and establishing his commands by what penalties he had pleased, and never have brought himself under the tye and obligation of a covenant to his own creatures: but he chufes to deal familiarly with his people, by way of covenanting, being a fami liar way, 2 Sam. vii. 19. Is this the manner of men, O Lord God, or, (as Junius renders it) and that after the manner of men, O Lord God! it is a way full of condefcending grace and good, nets: he is willing hereby his people fhould know what they may certainly expect from their God, as well as what their God requires of them. Hereby alfo he will furnish them with mighty pleas and arguments in prayer, fuccour their faith against temptations; ftrengthen their hands in duties of obedience, fweeten their obedience to them, and difcriminate his own people from the world.

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As foon therefore as man was created and placed in paradife, being made upright, and throughly furnished with abilities perfectly and completely to obey all the commands of his Maker, the Lord immediately entered into the covenant of works with him, and all his natural pofterity in him: And in this covenant his standing or falling was according to the perfection and conftancy of his perfonal obedience, Gen. ii. 17. Gal. iii. 10. But in this firft covenant of works no provifion at all was made for his recovery (in cafe of the leaft failure) by his repentence or better obedience; but the curfe immediately feized both foul and body and fin, by the fall entering into man's mature, totally difabled him to the perfect performance of any one duty, as that covenant required it to be done, Rom. viii. 3. nor would God accept any repentance, or after-endeavours, in lieu of that perfect obedience due by law. So that from the fall of Adam, to the end of the world, this covenant ceaseth as a covenant of life, or a covenant able to give righteoufnefs and life unto all mankind for evermore, Rom. iii. 20. "Therefore by the deeds "of the law there fhall no flesh be juftified in his fight." Gal. ii. 16. "By the works of the law fhall no flesh be justified." Gal. iii. II. "But that no man is juftified by the law in the fight "of God, is evident." And it being fo evident, that righteoufnefs and life being for ever impoffible to be obtained upon the terms of Adam's covenant, it must therefore be a felfevident truth, That fince the fall, God never did, and to the end of the world he never will open that way or door to life (thus block'd up by an absolute impoffibility) for the juftification and Jal vation of any man.

Thelis 2. Soon after the violation and ceffation of this first

Covenant, as a covenant of life, it pleased the Lord to open and publifh the fecond covenant of grace by Jefus Chrift, the firft dawning whereof we find in Gen. iii. 15. where the feed is promifed which ball bruise the serpent's head. And though this be but a very short, and fomewhat obfcure discovery of man's remedy and falvation by Chrift; yet was it a joyful found to the ears of God's people, it was even life from the dead to the believers of thofe times. For we may rationally conclude, That that space of time betwixt the breaking of the first, and making of the fecond covenant, was the most dismal period of time that ever the world did, or fhall fee. This covenant of grace now took place of the covenant of works, comprehended all believers in the bofom of it. The covenant of works took place from the time it was made until the fall of Adam, and then was abolished as a life-giving covenant. The fecond covenant took place from the time it was made foon after the fall, and is to continue to the end of the world. And these only are the two covenants God hath made with men; the latter fucceeding the former, and commencing from its expiration; but both cannot poffibly be in force together at the fame time, and upon the fame perfons, as co-ordinate covenants of life and falvation. For in co-ordination they expel and destroy each other, Gal. v. 4. "Whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from 86 grace." The first covenant was a covenant without a mediator; the fecond is a covenant with a mediator. Place a believer under both at once, or put these two covenants in co-ordination, and that which refults will be a pure contradiction, viz. That a man is faved without a mediator, and yet by a mediator. Moreover, if there be a way to life without a mediator, there was no need to make a covenant in and with a mediator; nor can thofe words of Christ be true, John iv. 6. “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father but by me."

The righteoufnefs of the first covenant was within man himfelf; the righteousness of the second covenant is without man in Chrift. Put thefe two in co-ordination, and that which results is as pure a contradiction as the former, viz. That a man is juftified by a righteousness within him, and yet is juftified by a righteoufnefs without him, exprefly contrary to the athe apostle's conclufion, Rom. iii. 20. "Therefore by the deeds "of the law there fhall no flesh be juftified in his fight." It is therefore an intolerable abfurdity to place believers under both these covenants at the fame time; under the curse of the first, and bleffing of the fecond, For whenfoever the state of any

perfon is changed by juftification, his covenant is changed with his ftate, Col. i. 13. 'Tis as unimaginable that a believer should thus ftand under both covenants, as it is to imagine a man may be born of two mothers, Gal. iv. 22, 23, 24, 25. or a woman lawfully married to two husbands, Rom. vii. 1, 2, 3, 4. and more abfurd (if it be poffible any thing can be more abfurd) to attribute the moft glorious privilege of the covenant of grace, (viz. "I will be a God to thee, and to thy feed after thee," Gen. xvii. 7.) to the impotent and abolished covenant of works; both which abfurdities are afferted in defence of Antipaedo-baptifm.

And though it be true, that after the first edition of the covenant of grace, the matter of the first covenant was reprefented to the Ifraelites in the moral law: yet that reprefentation was intended and defigned to be fubfervient, and added to the promife, Gal. iii. 19. and fo (as an acute and learned divine* fpeaks) the very decalogue or moral law itself pertained to the covenant of grace; yea, in fome fort, flowed out of this covenant, as it was promulged by the couníel of God to be ferviceable to it; both antecedently to lead men by the conviction of fin, fear of wrath, and felf-defpair, to the covenant of grace; and alfo confequently as it is a pattern of obedience and rule of holiness. For had it been published as a covenant defigned intentionally to its primitive ufe and end, it had totally frustrated the covenant of grace.

