me actually to possess, what I have not equal evidence that the

* If there be any difficulty in considering the infant seed as embraced in the covenant, or in covenant, it lies as much against the scheme of the antipodobaptists, as against that which considers the covenant of circumcision as wholly of a gracious nature. They allow that the land of Canaan was promised to the posreity of Abraham as such. But it is of no consequence, as to the question of an infant's being a covenantee, what the covenant engages to perform, whether to bestow an earthly or an heavenly inheritance, whether it have respect to politic al or spiritual objects. The simple question is, whether an infant be capable of being made a subject of a promise: Or whether a promise may be made to a parent that he shall have a child who shall possess any kind of good?

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