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

As for the Texts you cite, Deut. 4.34. & Levit. 20.24, 26. 1 King. 8.53. Isai. 43.1. In Deut. 4. is mentioned not the moral act of God by which he made them his people, or took them for his own, and founded the relation: but the natural actions whereby he rescued them from the Egyptian bondage and took them to himself or for his use, service, and honour out of that land. But I think sure they were his people, and all their Infants were Church-members before that taking by virtue of a former Covenant-taking.

As for the Texts you cite, Deut. 4.34. & Levit. 20.24, 26. 1 King. 8.53. Isai. 43.1. In Deut. 4. is mentioned not the moral act of God by which he made them his people, or took them for his own, and founded the relation: but the natural actions whereby he rescued them from the Aegyptian bondage and took them to himself or for his use, service, and honour out of that land. But I think sure they were his people, and all their Infants were Church-members before that taking by vertue of a former Covenant-taking.

As to Levit. 20. God did perform a twofold work of separation for Israel. 1. By his Covenant and their entering Covenant with him. 2. By local separation of their bodies from others. It was the first that made them his people, and Church-members, and not the last: the last was only a favourable dealing with them as his beloved. The same I say to the other two Texts. Sure you cannot think that corporal separation makes a Church-member. What if an Egyptian that had no part in the Covenant had past out with the Israelites, and got with them through the Red Sea, do you think he had been therefore a Church-member? Suppose God had made no promise or covenant with Abraham or his seed, but only taken them out of Chaldea into Canaan, and thence into Egypt, and thence into the Wilderness, and thence into Canaan again: Do you think this much had made them Church-members?