Rich. Baxters apology against the modest exceptions of Mr. T. Blake and the digression…

That all this is no strange thing, (that our own Covenant Act should be also the Primary condition of Gods Covenant) may appear by your forementioned similitudes, and all other cases, wherein such Relations are contracted. If a King will offer his Son in marriage to a condemned woman and a beggar, on condition that she will but have him, that is consent, and so covenant and marry him: here her covenanting, consenting or marrying him, is the performance of the condition on her part, for obtaining her first Right in him and his: but for the continuance of that Right, is further requisite, Primarily the continuance of that consent; secondarily the addition of subjection and marriage-faithfulness. Yet though consent begun, and consent continued, be both called consent, and are the same thing, it is only the beginning that is called marriage: so is it only begun faith, which is our marriage with Christ, and constitutes us Regenerate, or converted. And therefore you do not well to talk of Regeneration being the keeping of our Covenant. If by Regeneration you mean not Gods Act, but our repenting and believing, then it is our keeping Gods Covenant, by performing the condition, i. e. Our obeying him in entering his Covenant; but it is not the keeping of our own Covenant: for our making or entering Covenant, is our principal condition, on performance whereof we are justified; yet in so doing, we promise to continue that consent or faith: and so the continuance is our Covenant-keeping.

As for your instances of the Covenant of paying money, and doing work, had I used such instances, what should I have heard from those men that already charge me with giving too much to works in justification? you should have considered, that our Covenant 1. is not principally to pay, and to labour, but to receive. 2. nor is it onely de suturo, but de praesenti: A consent to have Christ ⟨p. 83⟩for our Lord, Redeemer, Saviour, Head and Husband in present and for the time to come, though the very relation consented to, doth indeed oblige us to the future duties of that Relation. By this time, I leave it to the Reader to judge, who it is that introduced confusion about the Covenant, and whether this be an error of the lower size?