DISCOURSE XXV.

GOD'S COVENANT WITH ABRAM AND HIS SEED.

Gen. xvii.

THIRTEEN years elapse, of which nothing is recorded. Hagar is submissive to Sarai, and Ishmael is growing up; but as to Abram, things after all wear a doubtful aspect. It is true, God hath given him a son; but no intimations of his being the son of promise. No divine congratulations attend his birth; but, on the contrary, Jehovah, who had been used to manifest himself with frequency and freedom, now seems to carry it reservedly to his servant. It is something like the thing which he had believed in ; but not the thing itself. He has seen, as it were, a wind, a fire, and an earthquake; but the Lord is not in them.

Ver. 1. After this, when he was ninety-nine years old, the Lord again appeared to him, and reminded him of a truth which he needed to have re-impressed; namely, his almighty power. It was for want of considering this, that he had had recourse to crooked devices in order to accomplish the promise. This truth is followed by an admonition-Walk before me, and be thou perfect; which admonition implies a serious reproof. It was like saying, Have recourse no more to unbelieving expedients; keep thou the path of uprightness, and leave me to fulfil my promise in the time and manner that seem good to me!' What a lesson is here afforded us, never to use unlawful means under the pretence of being more useful, or promoting the cause of God! Our concern is to walk before him, and be upright, leaving him to bring to pass his own designs in his own way.

Ver. 2, 3. Abram having been admonished, the promise is renewed to him; and the time drawing near in which the seed should be born, the Lord declares his mind to make a solemn covenant with him, and to multiply him exceedingly. Such language denotes great kindness and condescension, with large designs of mercy. Abram was so much affected with it as to fall on his face, and in that posture The Lord talked with him.

Ver. 4-6. It is observable, that the last time in which mention is made of a covenant with Abram, (Chap. xv. 18.) God made over to his posterity the land of Canaan for a possession: but the design of this is more extensive, dwelling more particularly on their being multiplied and blessed. The very idea of a covenant is expressive of peace and good-will; and in this, and some other instances, it is not confined to the party, but extends to others for his sake. Thus, as we have seen, God made a covenant of peace which included the preservation of the world; but it was with one man, even Noah, and the world was preserved for his sake. And the covenant in question is one that shall involve great blessings to the world in all future ages: yet it is not made with the world, but with Abram. God will give them blessings; but it shall be through him. Surely these things were designed to familiarize the great principle on which our salvation should rest. It was the purpose of God to save perishing sinners; yet his covenant is not originally with them, but with Christ. With him it stands fast; and for his sake they are accepted and blessed. Even the blessedness of Abram himself, and all the rewards conferred on him, were for his sake. He was justified, as we have seen, not by his own righteousness, but by faith in the promised Messiah.

Moreover: A covenant being a solemn agreement, and indicating a design to walk together in amity, it was proper there should be an understanding, as we should say, between the parties. When Israel came to have a king, Samuel told them the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before the Lord. Thus, as Abram is about to commence the father of a family, who were to be God's chosen people, it was fit at the outset that he should not only be encouraged by promises, but directed how he and his descendants should conduct themselves.

The first promise in this covenant is, that he shall be the father of many nations; and as a token of it, his name in future is to be called ABRAHAM. He had the name of a high, or eminent father, from the beginning; but now it shall be more comprehensive, indicating a very large progeny. By the exposition given of this promise in the New Testament,* we are directed to understand it, not only of those who sprang from Abraham's body, though these were many nations; but also of all that should be of the FAITH of Abraham. It went to make him the father of the church of God in all future ages; or, as the Apostle calls him, the heir of the world. In this view he is the father of many, even of a multitude of nations. All that the Christian world enjoys, or ever will enjoy, it is indebted for it to Abraham and his seed. A high honour this, to be the father of the faithful, the stock from which the Messiah should spring, and on which the church of God should grow. It was this honour that Esau despised, when he sold his birth-right; and here lay the profaneness of that act, which involved a contempt of the most sacred of all objects-the Messiah, and his everlasting kingdom!