Thefis 3. Though the primordial light or firft glimmerings of this covenant of grace, were comparatively weak and obfcure; yet from the first publication of it to Adam, God in all ages hath been amplifying the privileges, and heightning the glory of this fecond covenant in all the after expreffures and editions of it unto this day, and will more and more amplify and illuftrate it to the end of the world.

That first promife, Gen. iii. 1 5. is like the first small spring or head of a great river, which the farther it runs, the bigger it grows by the acceffion of more waters to it. Or like the fun in the heavens, which the higher it mounts, the more bright and glorious the day ftill grows.

In that period of time, betwixt Adam, and Abraham, we find no token of God's covenant ordered therein to be applied to the infant-feed of believers. But in that fecond edition of the covenant to Abraham, the privileges of the covenant were amplified, and his infant-feed not only taken into the covenant

*Turretini Pars 2da loc. 12. p, 24Ɛ.

(as they were before) but also added to the visible church, by receiving the token of the covenant, which then was circumcifion; and fo here is a great addition made to the visible church, even the whole infant off-fpring of adult believers.

From that period, until the coming of the Meffiah in the flesh, the Jewish church, and their infant-feed, except only fome few profelytes out of the Gentile nations, made up the visible church of God, and the poor Gentiles were without Chrift, being aliens from the commonwealth of Ifrael, and ftrangers from the covenant of promife, having no hope, and without God in the world, Eph. ii. 12. but in this glorious third period the covenant again enlarges itself more than before, and the privileges of it are no longer limited, and reftrained to the Jewish believers, and their infant-feed; but the Gentiles alfo are taken into the covenant, and the door of faith was opened unto them, Acts xiv. 27. the partition-wall was now broken down, which feparated the church from the Gentile world, Eph. ii. 14. This was a glorious enlargement of the covenant, and many glorious prophecies, and promises, were fulfilled in it; fuch as thofe, Ifa. xl. 10, and xlii. 1, 6. xlix. 22. liv. 3. lx. 3, 5, 11, 16. lxii. 2, &c.

And though the covenant, as to its external part, seems to have loft ground in the breaking off of the Jewish nation from the church; yet, like the fea, what it lofes in one place, it gains with advantage, upon another: The addition of many Gentile nations to the church, more than recompences for the present breaking off of that one pation of the Jews. And, indeed, they are broken off but for a time, for God shall graff them in again, Rom. xi. 23. This therefore being the defign of God, and fteady course of his covenant of grace, more and more to enlarge itfelf in all ages; nothing can be more oppofite to the nature of this covenant, than to narrow and contract its privileges in its farther progrefs, and cut off a whole fpecies from it, which it formerly took in.

Thefis 4. It is past all doubt, and contradiction, that the infant-feed of Abraham, under the second edition of the covenant of grace, were taken with their believing parents into God's gracious covehant, had the feal of that covenant applied to them, and were thereby added to the visible church, Gen. xvii. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. which was a gracious privilege of the covenant fuperadded to all the former, and fuch as fweeps away all the frivolous, and groundless cavils, and exceptions of those that · object the incapacity of infants to enter into covenant with God, or receive benefit from the external privileges of the vi

fible church. Nor can the fubtileft enemy to infants baptism, give us a convincing reason why the infants of Gentile believers are not equally capable of the fame benefits that the infants of Jewish believers were, if they still stand under the fame cove nant that the former stood under; and God hath no where repealed the gracious grant formerly made to the infant-feed of his covenant-people.

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Thefts 5 It is to me clear, beyond all contradiction, from Rom. xi. 17. "If fome of the branches be broken off, and "thou being a wild olive-tree, wert grafted in amongst them, "and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive "tree" I fay, I can scarce défire a clearer fcripture light than this text gives, to fatisfy my understanding in this cafe, that when God brake off the unbelieving Jews from the church, both parents and children together; the believing Gentiles, which are as truly Abraham's feed as they were, Gal. iii. 29. yea, the more excellent feed of Abraham, were implanted or ingrafted in their room, and do as amply enjoy the privileges of that covenant, both internal and external, for themselves, and for their infant-feed, as ever any members of the Jewish church did or could do.

Our adversaries in this controverfy do pitifully and apparently fhuffle here, and invent many strange and unintelligible diftinctions to be-cloud the light of this famous text. What they are, and how they are baffled, the reader will easily discern from what hath already past betwixt my antagonist and me, in p. 108, &c. of my Vindicia Legis et Faderis. It is plain, that Abraham is the root, the olive-tree, the vifible church; the fap and fatness of the olive, are church-ordinances and covenant-privileges, the Gentile believers, who are Abraham's feed according to promife, are the ingrafted branches ftanding in the place of the natural branches, and with them, or in like manner as they did, partaking of the root and fatnefs of the olive-tree, that is, as really and amply enjoying all the immunities, benefits, and privileges of the church and covenant (amongst which the initiating fign was one, and a chief one too) as ever the natural branches that were broken off, that is the Jewish parents and their children, did or might have done. And to deny this (as before was noted) is to ftraiten covenantprivileges in their farther progrefs.

Thefis 6. Suitably hereunto we find, that no fooner was the Christian church. conftituted, and the believing Gentiles by faith added to it, but the children of fuch believing parents are declared to be foederally holy, 1 Cor. vii. 14, and the unbeliev