An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches

§. 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, Rom. 4. 1, 2, &c.

§. 8. Infants interest in the very Covenant of Peculiarity, and Jewish Church-state, was not inseparable from Circumcision. As Infants were ever Members in the Common Church and Covenant of Grace with their Parents before Circumcision, so they were also without it Members of the Jewish Church, when as all the Females were Members, and all the Males in the Wilderness, who for Forty Years were Uncircumcised: Yet is it called, The Church in the Wilderness, when except very few at last it was an Uncircumcised Church, Acts 7. 38.

§. 8. Infants interest in the very Covenant of Peculiarity, and Iewish Church-state, was not infeparable from Circumcision. As Infants were ever Members in the Common Church and Covenant of Grace with their Parents before Circumcision, so they were also without it Members of the Iewish Church, when as all the Females were Members, and all the Males in the Wilderness, who for Forty Years were Uncircumcised: Yet is it called, The Church in the Wilderness, when except very few at last it was an Uncircumcised Church,