More proofs of infants church-membership and consequently their right to baptism, or, A second…

it is a duty not to transgress the Law, and a transgression not to perform the duty which it requireth of us. There is no apparent ground of exception, but in case of Covenants. Whether a man may not oblige himself to a duty merely by his consent? I answer, 1. He may oblige himself to an ⟨p. 52⟩act, which he must perform, or else prove unfaithful and dishonest: but his own obligation makes it not strictly a duty: ergo, when God makes a Covenant with man, he is as it were obliged in point of fidelity, but not of duty. 2. He that obligeth himself to an act by promise, doth occasion an obligation to duty from God, because God hath obliged men to keep their promises. 3. So far as a man may be said to be his own Ruler, so far may he be said to oblige himself to duty, (that is duty to himself, though the act be for the benefit of another;) but then he may as fitly be said to make a Law to himself, or command himself: so that still the duty (such as it is) hath an answerable command. So that I may well conclude, that there is a law, because there is a duty. For nothing but a Law could cause that duty, nor make that omission of it a sin. Where there is no law, sin is not imputed, Rom. 5.13. But the omission of entering Infants into Covenant with God before Christs incarnation would have been a sin imputed; ergo, there was a law commanding it. 2. If it was a duty to dedicate Infants to God, or enter them into Covenant with him, then either by Gods will, or without it: certainly not without it. If by Gods will, then either by his will revealed, or unrevealed. His unrevealed will cannot oblige; for there wants promulgation, which is necessary to obligation: And no man can be bound to know Gods unrevealed will, unless remotely, as it may be long of himself that it is not to him revealed. If it be Gods revealed will that must thus oblige, then there was some sign by which it was revealed. And ⟨p. 53⟩if there were a sign revealing Gods will obliging us to duty, then there was a law, for this is the very nature of the preceptive part of a law, (which is the principal part,) so that you may as well say, that you are a reasonable creature, but not a man, as say that men were obliged to duty by Gods revealed will, but yet not by a Law or Precept. 3. We shall anon produce the Law or Precept, and put it out of doubt that there was such a thing.