A39697:250
Vindiciæ legis & fœderis
Vindiciæ legis & fœderis: or, A reply to Mr. Philip Cary's Solemn call Wherein he pretends to answer all the arguments of Mr. Allen, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Sydenham, Mr. Sedgwick, Mr. Roberts, and Dr. Burthogge, for the right of believers infants to baptism, by proving the law at Sinai, and the covenant of circumcision with Abraham, were the very same with Adam's covenant of works, and that because the gospel-covenant is absolute. By John Flavel minister of the gospel in Dartmouth
London: printed for M. Wolton, 1690
A REPLY TO Mr. Philip Cary's Solemn Call. › Section 3 › Argument 5: Argument V.
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.
I meet with little more in your first Part, wherein I have any concernment; only there I find four Arguments in Mood and Figure against the Innovation of Symbolical Rites by Humane Authority, into the Worship of God; which is certainly the best Page in your Book. And of them I have nothing to say, but that they are good Ware, and I very well know the Mark and Number of that Parcel of Goods, and to whom they properly belong.
I meet with little more in your first Part, werein I have any concernment; only there I find four Arguments in Mood and Figure against the Innovation of Symbolical Rites by Humane Authority, into the Worship of God; which is certainly the best Page in your Book. And of them I have nothing to say, but that they are good Ware, and I very well know the Mark and Number of that Parcel of Goods, and to whom they properly belong.
But yet before I dismiss your Book I think my self concerned to Vindicate one place of Scripture more, viz. Rom. 11. 16, 17. Which I alleged in the beginning, for the confirmation of our first Proposition, viz. That Gods Covenant with Abraham, ⟨p. 108⟩Gen. 17. is the same Covenant for Substance we Gentile Believers are now under. If the first Fruits be holy, the lump is also holy. And if the root be holy, so are the branches; and if some of the branches be broken off, and thou being a wild Olive were'st grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the Olive Tree: boast not against the branches, &c. This place is deservedly of great value with us, to prove that we Gentile Believers, with our Infant Seed, are invested under the Gospel with the same Substantial Privileges that the Jews and their Infants formerly enjoyed. Here without opening one term, you proceed in your wonted manner, confidently to deny the Arguments of our Learned Divines from this place. I shall therefore open this Famous Text, and regularly deduce the right of Gentile believers Infants to Baptism from it; and here, keeping to the rules above,