the doctrine of baptism/chapter 12

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A Plain Christian Treatise, explaining
the Doctrine of Baptism, and the two
Covenants made with Abraham, and
his two-fold Seed.

Now, in the fourth place, I shall endeavor to answer such Scripture allegations, and those especially brought in from the New Testament to countenance this error. I shall endeavor to take off those false and corrupt Glosses that are usually put upon them, wherein men pretend to prove the Covenant of Grace among the Gentiles, does run in the flesh and line of believing parents under the Gospel; which I am sure was never yet since the world began nor never shall be with any, neither parents nor children, but such individual persons who particularly believed in Christ with their own hearts.

First, let me speak to that in Acts 2:39 which is usually pretended to be a proof of the covenant in the flesh, the words are these, "The promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Now I pray you, take notice how evident this text makes against this error. For this text affirms only the promises to belong to so many even as God shall call, and that is a fundamental truth if by promise you understand the gift of the Holy Ghost, or remission of sins, or both, to be promised in this text.

It is most true that so many as God shall call have an interest in Christ and all the promises in Him, and only they. For the text says, "Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost." So that by remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost it is safe to understand here to mean that promise belonging to them, to their children, and to those afar off, even so many of them, and their children, and of those afar off, as the Lord our God should call, agreeable to the words thus understood is Rom. 8:30, "moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called, whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Justification or remission of sins is here given only to called persons. This agrees with Heb. 9:15. "For this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testament, they which are called might receive the promise of the eternal Inheritance." So here you see that those who are predestinated to have a Covenant of Life and the blessings given in that covenant, are first called, as 1 Pet. 2:9. "He hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous light." Now this text is plain to prove that unto those Jews and Proselytes, and their children who then heard him, and also the Gentiles, the promises did belong. The promises were to so many of all these as God should call.

Except souls be given up to a Spirit of Delusion, will any dare to affirm that the promises of the Spirit, remission of sins, and eternal life, do belong to any other? Will any be so ignorant as to judge, that those promises did belong to the Generation of the Jews whether they were called or not, though they continued in unbelief and hardness of heart and impenitency? Is not such a corrupt interpretation against Christ's words to that very people? John 8:24, "Except you believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins," speaking to the very Jews. Does not John the Baptist say to these, John 3, last verse, "He that believeth not on the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him?" Christ directed this speech indefinitely to the generation of the Jews, the seed of Abraham, such as were in the Covenant of Circumcision.

But if by the children you understand, so many of them as God should call, whether then at that time, or afterwards to the end of the world, it is most true, that to such of their children the promise of grace did belong.

The Scripture is firm and full in this, that the promise of grace belonged not to any of those Jews' seed, but only such as were called. For God shuts them under unbelief, and because of unbelief they were broken off, Rom. 11. If unbelief excluded them from that external relation which they had then in the covenant entailed on the flesh before Christ's death, and Christ's coming in the flesh and fully exhibiting and putting an end to that covenant, with no other covenant standing in force in the Church of God but what Christ was the Mediator of, these unbelieving Jews of necessity were broken off.

The promise of remission of sins was so far from running upon the unbelieving Jews, the true fleshly seed of Abraham, that the Apostle Paul affirms the contrary, Acts 19:9. "But when divers were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them;" and Acts 13:45,46. "But when the Jews saw the multitude, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things that were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming, then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you, but seeing ye put it from you and judge your selves unworthy of everlasting life? Lo, we turn to the Gentiles, for so hath the Lord commanded us," and v. 50, the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabus, but they shook off the dust of their feet against them; and therefore Paul is plain in Rom. 11 saying, That God had a certain number that were of the eternal election, among

the Jews, those obtained right to the remission of sins, and the rest were blinded and hardened. But it should seem to be the general understanding of those who urge this text for a covenant in the flesh, that if they were the seed of the Jews, though they were not called nor did not believe, but were hardened in their continuance in unbelief, yet this promise of remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost, belongs to them.

This interpretation which defends a covenant in the flesh, I leave to any intelligent man to consider how greatly erroneous it is to affirm that the promise of the remission of sins belongs to the unbelieving and hardened children of the Jews, those whom God has not, nor does call. So that you may clearly see the truth which lies in this text is that the promise is not to Fathers nor children, nor those afar off but such as God, by His especial grace, does call to be the Sons of God by faith.