The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace

The Lord following the seed of the Godly ⟨p. 75⟩with real mercies (so that it cannot be called the favour of a ceremony and instituted or positive privilege belonging only to the Jews) as that his seed is blessed, Psal. 37.26. Psal. 112.2. This mercy must be taken away either in mercy or in wrath: but that a real mercy of a blessing should be taken away in mercy, except a spiritual mercy of saving grace in Christ were given in place thereof, cannot be said, far less hath it any truth that a real mercy can be removed in wrath from Infants in Jesus Christ, in whom the Nations are blessed. And we see, Deut. 28. the blessing of an observed Covenant, and the curses of a broken Covenant are extended to the fruit of the body to the sons and the daughters, v. 418.32. Job 21.19. Job 29.14. Job 18.15, 16, 17. And that this is not a New Testament dispensation, who can say? And that outward positive favours are bestowed on Infants, is clear. (1.) That Christ laid his hands on them and blessed them, making them a fixed copy of the indwellers of his Kingdom. (2) The promises of the Covenant are made to them, Act. 2.39. (3.) They are clean and holy by Covenant holiness, 1 Cor. 7.14. which cannot be meant of being born of the marriage-bed. For Paul, Rom. 11.16. saith the same of the Jews, root and branches, Fathers and Children: And no man dreamed that Paul, Rom. 11. intends to prove that the Jews shall be insert in again, because they are free of bastardy Father and sons. Now Infants understand no more any of rhese to be blessed by the laying on of the hands of Christ, and to be such as have title to the promises,