lay out myself, even whatsoever I have or I am, wholly for him and his glory.

This, therefore, being the tenor of this covenant of grace, it follows, that I am none of my own, but wholly God's: I am his by creation, and his by redemption, and, therefore, ought to be his by conversion. Why, therefore, should I live any longer to myself, who am not my own but God's? And why should I grudge to give myself to him, who did not grudge to give himself for me? or rather, Why should I steal myself from him, who have already given myself to him? But did I say, I have given myself to my God? Alas! it is but the restoring myself to him, whose I was ever since I had a being, and to whom I am still infinitely more engaged, than I can thus cordially engage myself to him; for, as I am not my own, but his, so the very giving of myself to him, is not from myself, but from him. I could not have given myself to him, had he not first given himself to me, and even wrought my mind into this resolution of giving myself to him.

But, having thus solemnly by covenant given myself to him, how doth it behove me to improve myself for him; my soul is his, my body his, my parts his, my gifts his, my graces his, and whatsoever is mine, is his; for, without him I could not have been, and therefore could have had nothing. So that I have no more cause to be proud of any thing I have, or am, than a page hath to be proud of his fine clothes, which are not his, but his master's; who bestows all his finery upon him, not for his page's honour or credit, but for his own.

And thus it is with the best of us, in respect of

God; he gives men parts and learning, and riches and grace, and desires and expects that we should make a due use of them: but to what end? Not to gain honour and esteem to ourselves, and make us proud and haughty: but to give him the honour due to his name, and so employ them as instruments in promoting his glory and service. So that, whensoever we do not lay out ourselves to the utmost of our power for him, it is downright sacrilege; it is robbing God of that which is more properly his, than any man in the world can call any thing he hath his own.

Having, therefore, thus wholly surrendered and given up myself to God, so long as it shall please his majesty to entrust me with myself, to lend me my being in the lower world, or to put any thing else into my hands, as time, health, strength, parts or the like; I am resolved, by his grace, to lay out all for his glory. All the faculties of my soul, as I have given them to him, so will I endeavour to improve them for him; they shall still be at his most noble service; my understanding shall be his, to know him; my will his, to choose him; my affections his, to embrace him: and all the members of my body shall act in subserviency to him.

And thus, having given myself to God on earth, I hope God in a short time will take me to himself in heaven: where, as I give myself to him in time, he will give himself to me unto all eternity.

ARTICLE X.

I believe, that as God entered into a covenant of grace with us, so hath he signed this covenant to us by a double seal, baptism and the Lord's supper.

As the covenant of works had two sacraments, namely, the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the first signifying and sealing life and happiness to the performance, the other death and misery to the breach of it: so the covenant of grace was likewise sealed with two typical sacraments, circumcision and the passover. The former was annexed at God's first making his covenant with Abraham's person; the other was added, at his fulfilling the promises of it, to his seed or posterity, which were therefore styled, "the promised seed." But these being only typical of the true and spiritual sacraments, that were afterwards to take place upon the coming of the Messiah, there were then, in the fulness of time, two other sacraments substituted in their stead, namely, baptism and the per of the Lord. And these sacraments were both correspondent to the types by which they were represented.

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As to the first, namely, circumcision, whether I consider the time of conferring it, or the end of its institution, I find it exactly answers to the sacrament of baptism in both these respects. For, as the children under the law were to be circumcised in their infancy, at eight days old; so are the children

under the gospel to be baptized in their infancy too. And as the principal thing intended in the rite of circumcision, was to initiate or admit the children of the faithful into the Jewish church; so the chief design of baptism now, is to admit the children of such as profess themselves Christians, into the church of Christ. And, for this reason, I believe, that as under the Old Testament, children had the grant of covenant privileges, and churchmembership, as really as their parents had; so this grant was not repealed, as is intimated, Acts ii. 39. but farther confirmed in the New Testament, in that the Apostle calls the children of believing parents holy, 1 Cor. vii. 14. stood of a real and inherent, but only of a relative and covenanted holiness, by virtue of which, being born of believing parents, themselves are accounted in the number of believers, and are therefore called holy children under the gospel, in the same sense that the people of Israel were called a holy people under the law, Deut. vii. 6. and xiv. 2, 21. as being all within the covenant of grace, which, through the faith of their parents, is thus sealed to them in baptism.

Which cannot be under

Not that I think it necessary, that all parents should be endued with what we call a saving faith, to entitle their children to these privileges (for then none but the children of such who have the Spirit of Christ truly implanted in them, would be qualified to partake of the covenant) but even such, who by an outward historical faith have taken the name of Christ upon them, are by that means in covenant with God, and so accounted holy in respect of their

profession, whatever they may be in point of practice. And if they are themselves holy, it follows of course, that their children must be so too, they being esteemed as parts of their parents, till made distinct members in the body of Christ, or, at least, till they come to the use of their reason, and the improvement of their natural abilities.

And therefore, though the seal be changed, yet the covenant privileges, wherewith the parties stipulating unto God were before invested, are no whit altered or diminished; believers' children being as really confederates with their parents, in the covenant of grace now, as they were before under the Jewish administration of it. And this seems to be altogether necessary; for otherwise, infants should be invested with privileges under the type, and be deprived of, or excluded from them, under the more perfect accomplishment of the same covenant in the thing typified; and so the dispensations of God's grace would be more strait and narrow since, than they were before the coming of our Saviour, which I look upon to be no less than blasphemy to assert.

And, upon this ground, I believe, it is as really the duty of Christians to baptize their children now, as ever it was the duty of the Israelites to circumcise theirs; and therefore St. Peter's question, "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" may very properly be applied to this case. Can any man forbid water, that children should not be baptized, who are in covenant with he most high God, as well as we? For what is it, I pray, that the right to baptism doth depend