Ver. 7-14. The covenant with Abraham, as has been observed already, was not confined to his own person, but extended to his posterity after him in their generations. To ascertain the meaning of this promise, we can proceed on no ground more certain than fact. It is fact, that God in succeeding ages took the seed of Abraham to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all other nations; not only giving them the land of Canaan for a possession, but himself to be their God, King, or temporal Governor. Nor was this all; it was among them that he set up his spiritual kingdom; giving them his lively oracles, sending to them his prophets, and establishing among them his holy worship; which great advantages were, for many ages, in a manner confined to them: and what was still more, the great body of those who were eternally saved, previously to the coming of Christ, were saved from among them. These things taken together, were an immensely greater favour than if they had all been literally made kings and

*Rom. iv. 16, 17.

priests. Such then being the facts, it is natural to suppose that such was the meaning of the promise.*

* As an Antipædobaptist, I see no necessity for denying that spiritual blessings were promised, in this general way, to the natural seed of Abraham; nor can it, I think, be fairly denied. The Lord engaged to do that which he actually did; namely, to take out of them, rather than other nations, a people for himself. This, I suppose, is the seed promised to Abraham, to which the Apostle refers when he says, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the SEED. (Rom. ix. 8.) By the children of the promise, he did not mean the elect in general, composed of Jews and Gentiles, but the elect from among the Jews. Hence he reckons himself an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, and the tribe of Benjamin, as a living proof that God had not cast away his people whom he foreknew. Rom. xi. 1, 2.

But I perceive not how it follows from hence, that God has promised to take a people from among the natural descendants of believers, in distinction from others. What was promised to Abraham, was neither promised nor fulfilled to every good man. Of the posterity of his kinsman Lot, nothing good is recorded. It is true, the labours of those parents who bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, are ordinarily blessed to the conversion of some of them: and the same may be said of the labours of faithful ministers, wherever Providence stations them. But, as it does not follow in the one case, that the graceless inhabitants are more in covenant with God than those of other places, neither does it follow in the other, that the graceless offspring of believers are more in covenant with God than those of unbelievers. "New Testament saints have nothing more to do with the Abrahamic covenant, than the Old Testament believers who lived prior to Abraham."

I am aware that the words of the Apostle, in Gal. iii. 14, The blessing of Abraham is come on the Gentiles, through Jesus Christ, are alleged in proof of the contrary. But the meaning of that passage, I conceive, is, not that through Jesus Christ every believer becomes an Abraham, a father of the faithful; but that he is reckoned among his children: not a stock, on which the future church should grow; but a branch, partaking of the root and fatness of the olive-tree. So, however, the context appears to explain it: They which are of faith are THE CHILDREN of faithful Abraham. Ver. 7.

But if it were granted, that the blessing of Abraham is so come on the believing Gentiles, as not only to render them blessed as his spiritual children, but to insure a people for God from among their natural posterity, rather than from those of others; yet it is not as their natural posterity that they are individually entitled to any one spir itual blessing; for this was more than was true of the natural seed of Abraham. Nor do I see how it follows from hence, that we are warranted to bap

As a sign or token of this solemn [covenant with Abraham and his posterity, every man-child among them was required to be circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin; and not only their own children, but those of their servants, born in their house, or bought with their money. This ordinance was the mark by which they were distinguished as a people in covenant with Jehovah, and which bound them by a special obligation to obey him. Like almost all other positive institutions, it was also prefigurative of mental purity, or putting off the body of the sins of the flesh. A neglect of it subjected the party to a being cut off from his people, as having broken God's covenant.

Ver. 15, 16. As Abram's name had been changed to Ābraham, a similar honour is conferred on Sarai, who in future is to be called Sarah. The difference of these names is much the same as those of her husband, and corresponds with what had been promised them both on this occasion. The former meant, My princess, and was expressive of high honour in her own family; but the latter, A princess, and denoted more extensive honour, as it is here expressed, A mother of nations. This honour conferred on Sarai would correct an important error into which both she and her husband had fallen; imagining that all hope was at an end of a child being born of her; and therefore, that if the promise were fulfilled, it must be in Ishmael. But not only must Abram become Abraham, the father of many nations; but Sarai, Sarah, the mother

tize them in their infancy. Abraham, it is true, was commanded to circumcise his male children; and if we had been commanded to baptize our males, or females, or both, or any example of the kind had been left in the New Testament, we should be as much obliged to comply in the one case, as he was in the other. But we do not think ourselves warranted to reason from circumcision to baptism; from the circumcision of males to the baptism of males and females; and from the circumcision of the children of a nation, (the greater part of whom were unbelievers,) and of servants born in the house, or bought with money, to the baptism of the children of believers. In short we do not think ourselves warranted, in matters of positive institution, to found our practice on analogies, whether real or supposed; and still less on one so circuitous, dissonant, and uncertain as that in question. Our duty, we conceive, is, in such cases, to follow the precepts and examples of the dispensation under

which we live.