A26923:541
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches by reconciling explication without much disputing. Written by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Salusbury, 1691
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§. 4. 1st. The Promise to Abraham was, besides the Common Covenant of Grace, renewed. 1. A promise of peculiar Favour to his Seed increased to a political Society in Canaan, and differenced by special Mercies from all the People of the Earth. 2. A promise that the Messiah should be of his Seed.
§. 5. This Covenant did not Discovenant the rest that the World, nor put them into any worse Condition than they were before.
§. 6. The peculiar Precept of that Covenant was, That by Circumcision as a Seal and Symbol, and by peculiar Gratitude and Obedience, and relinquishing ⟨p. 133⟩the Sins of the Degenerate World about them, they should difference themselves from others, as God's peculiar People.
§. 7. As the Covenant of Peculiarity was not a separated state, but an additional Privilege and Reward to Abraham as faithful to the Common Covenant of Grace; so Circumcision was the Symbol neither of Abraham as under the Law of Grace alone, nor as under the Covenant of Peculiarity alone (for that was never alone) but as of One under both, even under the latter as a Reward for his special Fidelity in the former. And so it was Seal of the Righteousness of the Faith in the Common Covenant of Grace, which he had being yet Uncircumcised, though a Symbol also of his after Peculiarities,