A39697:269
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.
Sol. Yes, Sir, I hope you will allow Isaac and Jacob at least to be the Root and First Fruit as well as Abraham, seeing the Covenant was jointly and expressly made with them all three; and thereby they became the Root and First Fruit of that holy Nation: And if that People be called the Seed of Abraham, they are also called the Seed of Jacob; and if Fatherhood he ascribed to Abraham, it is ascribed to Jacob too, Isa. 58. 14. And if Abraham be first named in the Covenant, so is Jacob, see Levit. 26. 42. But if you allow these three Patriarchs, belike that's all you will allow; for you seem to say that no federal Holiness can be derived from any other Progenitors. Good Sir, whatever your own private Opinion be in this matter, allow us to believe otherwise, as long as those Scriptures, 1 Cor. 7. 14. and Acts 2. 39. stand in our Bibles; for we cannot ⟨p. 124⟩think but the federal Holiness of Children results from the immediate Parents Faith or Covenant Interest, as well as from the remoter Progenitors; else we cannot understand how the Corinthians Children should be holy, or how the Promise should belong to the Children of them that are afar off, viz. the Gentiles, who could derive no such thing to their Children by a Lineal Descent from Abraham, but only as they became ingrafted Branches by Faith; and so suck the Fatness of the Olive to themselves, and to their Buds, or Children, as the natural Branches did. I desire you to consider also how this Covenant passed, as you say it did, to Abraham and his Seed in Christs Name, if it be the same with Adam's Covenant? Did that pass to Adam in Christs Name too?
Sol. Yes, Sir, I hope you will allow Isaac and Jacob at least to be the Root and First Fruit as well as Abraham, seeing the Covenant was joyntly and expresly made with them all three; and thereby they became the Root and First Fruit of that holy Nation: And if that People be called the Seed of Abraham, they are also called the Seed of Jacob; and if Fatherhood he ascribed to Abraham, it is ascribed to Jacob too,